Apollo Bay - Portland - Halls Gap

Yesterday was an amazing day.

We left Apollo Bay and headed west, north west into the hills to a place called the Otway Fly Treetop Adventures. The Otway is an ancient rainforest much like Vancouver Island. We took the walking path and treetop walk. It was almost like being at home on the island or in any rainforest on our coasts. There were a few plants that we don't have of course, but I felt just like I was at home on the island.

The 12 Apostles were so incredible to see. The weather cleared up a bit for us and it got quite warm for a while. The road along the Apostles is maybe 20 - miles long and we stopped 5 or 6 times at viewing areas to catch all we could of this majestically beautiful World Heritage Site. Fantastic. We made our way from there through a few small towns, off and on the coast. Some are the same old same old, one was very nice and I could even imagine living there, Warnambool, or Warnabull as the locals call it. Can't seem to understand how they can drop so many letters of a word and still make it sound interesting. lol.

From Warnambool we continued on to Portland. Portland is sort of dirty and small and it has a huge beach but the tide was in and it was windy so we chose a caravan park away from the water as it was really getting cool. The park was ok I guess. It is set in and amongst the Eucalyptus trees and the smell was very relaxing. Tons and tons of birds around and they all chittered and chattered and squaked and screeched nicely in the morning to help wake us up.

We left Portland this morning and it was my turn to drive. Finally!!!  Mark has been doing all the driving in the major centers as it's just to harrowing for me. Good thing we brought some Adavan. Anyway, I drove us here to Halls Gap (use your Google Earth), it's a lovely drive from the ocean landscape into the Grampian Mountains. We are really 'in the bush' now for sure. So many gum trees. So lovely. We are just taking it easy today and with the wifi I bought, I am now taking the opportunity to catch up with the blog and just relax and plan the next few parks we plan to stay at for the upcoming week or so.

The parks here are used pretty much 24/7/365 so they have a very good system set up. They all have toilets and showers and camp kitchens and tv rooms and most have games/internet rooms. They have slab bbq's heated with gas and you just wait until one is free and you fire it up, cook your meal, clean it and either eat at the picnic tables provided under the shelter, or like us, take your meal back to your unit and eat in private. It's a great scheme.

Everyone we have encountered here in this country so far has been amazing. All or at least most have been very helpful and really friendly. It's been great. We have met a lot of Canadians down here and all sorts of people are interested in our journey. We both feel very safe as it seems every other person is a tourist too.

We are glad to be out of the cities, they are beautiful but we came to see the bush and the outback. We are just aching to get into the outback and see the desert. We are hoping to get some escorted bush walks and hopefully we can get an airplane tour from Coober Pedy of Lake Eyre (Google Earth) with the water in it this year and all the Pelicans. Here's hoping!!!

Oh ya, we have not seen any spiders or snakes other than at the Melbourne zoo. We feel very safe and have not started bagging our shoes. We do like to live on the edge!!  ;-P

Tomorrow it's off to Horsham for 18 holes of golf hopefully, then on to Mildura and a ride on the river on a steam driven paddle boat, and then the next day Broken Hill NSW for a couple nights. (Google Earth)

Ok, so that's about all for now. It's good to have the internet back with us.
Take care and hope you are enjoying our stories.
Cheers  xoxo