Mike & Carol's Bushtracker Adventures Around Australia

Thursday, December 06, 2007

MURRAY RIVER TRIP 2007

MURRAY RIVER TRIP 2007
Friday 30 November to Thursday 6 December
Port Fairy to Melbourne
Blog 6

We left Port Fairy taking the Great Ocean Road to Warrnambool. We didn’t stop to look at the Museum and stories of the shipwrecks along this the shipwreck coast as we had done that on a previous trip so we decided to head up into the Otway Ranges to a little place called Camperdown, known as the lakes and craters country, the 3rd largest volcanic plain in the world. Everywhere we looked there was evidence of ancient eruptions, with conical mountains like Mt Leura and Mt Sugarloaf, rolling hills, deep craters, crater lakes and rich soil. It is also the centre of Australia’s largest dairying regions. We drove to the lookout at Mt Leura and enjoyed the panoramic views of the 2 crater lakes including Lake Bullen Merri. Some of the local men were flying their gliders in the air currents above the lake. We then headed back down to the Great Ocean Road to Port Campbell and on to Princetown. We stopped to look at the 12 Apostles again and as always enjoyed the beautiful coastline. We stopped for the night at a Reserve and were able to enjoy a campfire now that we were in Victoria again.

We detoured away from the coast to go to the Otway Fly Tree Top Walk up in the hills which has the highest rainfall in Victoria. It is a beech, myrtle and gum moderate rainforest which is quite young as the forest has been burnt down many times. The tree top walk is by the same people who built the one in the Huon Valley. The feel and smell of the forest was fantastic. Back on the Great Ocean Rd we drove on to Apollo Bay and Lorne stopping at the famous Bells Beach along the way.

We spent a great few days with family at the sea side resort of Anglesea.
We decided to drive to Melbourne along the coast which included the Bellarine Peninsula. We drove through Torquay, Barwon Heads, Ocean Grove and stopped at Queenscliff for a while. It was very hot, in the mid 30s, and most of the shops were not air-conditioned.

We spent the rest of the week catching up with all the family in Melbourne.