We left our very friendly hostel bright and early...and headed backwards. A treetop walk in the rainforest beckoned, and it looked as though the shortest route meant driving back a few kilometers to Skenes Creek, then taking what might be an unsealed (i.e., dirt) road to the Otway Fly. As it turned out, the shortcut road was in fact paved--it was just very winding and twisting and narrow. It took us through a magnificent eucalyptus forest. California has plenty of eucalyptus trees, but it's quite amazing to see so many spectacularly tall trees all together. After the rainforest section, the road widened and straightened out a bit, and began heading through dairy country.
The Otway Fly takes you along a woodland path, through a rare stand of original temperate rainforest, before you head up an elevated walkway into the canopy. The map of the walkway warns that "it's meant to sway." As it turns out, that day dawned with gale force winds all through southern Australia, and the forest canopy swayed even more than usual, so being suspended 25 meters off the forest floor on a slightly swaying walkway was a bit of a thrill ride. For even more thrills, Adrian and Ian went to the top of a tower that took them right to the treetops (about 40 meters up, or around 10 stories). The funny thing is that Ian really loved all of this. Yes, the same kid who chickened out on the Dumbo ride at Disney World earlier this year bounced and skipped along the swaying walkway as if he were on terra firma.
By the time we emerged from the forest, it was just past noon, and we still had a lot of driving before the day was done. From there the Great Ocean Road doesn't actually meet the ocean again for some time, so we had a bit more mountain-style driving before catching up to the ocean again, right before the 12 Apostles. These rock stacks separated from the coast, surrounded by pounding surf are probably on of Australia's most photographed natural wonders, and the coast there is certainly spectacular. We saw more tourists there than anywhere else along the coast. We suspect most of the tours from Melbourne that do the GOR in one day make a beeline for the Apostles, and don't see much else.
We (i.e., Adrian) took loads of photos, and stopped at the gorge where the only two survivors from the infamous Loch Ard shipwreck washed up then grabbed a snack and hit the road back east. We didn't know where we were going to stop for the night, but with only two nights left before we had to return the car in Sydney, we wanted to get as close to Melbourne as possible. So, we powered through and made it back to Melbourne, where we found a room in a business hotel listed in the Lonely Planet guide.
The next question was, which way would we pick for our return trip to Sydney?
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