Two Retired Boomers Go Trekking: Tuesday, March 1 – Lorne to Port Campbell

In the morning we checked out a couple of sites in and around Lorne. No doubt the town is a tourist town with myriad of accommodation, little boutiques, ocean front, and restaurants. We checked out . the views from Teddy’s Lookout which were spectacular, but Erskine Falls in Otway National Park was a bit of a disappointment. There was barely a trickle of water pouring down the rock. I guess they need water to fill them and it is very dry here.

We have seen so much forest that has been burned at one stage or another. I think they do “controlled burns” sometimes to clean out the underbrush to reduce the amount of “fuel” available for the fires. The eucalyptus trees in particular provide lots of “fuel” and the speed the fires burn at is affected by the velocity of the wind. We watched a program on how the fires occur, and many are “flash” fires; the winds stir up a spark and that spark expands and whips through the bush leaving behind the charred debris of anything that gets in its path. Sometimes the fires are in the underbrush, and other times they are up in the canopy. Because of the flammable vapour in their leaves, the eucalyptus trees are prone to huge fire balls in their upper storeys. Such a devastation.

The drive was through pretty scenery; windy roads following the curvature of the massive cliffs and oceans swelling with foamy waves; then down to ground level and through forests, and out into cleared pastures. We stopped for a coffee in Kennett River and saw some lovely birds, and a koala hidden high up in the trees. We stopped at Cape Otway Lightstation and walked all around that area. This lighthouse is the oldest and one of the most important in Australia. It was built in 1848 and up until that time hundreds of people lost their lives in shipwrecks off the Cape. They had spent many months at sea travelling from Europe and the Cape was their first sight of Australia…..but they never made it to land. Sad.

Possibly the most spectacular sight of the day was The Twelve Apostles. These are a series of limestone stacks located in the ocean just off the shore. There were never twelve; originally there were nine, but one has collapsed and now there are eight. The stacks are formed by the erosion caused by the extreme weather conditions of the southern ocean. The limestone was eroded to form caves in the cliffs, which became arches, which collapsed and left behind the “stacks” which stand up to about 50 metres high. A fine example of the natural part of our world. They were spectacular!

The coast line at this point of the journey has so many interesting and unique formations. The last sight we saw was Loch Ard Gorge about 13 km west of The Twelve Apostles. According to information at the site, the story goes that one day in 1878 a clipper ship named “Loch Ard” ran aground on a nearby island. Of the 54 passengers and crew only two survived. A young man, Tom Pearce, aged 15 who worked on the ship and young Irish woman, Eva Carmichael, aged 17 who was travelling with 4 members of her family. Pearce was washed ashore and rescued Carmichael from the water when he heard her cries for help. Pearce then climbed out of the Gorge and went to seek help from locals. Carmichael returned to England and Pearce lived to be 49 and was buried in Southampton in England.

After a day feasting our eyes with exciting views and filling our minds with stories from the past, we found a lousy motel in Port Campbell, paid way too much for it, but none the less fell asleep dreaming of the wild blue ocean and all of the stories it could unfurl.