Apollo Bay, Bells Beach & the 12 Apostles

Apollo Bay is near Melbourne and Bells Beach. The Wikipedia entry for Bells Bech starts as follows:

Bells Beach is a coastal locality of Victoria, Australia in Surf Coast Shire and an internationally famous surf beach, located 100 km south-west of Melbourne, on the Great Ocean Road near the towns of Torquay and Jan Juc.It is named after John Cavert Bell of the family that first took up a pastoral run here in the 1840s.

Depending on who you ask Bells Beach is THE surfing beach in Australia. While we were there there was a ten day music festival and surfing competition on the beach.  All the surfing companies have outlets there - Rip Curl, Billabong, etc.

We didn't go surfing but we did see beautiful beaches (previous post), tropical rain forest (below) and lots of surfers. 

Apollo Bay is a tourist town. It was busy - lots of people - but, as I mentioned before, Easter week-end here is big.  I'm not sure if it would also ways be that busy, but I imagine its like BC ski resorts during the height of the surfing season. Surfers will all be trying to get jobs there, so they can stay and surf.

They also talk international. They had signs for restrooms in some of the restaurants.

The hills continue on the beaches there. 

We went to the outlet stores but a lot of the clothing is available in Canada and we didn't think we really needed surf boards. 

We ate in restaurants because you can't cook in a hotel room here.  We were told at the hotels that a room with a kitchenette means it has a microwave and if you want a stove, etc you get an apartment for which they wanted $250 a night. So, we let other people do the cooking!!

Rain Forest

On the way out of Apollo Bay we walked in rain forest. We left our hotel early one morning and stopped five places by the time we stopped fro lunch in the early afternoon. 

The rain forest was cold. We had lots of clothes on to try to keep warm. Even so when the sun hit you could see the steam evaporating from the ground and plants. And, we could see our breath in the sun.  

We went to Mait's Rain Forest about 20 minutes drive from Apollo Bay. It was gorgeous. You could definitely get lost in the trees. Sandy got swallowed up in front of me.

There are fern trees. I read its the only place in the world they grow naturally.

The trees are not tall. The biggest fern trees we saw were only about 7 feet high. 

This is one of the biggest trees we saw in the rain forest. Note that it has other plants growing on its trunk. This forest was not like tropical rain forest that we saw in Central America, where the sun does not get to the forest floor. The trees do not keep the sun from the forest floor and there is lots growing on the floor. There are ferns everywhere and they are only about three feet high. Their leaves go right down to the ground. Big ferns compared to those we have at home. 

We also went to the Otway tree top walk. Yes, I got sucked into paying for this and it was a bit of a tourist trap. It is a walk way through the tops of the trees in the rain forest. 

This is the view fro the walkway at Otway.

I did wonder why one would need a fire hose in a rain forest but they were all along the trail at Otway. I guess there must be fires. It is a dry, sunburnt country even if the forests don't look it in the autumn. 

Then we went to the 12 Apostles. They are described for tourists as follows:

The Twelve Apostles are giant rock stacks that rise majestically from the Southern Ocean and are the central feature of the rugged Port Campbell National Park.

The Twelve Apostles have been created by constant erosion of the limestone cliffs of the mainland that began 10–20 million years ago. The stormy Southern Ocean and blasting winds gradually eroded the softer limestone, forming caves in the cliffs. The caves eventually became arches and when they collapsed rock stacks up to 45 metres high were left isolated from the shore.

We ended up here on Easter Sunday, along with thousands of other people. The parking lot looked like it held about 600 cars and was full.  However, the view is so spectacular and everything is so big it really didn't matter. You realy didn't notice the other people. 

Finally - our trip to Apollo Bay

Yikes!! It's May. We leave here in mid-June - well some of us do. Sue has decided to stay. Her visa is good until Feb 2011 so she's madly looking for a job that will give her more hours and is VERY excited.

I am really behind on our adventures so will try to get you caught up a little. Since being to Apollo Bay with Sandy, Mark was here for a week and we went on our trip to Koondrook.

Anyway, Sandy and I continued our trip south. Easter week-end in Australia is a BIG holiday. It is the end of summer, cool enough to be outside and many people have four or five days off work. 

It was hard to find a place to sleep. None of the hotels near Melbourne on the Great Ocean Road would rent a room for less than three nights – Friday, Saturday, Sunday – so we paid for three nights in Apollo Bay and stayed for two.

There were people everywhere. The traffic was bumper to bumper on the Great Ocean Road, which winds along the ocean – and I’m talking winds. We averaged about 30 kilometers an hour and there were cars everywhere. 

There was road construction and single lane traffic over a bridge. These are the photos Sandy took from the car. As far as I'm concerned the 50 k sign is for a sports car that can corner like James Bond. 

The highway was built as a work project after the war. It is a gorgeous view. But, I was driving on the WRONG side of the road in heavy traffic. There are pull-offs every kilometer or so and after most of them there are signs on both sides of the road saying “In Australia drive on the left.” My response to Sandy was “Oh great. If I have an accident it’s going to be running into some foreigner driving on the wrong side of the road.  That foreigner was not me. Thankfully, I had driven a couple thousand kilometers, enough to stay on the left without a lot of thought. The times I have to think about it are when I am  turning corners in the city and there aren't many cars. Following traffic is easier. 

At one point I was pulled over for a random breath check. I had the window down about 1/2 way and the breathalyzer was in my mouth and the police man was saying "Random breath test - Blow until I tell you to stop." I blew until I was sure I couldn't blow any longer and was about to tell him that when he said I could stop. Sandy wondered where I got all the air. I did not even have a chance to take a deep breath. He looked at my drivers licence, did not ask for registration or passport and sent us on our way. 

We managed to find our way to the Great Ocean Walk in spite of the tourist information people who kept telling us about 20 minute walks. I know Sandy and are small and look look like we might just be over 29, but we can walk for more than 20 minutes.  We spent about four hours on the walk. We did not get trapped by tides, bitten by snakes or rained on. 

You won't be surprised to hear that we were not tempted to touch the snakes - not that we saw any.

This is the beach where we started from Apollo Bay.

The Great Ocean Walk was quite a  - you will see in this photo that my climbing was extreme. However, we did manage and took the following photos for your enjoyment. 

We've decided to live here. 

 And you can live next door if you have recently won big in the lottery.

Next installment - the rolling hills of Apollo Bay - that look like a wet version of the Qu'Appelle Valley hills, with an Ocean in the background.