Great Ocean Road 2/3

We woke up too some clouds. which mad us both sad because we had booked a Zip Line tour last night for today and there was a chance of rain. We hoped in our cruising machine and hit the road. It was about 15 minutes until we hit the rain forest. We had about two hours to kill before we had to be at the Otway Tree Tour. The first thing we notice was the smell, immediately we could sense the salty ocean smell change to a musty pine smell. We climbed a pretty large hill and enter a very mountainous ravine, there were trees two stories high on both sides of the road with ferns about 2.5 meters high below them. the forest was really dense and moist.

We saw the sign for the Cape Otway Lighthouse, suppose to be "thee" lighthouse of Australia and decided to head down the road and check it out. This road was quite narrow and yup, you guess it, speed limit 80km/h. Along the way down through this National park we saw a bunch of cars pulled over to the side of the road and everyone was looking up in the trees. Sure enough there were Koala's everywhere in the Eucalyptus trees on the road. We pulled over and checked it out, they were really high up and proved not to be the best pictures. We continued down the road and people were pulled over again, but we decided to keep moving and get to the lighthouse, needless to say it proved to be a bust. They were charging 40 dollars to through the gate, down a 3km walk just to see the light house and go inside. For us too broke smuck's, it was too much money. The journey was not a waste of time though, we stopped again and found a smaller tree with Koala's in it and got tons of pictures.

 These two are my favorites, the one on the left is taking a stretch, jess got this action shot with some determination. We thought we had some good pictures and were happy with them until we walked back the car. We saw this little guy curled up right above where we parked. He is just in the branch above my head, sleeping away not caring that everyone is invading his home.

Next stop castle cove, we didn't know at the time when stopped here, our Zip Lining guide, Teeka told us that they found dinosaur fossils here. Pretty 'Swish' (means cool)

After the 40 minute drive to the Zip Lining place, we got all bundled up cause it was really cool and the add even said to dress warm in the summer months because not much sun comes through the tree canopy to keep you warm. We got there to do the Tree top walk first. This was an hour long walk where you descended through the Otway National park rain forest on a marked path. They give you a map with mark stations where your suppose to stop, there is information panels all over the place to tell you what your looking at, very neat. Half way down they have this quite elaborate catwalk system that allow you to walk 25m in the air through the tree tops. The ferns in this rainforest were sooooo BIG, you could walk under then very easily and made the forest floor look very deceiving from the catwalk because there is still 2 meters under those ferns when you look down.

This rainforest is made up of mostly Blackash trees. These trees are really unique in that they grow about a meter a year until their 30. Then the bases start to widen because of how much they sway with the wind. When we were standing on the platform in the Tree tops you could see the them moving it was crazy. These trees also shed their bark almost like a snake sheds his skin. The bark hangs down all along the sides, the reason for this is so that when the forest catches fire, the fire travels up to the top of the canopy quickly, heats up the blooming pods at the top making them open and reproduce before it burns to the ground.

This tower is 47m up in the air, it also swayed in the wind which made it interesting to walk up, but the views from the top was jaw dropping. We were as high as all the tree tops around us, it was so cool. I could stayed up there all day just listening to the wind and the birds.

The Zip Lining was very very very cool. After the walk we went straight in to do the Zip Lining, had do the safety stuff of course and then we were off. Our guide Teeka was very talkative and funny. He was asking me all different sorts of questions about hockey and Canada. I don't think I saw him do one normal zip all day. I took about two hours and there was one Zip that was 120m long over a bog that I decided to be cool and go upside down for!!! It was so much fun, Jess on the other hand didn;t quite make it all the way. Lightweight hehe. Teeka fished her in though.

At the end of the Zip line Teeka told us about a water falls that was really close to the Zip line place and that there was like a 30 minute walk and was worth the trip, it was late and we didn't have a place to stay yet but we decided to hit it up anwyas, why not!!!We got there and it was a million stairs down and up again, starting to see a trend with getting to all of these waterfalls! In the end it was worth the pictures and view,have a look. 

The Legend of the Forest, 300 year old Blackwood Ash

Triplet Falls, what a view!

A busy day comes to an end. We hoped in the car and drove into Princetown, found a budget cabin grabbed some pizza and curled up for the night. The funniest thing of the day hapened when we went through these pictures that night, my camera has a option to take a video blog of your pictures for the day, needless to say it starts with me in my boxers. But it has some really cool video ill show everyone when we get home.