The Next Few Days

One of the days that we were in Apollo Bay, we took a day trip to Maits Rest Rainforest, which is part of the Great Otway National Park.

Jul loved the huge ferns that grow there.

And the big caverns underneath the tree roots were fun to take pictures in.

Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of this type of tree.

On the third day, we continued our trek along the coast. This here is Castle Cove, I believe.

Along the drive, we saw a lot of farms. Sheep farms, beef farms, dairy farms, and occasionally a goat farm.

One of Linden's goals while in Australia was to talk to as many farmers and see as much agriculture as he could. Thus, we stopped and inspected many farms, regardless of whether anyone was home or not!

At this farm, the owner did eventually come back from feeding cows and talked to Linden. One thing to note is that some of these farms ran right up almost to the ocean. Happy cows come from Oz!

Further along, we stopped at this wildlife park with the intention of getting to feed kangaroos and koalas.

Sadly, this place was not very well taken care of and the roos were not interested in eating very much. Jul finally got some wallabies to eat for her.

I don't remember what these deer were specifically called.

These boys, however, are Red Deer, and they are massive. They were sleeping, until Linden ignored the "STAY OUT" sign and opened the gate and hooped and hollared until they woke up. Then he got scared and came running out the gate!

I apologize for the poor quality photo, but these were some pretty good sized Eastern Grey Kangaroos. We weren't allowed to feed them, although I'm sure Linden would've tried, given the chance!

This was my friend, Mr. Donkey. He talked to me a lot while I was walking past his pen. He got the food that the roo's didn't want to eat.

Our continued journey brought us to probably the most beautiful spot on the southern coast: The Twelve Apostles at Port Campbell National Park.

This area of the coast is by far the prettiest coastline I have ever seen, even compared to what we have in the States. These limestone formations were named "The Twelve Apostles" with the intent to make it a well-known tourist attraction. (And it is!!!) However, there were more than twelve formations, but since then some of the formations have fallen due to the base being eroded from the crashing waves. You can see some of the fallen ones in the photos.

Past the Apostles, we stopped at some other coves, which were also very pretty.

Another famous spot is the "London Bridge."

The London Bridge is no longer a "bridge," as you can see, and the history of London Bridge's falling down is posted on the sign above.

Our next stop was in Warrnambool where we checked out a milk plant and treated ourselves to milkshakes.

Towards the end of the day, we ended our coastal driving in Portland. We then turned north-west and headed in-land to continue our trek west from the state of Victoria into the state of Southern Australia.

To be continued...