Visiting Apollo Bay & The Great Ocean Rd: Part 1

Our Visit to Apollo Bay and The Great Ocean coincided with my Run Forrest Run.

Having not been to Apollo Bay since the 90s, and never having done Run Forrest before, it seemed fitting that we make use of the long weekend away.

The start of this adventure however wasn’t without its hiccups.

It all started the Monday before leaving when Tom was admitted to the hospital for appendicitis.

He was back home by Wednesday less his appendix but was sore, tired and miserable.

With the kids having the Friday off thanks to an extra curriculum day, we drove down to Apollo Bay via Beaufort, Skipton and Colac. To break up our trip we decided to do some geocaches along the way.

Our first geocache pit stop was in Skipton, where we claimed 2 caches.

We stopped for lunch in a cute little town called Cressy.  It really is a blink and you miss it town, but it is well worth a stop.

The other reason we stopped was of course a geocache. The cache was cleverly hidden, and I only discovered it because I came from behind.

With a population of only 122 people, Cressy certainly is quite a creative town.  “Big Bird” is just a magnificent work of art.  In this little block of land, there were other creative sculptures in people’s gardens.

The donkey and mule in a neighbouring property were also quite the characters.

With food in our bellies, we continued our travels.

The weather would be on our side only until Colac, and then the heavens opened as we approached the Great Otway National Park.

We made a brief stop at Triplet Falls.

Yes, it was raining, but we weren’t the only crazies out there in the rain. We encountered two other groups on the loop walk.

If we had ideal conditions we would have done the full loop course. Which would have taken us about an hour at a leisurely pace.

With the rain however, we powered out and there and back (then end of the loop) in about 20 minutes.

We may never get another opportunity to do Triplet falls, so sometimes you just have to brave it out and just do it.

It was then a slow and windy drive through the Beech Forest.

Along the way, we stopped at a roadside farm and picked up a dozen eggs and a 5kg bag of potatoes all for $11.

You can not get any more organic, free-range or open-range like that.

Nothing like supporting local farmers when you can.

The fresh eggs were decedent, and the potatoes, wow! The best potatoes I have tasted, and I love potatoes.

We arrived in Apollo Bay at about 5 pm, checked into our apartment, and then went to the grocery store to collect a few items for our weekend of adventure on The Great Ocean Road!

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Read more here – Part 2