If you're a tourist headed down the Great Ocean Road, don't forget to save time for a waterfall and a bushwalk. The ocean of course is one thing, but most people forget or don't know that there's a whole heap of treasures in this part of the world.
We headed down to see if Erskine Falls were running, some twenty minutes inland from Lorne. There's no buses that go up there but it'd be easy to hitch a ride. Sadly we couldn't go all the way down as it was closed due to flood damage earlier in the year but we could still see the waterfall from the top.
Really I was here for my forest fix - it'd been raining all night and in the morning we were bored inside so thought we'd go on a little adventure. There's a particular smell in the Otways rainforest that's just so beautiful - gum trees and earth and ferns and mud.
The falls were running, though not as much as they can run - great torrents coming down and making you wet as you watch (not in that way, get your mind out of the gutter). When they are open, it's an 8km walk to town if you car share to do it. Last time I did it was with Dad and Mum and Jamie before he got too ill to walk. There's a lot of rock hopping and creek crossing so you have to watch your step - the best time to do it is Easter when the weather is mild and it's not too muddy and wet yet.
We then went to Blanket Leaf Picnic ground to see if that track was open - it's just across from the falls and usually that walk goes either to Erksine Falls or to some other falls in the area. However, that track awas also shut - we walked through the barrier like naughty teenagers and walked for a while, despite declared dangers. You know, falling in rivers and giant exclamation marks.
It wasn't snake season so we were good there. We walked about two kilometres before we got absolutely soaked by a downpour and decided that was enough forest and went back to the car.
Still, it was magical. We only spotted one dried up mushroom on theside of the track. Sometimes you get wood blewitts, wood ears, even snow mushrooms. Sometimes you might be lucky to see glow worms at dusk or at night, or fairies and forest imps.
On the way back we stop at a look out to take a photo of a rainbow, and ended up scrambling down the side of the road to the beach. There's a lot of isolated little beaches with no one on them if you stop and explore a little. If you're lucky you might even find a dinosaur print. In this instance there were no yellow signs telling us the cliff was slippery and dangerous. Who knows what might have happened - we could always say 'there wasn't a sign! I didn't know!'.
With Love,
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