Today weather was pretty dismal with constant light drizzle driven into us by a gale force headwind at 35 mph!! Temperatures however reached a comfortable 21C.
Despite the weather we had an interesting event full day. After a caf? breakfast we headed out along the Great Ocean Road. Our first stop was to view the Rock formations of the eroded limestone coast at the Lord Ard Gorge. Then on the famous Twelve Apostles set of Limestone Stacks. We got some reasonable pictures despite the weather.
Then inland and up a long gradual climb to 450ft. Then we lost all the height down to the Gellibrand River. We then started a long and steep in places 11 mile climb to our nights accommodation at 1600ft.
We split up on the climb with Peter T and Martin speeding to the top to wait at a caf? there. I stopped at the Melba Gully Rainforest Walk. Areas of this part of the Coast are temperate rainforest and there were some spectacular views. Peter W caught up with me there. We went on to Lavers Hill village at the top and joined the others. We also met up there again with the Canadian Round Australia Cyclist we had met over the last few days.
After an early evening meal we went on another mile to our accommodation for the night at Fauna Australia. This is a private wildlife reserve with 2 accommodation units and the wildlife only accessible to guests. Finally we got to see KOALAS!! We saw the parents and an extremely cuddly looking baby Koala as well as various Kangaroos and Wallabies. We got to go in and stroke one Koala. In the evening we saw various nocturnal creatures including Wombats.
Our hosts provided us with seeds to feed the animals. These went in ice cream cones which the Wallabies loved to hold in their paws and nibble.
36 miles for the day and 3441ft of climb.
Edwin
Posted by Edwin
at 6:21 PM EADT
