Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

The Great Ocean Road, 3-4 October, 2009

We piled in the car on Saturday morning and drove through Geelong to Torquay, and then onto the Great Ocean Road. Sparrow slept a lot of the drive, thankfully :-) While I've spent a lot of time in this part of the coast, it was James' and my mother's first trip along the drive, and Sparrow's first visit to the ocean.

First stop, Airey's Inlet. It was blowing a very cold wind despite the sun, but it was very pretty. While Mum walked up to the lighthouse that's just to the left of this photo, I fed Sparrow. Then we all had a short walk and a photo. This time of year a lot of the coastal plants are flowering like mad. Then we stopped on the grass to change Sparrow's nappy - a new thing, she was a little bemused by this grass approach - and continued on.

The windy bit of the Great Ocean Road goes from Airey's Inlet to Apollo Bay, and Lorne is about halfway along. We stopped in Lorne for lunch. It's a very pretty town that blends forest and beach, and there's a really nice hillside/beachside park that I'd like to go back and play in that just looked lovely in the sunlight. I know Lorne has become a popular tourist destination, but I can see why. I just liked it.

Then we stopped to play on the grass. Sparrow has never been put directly on the grass before this, it was new. And OK, I think - James quipped that she was her mother's daughter for liking to lie on the grass, and we'd find out if she was her father's daughter when she came up itchy all over from it. But as far as we know she didn't, so that was good. I would also like to point out that this photo is of Lorelei lolling on the lawn at Lorne. I am not saying that fast.

The drive to Apollo Bay continues pretty, and I was somewhat taken by a camping ground that is on one of the rivers, as well as the walk to SheOak Falls, none of which we got to do this time. Instead we drove straight on past Apollo Bay to Cape Otway. There's a spot on the road to the tip of the Cape where you're just about guaranteed to see koalas. You know where it is, because there are always several cars parked there and people taking photos. These ones were quiet - the big excitement was a mother with baby jumping from one branch to the next (I promised James I wouldn't do this with Sparrow). Mum and I later heard a koala making a territory call when we were investigating the Great Ocean Walk hike-in-campsite near the lightstation, and it really is an awesome sound. Mum thought the same thing I did the first time - where's the wild pig?

At the lightstation, looking over the cliff by the old telegraph station. This is one of the many reasons why I enjoyed staying here while guiding ParkTrek walks. It just feels so fresh and alive and clean, and that was really good while I was pregnant with Sparrow. I stayed here a couple of times during her first trimester.

A quick nappy change on the grass before going down to the lighthouse itself.

This is the walk down to the lighthouse. This walkway and around the base of the lighthouse are the only spots you can get mobile phone signal in the whole lightstation, but not always well. Once when I was here for a walk the signal cut out as I was attempting to yell goodbye to James over the static. He heard one last scream as the phone died and thought I must have fallen off the top of the lighthouse. So it was fun to bring him here and show him where I usually made the calls from. Also, I have walked the entire length of this walkway on the rails. It's a good stretch-out for aching calves.

Climbing up the stairs, and up the stairs, and up the stairs. Cape Otway is actually a high point on its own and doesn't need a tall lighthouse, but the architect who designed it back in the 1840s managed to convince the committee that this was a much prettier design than the little one they wanted. There are signs at the base of the stairs requesting that you leave bags and backpacks behind, and take babies out of back carriers. A front one is all right as (ladder-like) on the steep sections you always face the steps going up or down, but I'm still glad it wasn't me carrying Sparrow.

The view from the top. I didn't go out onto the little balcony, but Mum, James and Sparrow did and walked all the way around. I think Sparrow enjoyed it a lot more than I would, even with the windiness. The view is really quite amazing. I think I was told that you can see the King Island light from out there. I've never gone out and looked.

After walking around the lightstation we went out to the old cemetery. It's a nice walk, maybe twenty minutes or so. I think James found it a bit awesome to realise how many of the graves were very young children and infants. Then it was back to the motel to check in and kick around a little before heading back into Apollo Bay for dinner. This suit is just the right size for Sparrow at the moment. We had a nice dinner at Cafe 153 (I think that was the name) and celebrated our anniversary at the same time.

Next morning. Here we are in one of the rooms of a family apartment at the Motel Marengo. This was the first day of Daylight Savings in Victoria, so James and I were feeling the effects of an hour less sleep before having to check out. Sparrow didn't notice at all. She was ready to play as soon as we were, and that could be as early as we liked. Luckily, Grandma is also an early riser even though she doesn't like daylight savings any more than the rest of us, and she volunteered to take Sparrow out for a walk and explore while James and I got everything together a little more slowly. We were very appreciative. (Notice how she's grabbing her foot? I think this was only the first or second time she managed to do that successfully.)

When I was ready I went out for a short walk too. I also like mornings. The beach was shining brightly at the bottom of the hill, and the air was fresh like only a beach-side town in the forest can be. Mum and Sparrow were enjoying it all from a hammock under the trees.

It was Sparrow's first encounter with a hammock, and she quite liked being swung. The two of them had had a great time.

Which is just as well, as just as we left the motel to get breakfast James got paged, and we had to come back so he could hop on their wireless internet and log into his work computer to fix something. So Mum and Sparrow and I spent a bit more time on the hammocks. I really liked this chair, and am thinking about suggesting to James that we get one for our sunroom area. Honey, are you reading this?

First stop out in the morning was at Maits' Rest. It's a little trail that goes in an 800 metre loop into the Nothofagus forest. It's some of the last remnants of the southern beeches that used to cover most of Gondwanaland but have been pushed back into only the wettest and least fire-prone tiny corners of our temperate rainforest. It's forest like no other Australian forest that I know of, and really quite magnificent. Sparrow fell asleep just as we got there and slept through the entire walk. She may grow up to be a tree person, but right now naps take precedence.

Some pictures that almost suggest what it was like, though they don't really show the darkness, dampness, and absolute riot of ferns everywhere.

James, Sparrow and I standing under one of the Nothofagus beeches.

Lunch, at Lavers Hill. Sparrow is still of a size and age to join us in our lunches by reclining at ease in the centre of things. The view from this cafe was really quite something. The food was pretty good too. And no, despite appearances, we did not eat the baby.

There are some beautiful gardens at Lavers Hill that I got to walk around for the first time. Dad would have liked them - wonderful cascades of interesting plants and lost paths down and through a gully. Sparrow found the flowers worth a look. We'd been going to take her out onto the bird feeding platforms to see the crimson rosellas that flock in regularly but it was not the best weather or time of day for that. She did watch in fascination as a couple of pairs flew over her though.

Not the end of the Great Ocean Road, but certainly the best known of the highlights -smile-. The Twelve Apostles, of which we counted just seven. They are a magnificent thing, though Sparrow found it a little windy. So did we, to be honest. So then it was back in the car for the drive home, back through Lavers Hill and up through the forest to Colac, then across to Geelong.

We stopped to break the drive with a cup of tea by the river in Winchelsea, where Sparrow got to go on her first slide. Her parents thought this was quite exciting, but one little lady was Not Impressed. This was Not A Highlight. She was smiling at me in this photo because I'd just walked up and I think she thought I was going to rescue her from this cruel and unusual punishment. Ah well. Give her a few more months.