Another beautiful sunny day, and warmer than yesterday. I left Port Campbell around 0930 and was soon back on the Great Ocean Road, heading east. After about 8kms I reached the Loch Ard Gorge, the scene of a famous shipwreck in 1878:
A few kms further is the Great Ocean Road's most photographed icon, the Twelve Apostles:
I stopped for a drink at Princetown, shown here from the main road:
The road then leaves the coast and turns inland to cross the Otway mountain range, and there was a 19km solid climb, very steep in parts, to the summit at Lavers Hill, a tiny settlement around 420m above sea level, where I stopped again for a well earned drink and a sandwich at the cafe there:
According to the schedule in the Lonely Planet guide the day's journey was meant to end at Lavers Hill; however there was very little of interest there and since it was still only 1430 I decided to continue on with the next day's LP journey, to Apollo Bay, another 50kms away.
There was a long, exhilarating downhill stretch from Lavers Hill, back towards the coast, at Castle Cove:
For the next 10kms the road ran across the pancake-flat floodplain of the Aire River:
I stopped to take a photo of an echidna by the roadside:
There then followed another steep climb for about 5kms, through the tall timbers of the Otway National Park. Near the summit there was a fine boardwalk through spectacular rainforest:
Then I enjoyed another long descent with great views towards the coastline:
I arrived in Apollo Bay, a nice town with plenty of good restaurants and cafes, around 1745.
On the approach to the town I met my 2nd cycle tourist so far since leaving Adelaide. He was an English guy heading in the opposite direction and heading for Adelaide, where I'd started from. He'd begun his journey 2 days ago in Geelong. It was good to stop and swap info about our routes and things to see on the way.
Total distance today was 102kms which included a lot of steep ascents! Total so far for the tour 1221kms.
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