Day 3: One full day in Apollo Bay
Saturday 12th February
It was a cool and rather windy start to the day and so Mark ditched his plan for a bike ride. Instead, we walked along the beach and up to the small harbour and fish co-op area and wound our way back through town with a stop for a morning coffee. The plan being to come back to the harbour Fish co-operative later today for lunch. On the way home we noticed there was a local market set up in the park near the shops but this was the smallest craft market we’d ever seen.
After breakfast (at home) we drove out to Mait’s Rest which is located about 15 min out of town and along the highway towards Port Campbell. The area was named after Maitland Bryant, who was the district’s first States Forest inspector appointed just after WW1 who used to rest here when doing his rounds. There was a lovely 30 minute loop forest walk which was home to some spectacular mountain ash gums and tree ferns. Mark filmed the whole loop on his 360 degree camera so those of you who follow his blog have that to look forward to!
We then did a drive for about another 15 minutes down to Cape Otway but the thing of most interest here was the huge number of dead gums in the area; which I later searched to find is known as the Ghost Forest.
It was getting on to 1 pm by this time so we headed back to Apollo Bay and the Fish Co-Op for lunch. Mark then went for an afternoon bike ride whilst I blogged and read my book.
Dinner tonight was at The Birdhouse restaurant located above street level, in the middle of town, with great views over the beach and surrounding mountains. It is well worth a visit if you’re ever in this part of the world as it offered great food, nice wine and cloth napkins!
