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Observing the Otways

Posted By andy_beharrell Posted on 12th March 2024
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With another day at the campsite on Cape Otway, we decided to do a tour of the Cape. The advice from the lady at the campsite was to start with Mait’s Rest. Immediately she said I made stereotypical assumptions about the way Australians would spell Mate’s Rest, but no …. this one is spelt Mait’s Rest. The reason for that is that the area is named after the Cape’s first Forestry Officer- Maitland Bryant. He apparently used to rest his horse in the area around the time of the First World War.

The area is just a short walk through a very small remaining piece of cool temperate rainforest. The walk is bordered with tree ferns vying for space with the rainforest trees – mountain ash and giant myrtle beech trees. The overall effect is one of being completely immersed in the forest with the only slight worry being one of the endemic animals – the carnivorous Otway Black Snail. They apparently only grow to a maximum diameter of 28mm, but that word carnivorous is still a little unsettling. Not enough though to put us off what was a beautiful walk.

Mait’s Rest

The next stop was at a small patch of redwoods. These were apparently planted by the logging industry, but they generously left a small patch for posterity. We moved quickly on from there, more interested in native attractions and the next stop was Hopetoun Falls. This was a lovely walk – there was a lookout platform, but the view from there was limited, so we walked down to the base of the falls which gave a much better view. Of course we then realised we had to go all the way up again, but …..

Hopetoun Falls

The next stop was more waterfalls and the clue was in the title – Triplet Falls. A 1.5km walk brought us to the base of the falls, then a climb to the next section and then a further climb to complete the triplet …..

Triplet Falls

The next walk was through an area called Melba Gully. This is similar to Mait’s Rest – a dense rainforest area of Myrtle Beech, Blackwood and Tree-ferns, all covered with ferns and mosses. It is by reputation one of the wettest places in Victoria and the presence of a few mushrooms and brackets was testament to that, though these were few and far between with the very low levels of rainfall at the moment. One of the final stops in the gully was a small waterfall area, very appropriately called Anne’s Cascades. It would be exaggerating to suggest that there was much cascading going on, but it was a pretty little spot ….

A visit of a Kookaburra when we arrived back at the campsite gave me a new earworm – words Kookaburra and gum tree appearing frequently …. Late afternoon we decided to do a walk from the campsite to one of the local beaches – Station Beach. We did this without checking how far it was, the folly of which struck us nearly an hour later when we finally got a glimpse of the beach – that seemed enough so we turned round and headed back …..

Tags: Great Otway
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