The first day we drove up to Apollo Bay was great - the weather was peaceful, sunny, and everyone was heading out for the long weekend from Melbourne. Why the long weekend? 'Cause of the Melbourne Cup. It ends this Tuesday and it's a public holiday for all.
TY and I had never been to Apollo Bay, but after two nights and three days, it really will be a lasting impression and memory. For starters, the town was filled with really nice people and great lookout or scenery points. On the first day, we checked into this really awesome place that was situated high in the mountains and you could basically see almost the whole Apollo Bay town below you including the ocean. The villa we stayed in was spectacular! It had a restaurant right next door to it and we went there for dinner. The mains were really good... just that the oysters were a little disappointing. Well, they did tell us that it wasn't really the season for it and they had to get their oysters from Coffin Bay instead of Geelong, so it tasted a bit funny. TY and I ate about 5 each and nah, we didn't get food poisoning or stomach sickness, so I guess it was alright. After settling in, we decided to explore - visited the lighthouse, did a tour on the glow worms and wanted to see this nearby waterfall (but kinda lost our way a bit).
Speaking of losing our way, on the way from Melbourne to our accommodation, I actually downloaded this map which was supposed to show the quickest bestest route to the place, and we ended up going through this shortcut that told us to turn right after exiting it, but we were supposed to turn left. So we had no idea where we were going for a while until we saw a sign that said "Colac". That was another town in another direction, about half an hour's drive away from Apollo Bay. Also, that little shortcut road (known as Hickeys Cutting) was quite creepy - lots of fog and unseen paths ahead. It looked like it was meant for a four-wheel drive. Oh well... we DID get to our accommodation.
Back to what we did... The glow worm tour was great! Our tour guide, Roy, made it more exciting for us by making us close our eyes and leading down the path. A little slippery and scary, but quite exciting. He also surprised us with some really tall ferns (the size of trees) and showed us a few fallen trees and more... so it wasn't just glow worm info he provided us. This was the first day. The next day, I had a massage for half an hour in the morning and it was so good. What better way to start your morning with a massage and a view of the ocean, sheep roaming around and greenery. After that, we took a little journey to the lighthouse. It was actually drizzling and slightly windy there, but it was a lot of fun. We saw a few koalas on the way too, but they were mostly sleeping in the trees. By the way, the lighthouse visit wasn't just the lighthouse. They had all these other historical information about the people who built the lighthouse and who stayed near the lighthouse. The plaques also spoke of ships and planes, and a pilot that mysteriously went missing. We also saw a war bunker and the old telegraph station where they used to send Morse code. Pretty interesting stuff. Next up, we wanted to do the argo buggy tour, these vehicles that go on water, but because of the bad weather, it was unfortunately cancelled. At the end of our lighthouse tour, we went into town for lunch and wanted to head to a nearby trekking place to check out one of the waterfalls, but the road was pretty treacherous - some twigs and medium-sized branches had fallen and it was just too bumpy and dangerous to drive. I think we even missed the place that leads you to the waterfall lookout. We drove for quite a while, but it was too slippery and wet and so we decided to head back... and on the way back, we saw this little sign that said lookout (I am guessing it's the waterfall... grrr)... Anyway, it was a good thing that we did turn back, because after that, when we returned back to our villa, it started pouring like crazy. It was only about 5pm, but we thought that the heavy rain would subside and we could head out later for dinner... So we stayed in our villa and watched House. The rain though, didn't seem like stopping. It was only getting worse... But we were hungry and had to eat, so at about 9 something, we decided to quickly drive into the town and grab takeaway. Fortunately the pizza shop was open at that time so we got pizza. It was only 15 mins to the Apollo Bay town which wasn't too bad... But I have to say, on the way to town, it was really scary. We had to drive at about 10-12km/h down this trek leading to our villa, and it was steep and covered in really heavy fog. You could hardly see anything with the fog and rain pounding, so we took our time. It wasn't that bad when we headed out - bad, but not that bad. A good thing we got takeaway too because once we returned, the heavy rain became a storm with thicker fog and you couldn't even see the ocean or the town from our windows. Even while we were eating our pizza and watching House, the accommodation we were staying at shook and the wind was howling and things were pounding around outside... At about 4am, we were asleep, but were woken up, because the power had gone out. It came back on after a few hours though. The whole night though, I felt the house shaking. It was a little scary but I was too tired and slept through it. In the morning, when we had to check out and leave, it was still pouring pretty bad. But as we left, it started to clear slightly... Can't believe the storm started from 5pm till 11am the next day when we were to leave.
So on our way home and passing by the town, you could really see the aftermath - huge rocks, the size of a car's wheel were on the roads, including twigs and branches... it was like a hurricane hit the town or something like that. The ocean had turned brown, there were rivers on the roads, flooded caravan parks, flooded driveways, gushing river creeks, a police helicopter that was constantly patrolling the sky... lots were happening. We stopped by the petrol station and even locals were saying this freak storm-like weather is rare, and they were talking about what happened with their neighbours - like cars being washed down the road... Yeah, it was pretty crazy. Lorne was pretty bad too. We heard from the news that a guy died because of a fallen tree. When we got to Torquay, it wasn't so bad, but there was still little damage. Apparently they had to close the roads off to Geelong before because of the storms. We saw news crew at Torquay and we were thinking, if they want to see a news story, they should really head up to Apollo Bay, because that's where all the action is.
Anyway, despite all that, TY and I are glad to have survived it and glad to be back home in Melb, although we'd love to visit Apollo Bay again soon because there's so much more to do up there - of course if there's no storm or freak weather.
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