Day 5 – Off to Port Fairy! (Seriously.. No.. Seriously..)
Well what better way to start off the day than with a breakfast of champions. Apollo Bay is very much a small fishing and surfing community. It has that small town feel. We walked up the strip from our hotel just across the street from the beaches looking for brekky. After much contemplation, we settled on this particular cafe because I could get something that didn’t have an egg in it. There’s something about the eggs here in Oz that are just a tad too rich for me to eat on a daily basis. And breakfast in Oz is usually something with an egg, a couple rashers of bacon and a coffee. It doesn’t get much more exciting than that. Except today!! Check out Brian’s pancake, maple syrup and butter soup. Mmmmm!!
Nothing like a healthy brekky!
Today was definitely rainforest day! We stopped on our way to Port Fairy at two rainforest destinations. The first was a self-guided walk along a path near a parking lot. It was only about 15 minutes out of the way to head there. It was cool and moist just as you would expect in a rainforest. The fungi, palms and large Myrtle Beach trees were amazing sites. It didn’t quite compare to the rainforest adventure we had up in Queensland last year, but it was still an amazing site just the same. It’s neat that little patches of this type of ecosystem exist throughout Australia and not confined to just one spot. Here’s Brian climbing inside one of the big tree trunks.
We could hear tons of birds singing in the trees. In our gallery you’ll find a movie I took that contains the song of the laughing kookaburra bird (when we post it next week). It’s an amazing sound!
After that we headed off to the much fabled Tree Top Walk. Someone has built some scaffolding high above the forest floor so that visitors can get a “tree top view” of the rainforest below. Almost as if it were an afterthought, they have various dinosaur statues scattered throughout the park. They were interesting to see and imagine roaming the forest, but they seemed more like comic relief than part of the Tree Top Walk.
Tree top walk can be dangerous! Watch out for Rex!
A view from the tippy top
This is the winding staircase to the top
After our walk amongst the trees, we continued onward. There was a lot to see on the drive today. Brian, the ever good Catholic boy, insisted we stop and see the 12 Apostles. It’s easy to see the disappointment on his face when he discovered they were names given to some amazing rock formations and not actually disciples of Christ. 
Brian and the 12 apostles
The two boys and the 12 apostles
The sandstone and limestone coastline along this section of the GOR was quite amazing. There was a section called “London Bridge” that, prior to 1991, resembled the shape of the London Bridge with its two arches. Unfortunately due to the natural erosion of the sandstone, the thinnest part of the bridge fell into the sea in 1991. When it fell it actually stranded two visitors on the standing section (you could walk out onto the bridge). They later had to be rescued by helicopter! Yikes!
London Bridge
Port Fairy was probably the smallest town we’d stayed in so far. We arrived just after 6pm and got checked in by a very helpful although frighteningly young looking bloke. He told us about some of the places to eat in the town making sure to point out the ones we “might have to sell our car” to afford. 
We ended up picking this Mediterranean influenced restaurant. The food ended up being quite unique and quite good. We have some pictures of the food that you’ll see in the gallery later.
We showed up for dinner around 8:45pm in just enough time for the waitress to check her watch before agreeing to seat us. This town was dead to the world by the time we were done with dinner. Off to bed! Next stop Robe!
