Then we packed up and drove to Mait's Rest. It was a boardwalk through rainforest. We saw soft tree ferns that only grow here and myrtle beech and mountain ash. The mountain ash here are an ancient species of eucalyptus that can live up to 300 years and are the tallest flowering plants in the world. They grow straight up and seem to go forever. The bark peels, like other eucalyptus, but comes down in 20, 30- foot strips. The older trees fall and are covered in lichens and moss and little ferns.
From there we drove to Cape Otway Lightstation. We were able to go through the lighthouse, old telegraph building and light keepers cottages. The lighthouse is the oldest surviving one in Australia, but it isn't operational. It was replaced by a small, powerful, solar powered light.
After the lighthouse, we drove back to the Great Ocean Road for a while, then left it to go to the Otway Fly, a series of metal walkways high above the rainforest. The walks went from the ground, up to towers and rose gradually up to 33 meters. We could see the understory of the forest, the middle and the canopy. Then there was a spiral tower that went up to 47 meters above the trees. The structures themselves were amazing and the views indescribable. There was one walkway that went out on a cantilever high above the trees. On the way down, one tower had another option for getting back to ground level, abseiling. It's like repelling, but the person just goes straight down on ropes. Samson had to do it. They fixed him up with a harness and hard hat and ropes and down he went, 25 meters. He looked like a pro, went down really quickly.
We were close to Triplet Falls, so we drove there and hiked up and down about a million steps and were rewarded with beautiful cascades. It had been raining off and on since last night, so there was more water for the falls. It was a loop trail, so there were only half a million steps back to the rv.
Our last stop of the day was another rainforest walk, Melba's Gully. Another trail up and down steps with a small cascade and a big, big mountain ash. Unfortunately the ash fell in 2009, but the roots were impressive. On the way back we noticed a sign that said there were glow worms in the forest. It was late, so we decided to camp here. After supper, we heard cars coming to this car park and people going down the trail, so we took our flashlights and followed. The info sign said to go a little way down and turn off the flashlights and let your eyes adjust and look for the lights. We tried that several times with no luck. Then we heard people talking further on, so we went toward the voices. They were standing on the path and on one side there were all these tiny little lights - glow worms! Everyone had their flashlights off because the lights makes the glow worms stop glowing. And we just stood there and marveled at the little glowing larvae.
When we got back to the rv we looked up and saw more stars than we've seen on this trip. There is so little light pollution that stargazing is wonderful here. Tonight was a great night, especially since we've gotten good at finding the Southern Cross.
Pictures-Samson and 300 yr old mountain ash, Jeanne on Otway Fly, 2 shots of Samson abseiling, Triplet Falls
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