Hi everyone,

We started the day in our beach tent overlooking the ocean, quite a nice way to wake up, even though the waves were loud all night, but it’s not a bad noise at all. We grabbed some bakery goods from a nearby bakery and our coffees to charge up before the big day ahead.

We set off for our first adventure of the day. We had to drive about 20 minutes. It is amazing how much the landscape can differ in such a short space where we are staying and most of this area is coastal, then 5-10 minutes drive and you’re in the national park in the middle of the forest. It’s really quite amazing.

We were doing the Maits Rest Rainforest Walk first thing this morning. It is about a 1km trek through a rainforest type environment that had plenty of boardwalk. It’s perfect for Julian.

It was a really beautiful little walk. The ferns and mountain ash trees were lovely. It was a cold, crisp morning so there was still dew on the leaves of the plants and everything was damp which really added to the serenity.

After this we drove for about half an hour across dodgy dirt roads having to dodge fallen trees, massive potholes and avoiding cars coming in the other direction on very narrow roads. It eventually lead us to our next little hike within the national park which was The Hopetoun Falls.

We walked about 200 muddy steps down to bottom of the valley to see a beautiful (and powerful) waterfall at the base. The way down was easier but slippery and the way back up was challenging but it was worth it.

Once we got back to the top we drove about 5 minutes up the road to the main event of the day which was the Redwood forest. In the Otway National park in 1936 they planted a bunch of redwoods to increase the amount of timber available, and they never really did that but it became the perfect conditions for the trees to grow immensely. They are now 90 years old and are about 60 metres tall. The sign there says that in 100 years they believe that they could potentially be the tallest trees in the world. It is stunningly beautiful and immense. We had a picnic lunch on the tables outside the forest and then spent about an hour walking around them exploring, playing and having fun. Just magnificent.

We drove a longer way back because we didn’t want to go on that sketchy road again, turns out the way we decided to go was way sketchier, it was a sealed road but it was so narrow and windy that it felt like if a car was coming the other way we’d be toast.

We got back to our beach tent, did some clothes washing and let Julian play on the park and in the games room at the accommodation.

Then we walked down to the beach just to hangout, dip our toes in and build sand castles. It was nice,

Then it was another BBQ for dinner before we have an early night and head off further down the great ocean road tomorrow where we will be seeing one of Australia’s most popular and iconic landmarks.

Much love,

Ronnie, Aimee and Julian.