Angahook-Lorne State Park
We headed down to the Great Ocean Road this week to Angahook-Lorne State Park which is situated in Lorne, about 150km west of Melbourne taking approximately 2hrs to drive. We covered about 13km today in about 5.5hrs with plenty of stops to see caves and waterfalls. Angahook-Lorne State Park is now part of the Great Otways National Park.
We started from Sheoak Picnic Area and headed down to Shallow Cave, then we went down to Sheoak falls and then to the coast. From the coast we headed back to Sheoak falls and headed up to Castle Rock. From there we went along the Garvey track and down to the Upper Kalimna falls, down to the Lower Kalimna falls and then back to the car park.
We arrived at Sheoak Picnic Area at about midday and had some lunch in the Picnic area. Sam was enjoying his leg ham and coleslaw sandwich, praising how delicious it was. He was into his second sandwich until some trouble struck. There was a kookaburra sitting on a tree branch above us and watching us eat, there were also many magpies around also. Little did Sam know, that kookaburra was about to spoil his lunch. Sam was about to take a bite into his sandwich, when suddenly the kookaburra, followed by two magpies swooped down and took the sandwich away from Sam’s hands!!!
The kookaburra had actually glided down and cut Sam on the webbing between his finger and thumb and then stole the sandwich. The magpies were only there to scavenge what the kookaburra had left behind. Sam was not happy, and I was cracking up realizing what just had happened and the look on Sam’s face was priceless. I have never witnessed anything like this before in my life. The kookaburra was very brave and must have the nerves of steel to take away food from a hungry man. Luckily the kookaburra flew back onto the tall tree otherwise it probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day again.
After all that fiasco, we finally started our walk. The walk is quite easy and there are plenty of signs about so you would probably find it hard to get lost. The only difficult part of this track is if you detour up to Castle Rock. It’s a steep climb but once you reach the top, its pretty much plain sailing to Kalimna falls and back to the car.
It was very nice day today, sunny and we found it quite humid at the lower parts of the park. We had to remove a number of layers of clothing just to keep cool and drank plenty of water to replenish our thirst and re-hydrate. Summer is drawing near so the walks will become harder once the heat, humidity and sunlight gather momentum. We’ll need to walk with ice packs just to keep cool; they probably don’t exist but we’ll certainly need more water to cool down or perhaps jump into a creek, beach or sit under a waterfall!
We visited three waterfalls along this trek and there were about 5-6 more that we couldn’t visit because we simply had no time. The three waterfalls were all quite different and these were the first waterfalls we have seen on the treks up close and personal. I brought along my new Hoya ND4 filter to try taking some silky smooth waterfall shots and finding the shots to be quite spectacular. I really like this waterfall effect and can’t wait to see higher and more intense waterfalls.
More photos can be found here.