Saturday 9 March 2013

This is the Otway Fly. It is a 600 metre long walkway, 25 metres above the forest floor made from over 12 tonnes of steel.  There are only 3 other steel canopy walks in the world and all are in Australia.  Illawara Fly in New South Wales, Valley of Giants in West Australia, and Huon Valley in Tasmania.  We've been on all bar the Illawara Fly in New South Wales.  Otway Fly was opened on September 8th, 2003.  The structre was prefabricated in Launceston, Tasmania.  It was transported in 8 metre spans, where it was erected on site by cranes.  The Project took ten months to  complete.  Don't get a shock-the walk is meant to rock! The structure was built to carry 400 kilograms per square metre and to withstand winds up to 260 kilometres.  The 24 metre cantilever section can hold 28 tonnes, equivalent to the weight of fourteen elephants.  The Otway Ranges experience the highest average rainfall in Victoria at over 2000 millimetres (2 metres) per year.  The highest annual rainfall of 2774 millimetres was recorded in 1971.  The Otway Fly is located in cool temperate rainforest 500 metres above sea level.  60%  of the walk was built on pre existing logging tracks.  All efforts have been taken to minimise the impact of the tree-top walk on the fragile rainforest. I took a photo of a "Mountain Ash" big tree.  It must have been very old.  We arrived at Otway Fly around 11 a.m.  We went to go in and had a 500k walk to the Visitor Centre.  We were parked the furtherest end of the park.  It was about 1 k walk down to the Otway Fly Walk and then the walk on Otway Fly.  It has a 45 metre tower to climb up if you're game enough.  We wallowed in bush trees and tree fern drive through forest country with cool clear mountain air. Temp. 32oC. The weather at "Windy Warrnambool" has been good no wind and sun out but cloudy.  One property owner was having a garage sale and we saw shopping bags hanging on trees by the road.  Plenty of stringy bark trees around.
Glenaire had cottages and Castle Aire Bed and Breakfast.  It is where the forests meet the sea.  We passed by Castle Cove Lookout as there was no place to park.  When we were out of the forestry there was open country and black cows.  There are plenty of international visitors around.  We passed five buses on the road, one was a double decker.  Went over Aire, Calder and Elliott Rivers.  On the way in to Appolo Bay Illamas were in a paddock.  We rolled in to Marengo. Here they had a caravan park and showgrounds. We can see the sea from our van window.  They have surf on the beach. We shall next be heading up to Lorne.

1 comment:

  1. lovely photos - enjoy the trip Col and Cheryl miss you a the club

    ReplyDelete