The Otway Fly! on Sun, Feb 6th

What a day! WOW!
We left Johanna Beach for a day trip up into the mountains to do the Otway Fly Treetop Walk, and Jed was keen to participate in the "flying fox" type activity that is run there also. The scenery on the drive to and fro is breathtakingly beautiful, with views down tree covered valleys, occasional cleared farming areas and onto the coast. Laver's Hill sits on the top of the range, and if we'd had time - a coffee, or wine, on the verandah of the corner hotel, with it's spectacular views would have topped the day off nicely!

 View from Laver's Hill

We wound our way through Weeaproinah, which we later found out has the recognition for being the Victorian town that has the highest annual rainful (something like 2000mm), and it rains 300 days of the year. And... no surprise, it did! (not very heavy tho'). No wonder the trees grow quickly, and huge!!

    

Huge Mountain Ash and Myrtle Beech
and Blackwood trees

The Walkway involves a ground based walk with interpretive signs, and a section dedicated to the "dinosaur" age - fun! Then comes the fun part of being on a fantasticly engineered structure - 25 metres above the ground and 600 metres long, and the Spiral Tower has a height of 45m. (And it feels a whole lot safer than climbing up the Gloucester Tree, WA, when Jon & I did it 22 years ago!). Amazing views and experience.They have worked hard at preserving/regenerating the natural forest.
Photos don't really do it justice.






View of tree ferns from walkway

Spiral Tower, 45m above ground



Amazing engineering, through the trees!



Isabelle and Mia, we saw this "baby dinosaur"! (Only a pretend one) on right. It was very hungry, eating lots of tree ferns and playing with the logs. It's Mummy was eating leaves from bigger trees! And the Raptors were playing "Duck, duck, goose!", or was it Chasey?

After we had done the walk, we went down the road a bit further to Triplet Falls - beautiful!!

                                                                                                          

     Then it was back to "the Fly", for the ultimate in exhilaration! (exhilarating enough for me anyway!) - abseiling the "Zip-line" through the tree-tops. After being all harnessed up and given the 'safety drill', it was off to the practice line before we, like Tarzan & Jane, started 'flying through the jungle', er... forest. How did I get talked into this anyway?? No, it was actually really good fun, and great to be doing this as a family activity - encouraging and applauding each other.

Check out the length of the line in the photos, from one 'cloud station' to the other! If we failed to make it right across (and the heavier you were the better) they had a rope 'retrieval' system in place. What great fun, and I'd recommend it to anyone!