The GOR starts officially a few km west of Anglesea when you go under the Memorial Arch, which we dutifully did and had the event recorded for posterity. I will leave it to my dear readers to work out how this was achieved. Maybe Allthego has acquired a drone, who knows or can guess?

Here we go under the Memorial Arch on the way to Lorne. Tricky photo!

Lorne has been likened to ‘a little Melbourne’. The waterfront street is lined with eating establishments, numerous fashion outlets and the usual collection of seaside things. Much of ‘old Lorne’ built after the GOR was constructed has gone. It used to be a seaside getaway for the well to do. Still is. The buildings are just more 1980/90s than 1920/30s. There is one remaining old guest house on the way into town with the 2 surf life saver ladies welcoming arrivals.

Old Guest Houses and the surf life saving girls.

One of the old buildings that remain, The Grand Hotel on the headland.

The Lorne Pier

We have settled into the campground that runs alongside the Erskine River just on the outskirts of town and nicely positioned opposite a big Foodworks Supermarket. Luckily we can’t see it, just the pleasant little river and its entourage of ducks. It’s a short walk up into the town and it’s attractions.

Erskine River camp site

The ladies crew for the Lorne Surf boat were in action.

Our first day here was a little overcast so we headed up into the Otway Ranges to see the Erskine waterfall, a 30m effort over the cliff to the rock pool below. With all the recent rain there was a good cascade of water coming down. Allthego headed off down to the bottom of the falls to see how many steps there were. Coming back up he counted 233. Homealone had stayed at the top and did not accompany him on this effort.

Erskine Falls

Cumberland River

She was saving herself for the next short walk at the Cumberland River, a few km west of Lorne just off the GOR. This little walk of 3 km return was to a place called Jeb’s Pool, which sounded rather nice. It was a flat track beside the river, which quickly narrowed to a creek, through a high walled gorge. Quite a torrent would come down here in a flood. The way to Jeb’s Pool though seemed to require us to cross over the creek on some stepping stones and rocks. Once a upon a time this would have been easy work for us two, but it now required careful consideration. Allthego had not brought his hiking stick, so balance was an issue in making the crossing. Homealone quickly declined the crossing, Althego said he would have a go and took the initiative. A short video follows of the crossing. The video ends abruptly when Homealone dashed to assist Allthego’s return to the bank.

We returned back to the campground a bit bone weary with the promise of a fine sunny day to come.