Apollo Bay
The Wet Forest
It is always cool and damp inside a forest. They create their own climate. The rainforest at Maits Rest, 15 minutes drive west of Apollo Bay, is a primeval world where tree ferns tower over babbling creeks and sad old blue gum kings, half their former 90 metre high majesty, rot from the inside, their spreading buttress a wall of moss and kangaroo ferns. Deep, down in the gully, are the gnarled and ancient myrtle beech trees, the ancestors of the trees of a massive forest that once covered Gondwanaland.
parkweb.vic.gov.au
Mait’s Rest
Beer and Fish and Chips
The brewers from Prickly Moses have taken over the old Ballarat Pub and renamed it The Great Ocean Road Brewhouse. (29 Great Ocean Rd, greatoceanroadbrewhouse.com.au. The old drive-thru bottle shop is now a beer tasting bar and local food store. Over by the pier is the Apollo Bay Fisherman’s Coop and one of the most beautiful places to order fish and chips in the country $30 will set you back for the fisherman’s platter which has two pieces of local gummy shark, local scallops and calamari, prawns and chips. Enjoy on the deck overlooking the fishing fleet moored by the pier.
Breakwater Rd., daily 11am-7pm
The Cruel Sea
When you come to the West Coast you have to pay your respects to the ocean. Here the shallow waters of Bass Strait can be easily coaxed into a frenzy by the wind and rocky shores here have claimed more than 600 ships over the centuries. While the protected beaches are pleasant for a winter stroll, the winter waves crash into the mudstone cliffs creating tortured sculptures in the stone at places like Shelley Beach. Here a small creek has cut a half moon bay into the rocks offering views along this ancient landscape. It is a kilometre walk down from the carpark at the end of Elliot Rd, off the Great Ocean Road.
Graze
Hidden in the back streets of Apollo Bay is a brand new bistro with a well-credentialled chef and a fridge filled with local fish. Graze is a small scale 40 seater with views over the blue fibro holiday houses to the green rolling hills of the Otway Ranges. Open just four weeks ago, Graze takes the space of a Korean food house that fed the international tourists from the coaches travelling the Great Ocean Road. Local chef Julian Toussaint saw a gap in the market after the closure of paddock to plate restaurant La Bimba earlier in the year. Toussaint started his career at the glitzy Brophy’s on Jackson in Toorak in the late 1980s and fed punters in St Kilda at Espy Kitchen in the ‘90s. After an under the radar career cooking in other people’s restaurants in Apollo Bay, he’s back with a smart menu, charming front-of-house team and a handshake deal with the local fishers delivering him leather jacket, flathead, snapper and spider crab landed at Apollo Bay. Look out for poached, grilled, and finely sliced octopus tentacles plated up as a beautiful rosette or blue eye fillet, pan-fried in butter and served with an individual potato tortilla. Modern bistro classics such as burnt butter and sage gnocchi or crisp pork belly with braised fennel are served alongside contemporary offers like roast duck empanadas with harissa mayo for a creamy kick. It is very casual, pitched at locals, has a limited wine list but is well priced and offers generous portions.
14a Pascoe St, Apollo Bay, Open Tuesday to Saturday 5 pm to late,Graze Apollo Bay Graze Apollo Bay
Apollo Bay Bakery Curried Scallop Pie
Apollo Bay Bakery
“These are our best pies yet!” announces Apollo Bay Baker Sally Cannon as she bites into a piping hot scallop pie. The owner of the little bakery on the Great Ocean Road first put scallops into her grandmother’s curry sauce recipe and baked them in a pie when she her sister Jane Johnston bought the bakery in 2011. While famous for their pies, making into the travel pages of the New York Times, it was not until this year that they have been able to use Victorian scallops in their pies. In prior years they have used Chinese grown scallops and then Tasmanian harvested scallops. Victorian scallops have been available but scarce since the closure of the Port Phillip Bay scallop fishery and the establishment of a strict quota system in the late 1990s. But the discovery of a massive new scallop bed off the shores of Lakes Entrance in East Gippsland has allowed her to the local bivalves.
“The quality of these scallops is just outstanding,” she says Apollo Bay Bakery’s Sally Cannon. “They are so sweet and juicy,” she says. In years gone by, she had been baking with imported scallops that had been processed in a way to make them retain water that was released once they had thawed. This liquid would continue to ooze as the pies baked, so when customers ate them the scallops would send scalding hot watery juice over her customers. “But these local scallops hold onto their juice so well.” When it comes to comparing their pies with those across Bass Strait in Tasmania the pie making sisters are circumspect. “We respect they have a history of making pies in Tasmania,” says Jane Johnston. “But we use our grandmother’s recipe made by her family on the banks of the Moyne in Port Fairy. It’s a proud family tradition.” At this her sister buts in, “I don’t want to start a scallop pie war,” says Sally Cannon. “But customers do tell us that our scallop pies are as good as Tasmanian pie.” Johnston quickly adds, “if not better.”
James Crump, Head Baker, Apollo Bay Bakery with the first Victorian scallop pies.