The Young and the Restless | Fanging through the forest

I mean, obviously there’s a reason the popular things are popular — because they are great and they’re usually well run — but if you research your destination and its surrounds, you can often find less publicised attractions run by smaller operators that can provide just as great an experience, if not better, because group sizes are usually more intimate.

Earlier this year I took my three boys to Apollo Bay for a couple of nights.

There was no particular reason for choosing this pretty little town on The Great Ocean Road, other than I’d secured one of the Victorian Travel Vouchers, so I pretty much just closed my eyes and poked a map with my pointer finger.

We did all the regular things you’d expect us to do there:

• We spent plenty of time on the beach (including early starts to watch the sun rise), despite the cool weather that late May brings to the Victorian seaside. My kids can spend hours there no matter the temperature. They will search for crabs in the rocks, draw pictures in the sand with sticks, dig out channels and moats, collect shells and treasures along the beach, and pat every local passerby’s ocean-loving dog.

• We chased waterfalls — this region has plenty of beautiful ones to ogle.

• We tried a different flavour of locally made ice-cream at the ice-creamery each of the three days of our visit (including the strangely pleasant-tasting Vegemite-flavoured ice-cream).

• We explored the nearby Californian Redwood Forest where the gargantuan trees towered over us, making for would-be glorious Instagram snaps (if I could just train the kids to be patient enough to take more than a single photo of me, so I had a chance of selecting one that possibly wasn’t unflattering).

• We took a drive inland to The Otway Fly, which boasts zip-lining, a treetop walk and an Enchanted Forest.

But the highlight of our trip for all four of us had to be e-biking (electric biking) at Beech Forest (also inland).

We met our friendly, knowledgeable and slightly eccentric guide Nathan at his own private property, due to an unfortunate incident with his trailer he’d had camping the day before, where bush rats had gotten into his ute and chewed the wiring (I couldn’t make this stuff up).

It wasn’t a bad thing (well for us anyway; Nathan had some repair work ahead of him) because as an unexpected add-on, we got to meet his heeler pup Loki and his pet pig Lucky, who squealed with delight as the kids scratched behind her ears (which in turn made for equally delightful giggling from them).

Normally there’s a meeting place in the township when Nathan’s trailer is functional to transport his bikes there, but luckily for us we got to begin our journey on a hillside with vast views into pretty green valleys, which set the tone for the jaw-dropping scenery we encountered for the entirety of our 90-minute experience.

As we travelled along the Old Beechy Rail Trail through the Fairyland forest, surrounding farmland and picturesque township of Beech Forest itself — the kids on fully automatic e-bikes so they didn’t have to pedal uphill at all if they didn’t want to, and myself on a pedal-assisted one — Nathan filled us in on the history of the area, introduced us to all the native species of flora, pointed out evidence of all the local fauna and taught us lots about mushrooms (and not the kind you might be thinking of).

When the cold air had inspired a bush wee for a couple of the kids, they washed their hands with a soapy substance fashioned from the scrunched-up leaves of one of the abundant local ‘soap’ trees Nathan introduced us to along the path.

After a generous time touring, we arrived back at our starting point for one more pat of the pup and the pig before finding some mugs of hot chocolate to wrap our frozen hands around at the Art Reach Gallery in town.

Pretty sure the E in Nathan’s e-bikes stands for Enjoyable — because that is the best word to sum up this experience.

— Bree Harding is a former News reporter and a single mother to three children.