Country Diary: The Otway Ranges, Australia

We had planned to travel some 300km north-east of Melbourne to Mount Buffalo, but the bush fires were raging there, threatening forest, wildlife, livestock and property.

Even in the suburbs we felt a hot wind and a temperature of 42C, and at times there was a blanket of eerie pink-grey haze. We could hardly make out the normally sharp silhouettes of the Melbourne skyline 6km away.

Sudden wind changes spelled real peril for people living in rural communities to the north and east. For us, with no need to go that way, no ties, possessions or responsibilities in the danger zones, there were easy alternatives.

We took our way westwards, out along the spectacular Great Ocean Road, with surf beaches on our left and wooded hills on our right, to a spot at the foot of the Otway ranges, which run for 80 km parallel to the coastline.

The character of the Otways is determined by the fact that, though rising to only a relatively modest 650 metres, they form the first land-barrier to the moisture-laden winds that blow in off the Southern Ocean.

The consequent rainfall makes for rainforest, waterfalls and deep, green gullies lined with giant tree-fern. We passed Aire river, full and flowing fast down to the sea.

In its wide valley, cattle - Friesian and Hereford - were grazing lush pasture or sheltering from the sun in the dark patches of shadow under groups of cedars.

Then, higher up and on its ridge, was a place called Weeaproinah, which has, we were told, the second highest rainfall of any spot on the Australian mainland.

Timbermen first came to exploit the Otways' rich growth of blue gum eucalyptus in the 1840s, and later large areas were cleared for agriculture. Now there is a careful programme of forest management.

We passed areas recently cleared by the felling of sections of conifer plantation. But the Otway logging industry is winding down.

A few ancient mountain ash trees escaped the axe and have grown into giants, reaching straight up through the dark green lower growth 65 metres to the light.

We went steeply down through fern gullies to the foot of Triplet Falls, three cascades that crash over slabs of rock. Down there, with moss underfoot, moisture in the air and the sounds of water it was hard to believe in drought and firestorm.