Great Ocean Road

This past Monday was Labor Day in the state of Victoria so we decided to take advantage of the long weekend to do some exploring around the state. We chose to drive and camp along the Great Ocean Road, which begins in Torquay (100 km southwest of Melbourne) and then follows the coastline, deviating inland a few times in the Great Otway National Park. We followed the road from Torquay to Port Fairy (about 275 km).

We have many wonderful pictures from the weekend - too many to include in the blog - so you'll get the stories here and will have to follow along with the pictures on flickr (they do have captions so that should help).

After a long week of work and many nights at the office, Josh was able to sneak out of work around 2:30 on Friday. Kristi had everything packed and ready to go, so we were off as soon as the car was in hand. This time around we got a Holden Astra - a small hatchback with the blinker controls on the "correct" side of the steering wheel (an extremely helpful feature!) We braved the Friday afternoon traffic and drove to Torquay to camp for the evening. We went to dinner at the local favorite fish & chips shop, which was bustling with activity on a Friday evening, and then enjoyed the remaining sunlight while relaxing in a park along the beach. Our entertainment for the evening was watching an energetic little boy take after some seagulls with his cricket bat!

After a restful night at the caravan park, we woke early on Saturday and packed our things to head down the road. We were fortunate to have a beautifully sunny day for driving, hiking, and viewing the scenery and animals. Before leaving Torquay we took a look at Bells Beach, a famous surfing beach, and on the way saw our first kangaroos in the wild. Then we went on to Anglesea where we stopped at the golf course, which is also well known for its resident kangaroos - they really are much like pronghorn! Our surfing adventure in February was at a beach just outside of Anglesea, so everything after this point was new territory for us. Our next stop was at the Lorne visitor information center where we got some tips on what to do and see. Unfortunately only the two major waterfalls had flowing water during our visit, so we decided to see the waterfalls we could see and then also try one of the rainforest walks.

Lorne was a great little town and we thought it would be a fun place to spend a little more time in the future. While we were there we went to Erskine Falls (a major waterfall attraction because you only have to walk 150 m to see the falls - but there was very little water falling when we were there so it wasn't much to look at) and Teddys Lookout (the above picture was taken from the lookout - a great spot). Then we were on our way down the road. We stopped for views and pictures along the way, but our next major stop was for lunch in Apollo Bay. We roamed around the local farmers market in the town center and then settled on some rocks on the beach to enjoy our PB&Js! After lunch our drive took us into the Great Otway National Park. We had planned to visit the Cape Otway Lightstation, but after learning how much it would cost to see a lighthouse we opted to do a little wild koala searching (Josh was very good at this) and then head on our way.

There is not much for towns after Apollo Bay. We stopped to check out Johanna Beach and then started the "active" part of our day. First we hiked to Triplet Falls, which was a beautiful spot, followed by a walk through the Melba Gully rainforest, which was nice but after Triplet Falls it didn't have much to offer. It really was nice to get out and stretch the legs after being in the car for so long!

By this time it late in the afternoon so we headed for Port Campbell where we would be staying the night, got checked into a campsite, and pitched the tent. Then we went to the Twelve Apostles (famous rock formations) to enjoy the sunset with 1,000 of our closest tourist friends! The picture below is of the Twelve Apostles at sunset.

We ended our full day by making a tuna pasta dish on the camp stove in the dark and then we crashed. We had a somewhat restless night due to warmer temperatures and the fact that we had located the tent close enough to a tree that when the wind picked up our tent was pelted with twigs and leaves. When Sunday morning finally rolled around we decided to check out the sunrise at the Twelve Apostles to see how it compared to the sunset. Sunday welcomed us with high winds and a sky full of clouds so, needless to say, it wasn't exactly the sunrise we had envisioned!

We spent Sunday morning visiting a few more sites on the Great Ocean Road - the Arch, the Grotto, and the Bay of Islands - then we stopped at Cheese World in Allansford to try out some of the Great Ocean Road cheeses. We spent the afternoon in Port Fairy at the Folks Festival. Tickets for the main festival were sold out, but there were four or five free stages along with vendors and street performers throughout downtown so we had plenty to keep us busy.

We headed back to Warrnambool for the night, where we were invited to stay at Sue and Pete's house. Sue is Frank's sister - Frank is a friend from Josh's bicycling group - and we met Sue and Pete at the trivia dinner back in February. Anyway, they had a beautiful home with a tennis court in the backyard! Their daughter, Emily, was at home for the weekend competing in a tennis tournament so we were able to meet her as well. She recently returned to Australia from the States (she went to college in Kansas and then worked a year in Orlando) and is now living in Melbourne. We had a wonderful dinner at a local restaurant with other cycling friends of Sue and Pete, and then we enjoyed a very restful sleep!

Monday morning we were up early again and, after a brisk look at Thunder Point in Warnnambool, we made our way back to Melbourne. We took the inland highway instead of retracing our tracks on the Great Ocean Road for the trip back (it is much faster that way). We did stop in Geelong to take a nice walk along the waterfront, but beyond that we pretty much made a bee-line for home so we could get unpacked and set for the week ahead. We were very happy with our first real Australian holiday excursion!