Great Ocean Road - Victoria

14 Great Ocean Road (Sun. Feb. 15)

We are starting today like many of the other days so far on this trip; up at 6:00AM. We are going on a tour Carmen and I bought that is not included with the regular package. Today is a free day and did not want to just walk around town; we rode around town in the bus yesterday and also walked around quite awhile and did not want to do that again.


We had a choice of several tours that we could have done: go see the nightly penguin parade at Summerland Beach on French Island (there is a long and a short trip - the reason we did not choose this is because they do not allow you to take pictures with your camera), A train ride to the Dandenong Range, a wildlife tour (we are going to do one of these with the tour tomorrow), a wine tasting tour ($162 is a little steep with Carmen not drinking), so we chose to do the Great Ocean Road tour. This tour does go to one of the sites we were interested in anyways. We travel the coast road and eventually get to the rock formations known as the Twelve Apostles and also London Bridge.

We head down to breakfast at 6:45 as we are to meet our tour guide for 7:15. From the people with us on the tour, Carmen and I are the only ones who are taking this trip. Others, are going to go see the Penguins or just staying around town. We get to the location the bus will leave, get on and after several minutes the driver heads out of Melbourne; we start our Great Ocean Road drive.

The coast we will pass has cliffs, rock outcroppings and over 300 shipwrecks. We will also pass through portions of rain forest and farm lands.

As we make our way out of Melbourne the driver, Colin, talks a little about the history of Melbourne. Like most of the major towns in Australia, Melbourne was founded for the most part by convicts from England. (Convicts were shipped to Australia when around 1780 they were no longer sent to America; something about a war England lost.) As we go by them, Colin indicates that many of the old buildings in town are made from the blue sandstone which is mostly the bedrock in the area.

We later pass an oil refinery, cut tree logs and wood chips, warehouses for grains and other stuff for shipping from the Coria Bay shipping port just outside of Melbourne. If we look back behind or to the left, depending on the bus location, you can see Melbourne on the other side of the bay. From here we head to Torquay (meaning "Swampy Creek") although it is no longer very swampy, but instead it is now a holiday (as a vacation is called here) destination.

By 10:00 AM we are at Torquay and Front Beach (the Surfing Capital as the sign says). Population in this town swells from 9,000 residents to about 90,000 on weekends during the summer season. This is one of our "tea and biscuit" stops and other things if you need to. This is a pretty nice beach. Carmen and I head down to the beach for some pictures and also watch people trying to surf and sail surf. After we get on the bus and head out of town, the driver spots a number of kangaroos (which can grow to six feet tall) in a field. There are six or so and the driver says that the female can determine the sex of the baby. Usually the female will have girls for the first few years then have male baby afterwards. The males can get as tall as 6 ft. and run 39k.

After an hour of driving along the coast road and seeing the beaches, sandstone cliffs, rocky shore and more, we come to Bells Beach. This is supposedly the beach in the last scene of the movie Point Break where Patrick Swayze's character goes surfing and dies in the 40 foot waves. Like many of the sandy places along the shore so far, nice beach.

As we continue, we pass an Okidna that is usually not seen very often. It looks like a very small porcupine, but it is in the anteater family. Cute little thing, but don't touch because like a porcupine they have quills.

We also see Eucalyptus trees and the oils are used for head colds, sinus, motion sickness. And around here the Driver mentions the poisonous snakes in Australia; namely the death atter and the tarpen snake is only about 3 ft. long. But deadly.

Again we follow the road past beaches, bluffs, rocky coastline heading to Fairhaven and drive by Split Point Lighthouse. Build in 1891, Split Point Lighthouse can be seen 30 km out to sea. The Town of Fair Haven has a beautiful long and deep beach to the water, tide is out, sand is tan in color so soft, like flour. Vacation homes are built on the cliff across the road and have a spectacular view of the ocean.

A little further along the road we come to the Memorial Arch. This coastal road was built by soldiers coming back from WW1 and this sight was the location of the tool booths and was finished in 1939, widened in 1974, burnt down in 1983 and rebuilt in 1991. (I am providing a picture of the commemorative plaque. It does show much of the shoreline we are passing along with several of the ship wrecks that have occurred in the past.) Memorial Arch is the location of the first toll booths for the road after it was built.

Of course there is a beach here at the Memorial Arch and we do go out to see the beach area. The sand here is very fine and soft like a powder or flour. The beach sweeps around in a large curve and from here you can see the lighthouse in the distance on the left and another point to the right.

Back on the bus, we begin climbing a mountain heading away from the beach, 97m above sea level (300 ft.). Shortly and after several turns we are back overlooking the ocean. It is beautiful. We are now going through National Park Lands and the houses that are here cannot be sold, they must be sold back to the National, but the houses can be passed from one generation to another.

We pass lookouts and places like: Cinema Point, Bog Hill, and finally The Springs (sight of the last Toll Gate), Lorne and then Mantra. We pass more beaches, sandstone bluffs and cliffs, and rocky shoreline and even pass a number of locations where waterfalls would be (none are flowing at the moment because there has not been much rain here).

A section of the rocky coastline, named Artillery Rocks, comes along our route. The bus driver (and tour guide) says the tide is very low at the moment and points to a pipe and drum embedded into the rocks. He indicates this is from one of the ship wrecks and the pipe is part of the anchor and the drum is part of something else (I forget what he said). But, both pieces are embedded and has become part of the rock and can not be lifted out. You can also see other parts of what was a ship. Along this area is a narrow two lane road with cliffs to our right and drop offs to the ocean. It gorgeous. It reminds me of the Pacific Coast Highway in California.

Our next stop is at Kennett River, for a necessity break and to view some wild Koalas. We are indeed fortunate because we are able to see some of them. Of course they are all sleeping, but at least they are there. We (the driver actually) finds one asleep in a short tree that is fairly low to the ground and we are able to view it fairly close. Look at the claws it has, no wonder it does not fall out of the tree! (All they do is eat and sleep; reminds me of a cat we once had.)
So we get back on the bus and soon we pass a section of the road that has trees the Koalas like to eat. The bus is going relatively slow so everyone can be on the lookout for any Koala. A number of them are spotted, but it is difficult to get a picture of them because they are up in the trees, close to the road and we are still moving.

Next we continue past Cape Patton lookout. We do not stop because there are cars parked in the way and there is no place for our big bus. The driver does go more slowly around the turn so everyone has a chance to see the view. The beach here is rocky with sand way in the background, but the coast is really nice - reminds me of California.

12:25 - We are going through a shower to Apollo Bay - tourist destination only, a large beach where you can walk on it for miles. The bay is horseshoe shaped and there is a small jetty. By the time we stop, the sun is back out and it is hot.

At Apollo Bay we stop for lunch and will have an hour to eat and walk around. Carmen and I just buy a couple of sandwiches at a deli and go sit at the picnic tables by the beach. After eating we headed to the beach and here like several other beaches we have stopped at the, sand is very soft and fine. (Here is a good looking guy on the beach now.) There are a couple of people trying to surf (it looks like they are new to the sport) and also a couple of para-surfers. We walk along the beach come to the marina and swing around town to get back to the bus (our lunch time is quickly running out).


Back on the bus we continue along the road which now turns inland away from the coast for a number of kilometers, through the Great Otway National Park. This section of the road is rain forest. We can look down at Apollo Bay and it is spectacular. We can also see all the valley and hills between the trees; in this area they are very tall and large, Mountain Ash, fern trees, etc. This forest has not been harvested. Along this section of the road there are many turn offs leading to places like Castle Cove Lookout, Otways Waterfalls & Forest Drive, the Otway Treetop Walk, and the Historic Shipwrecks Trail and a place called Gibsons Steps.


We make it back to the coastline and come to the lookout location for the Twelve Apostles. We have fifteen minutes to go to the bathroom and also view the Apostles. Well let me tell you, Carmen and I just made it back in time. We were not the last, only just. The rock formation are really fantastic. (Similar but different from the rock outcroppings in Oregon.)

Our next stop is to drop some people off at the helicopter pad just up the road and then we go to Loch Ard Gorge (named after the clipper Loch Ard (wrecked here in 1878), the Blow Hole, and Thunder Cave, just a few kilometers down the road. We have only about an hour to see this site location, but if you read the information and trail sign, it indicates you need 2-3 hours to walk them all. (The people on the helicopter ride will meet us here in about a half hour.) Here are more of the Apostles coming straight out of the water. There is also a section of land cut off from the rest of the ground which has a couple of arches carved out. Soon these will end up being new Apostles at some time. There is one piece out in the water called the Razorback because of it's sharp points.

The strangest thing, in the parking lot is a small camper van with "Wicked" painted on the front. Oh, and here's Carmen heading back to the bus we are driving around in. As you can see it is not hard to tell which bus is ours - now ain't that wicked?

Before we reach Port Campbell Nat. Park we go through a swamp area with Swans in it. We stop for a break in Port Campbell which is a small fishing village. It is just beautiful with the cliffs on both sides. The surf here is pretty high and no one is out surfing. After a 20 minute stop we're back on the bus and bound for "The London Bridge" arch.

We arrive at London Bridge in the water was once connected to the mainland by another arch. In January 1990 the main arch connecting London Bridge to the mainland cracked and fell into the sea. Fortunately no one was injured, but two people were stranded out on the new island and had to be rescued by helicopter. (Not this happy, good-looking couple a different couple got stranded.)

As the sun breaks through the clouds, the driver brings us to Two Mile Bay lookout for a five minute stop, take a picture then back on the bus. From here we can see all the way back to the Apostles. Of course we are here for about ten minutes.

From here our route will take us inland back to Melbourne. We travel through farm lands getting back to Melbourne at sunset. Once we get on A1 we go through a number of small towns with one main road and lots of old original buildings. It has been a long day with many good locations visited. The coast was simply magnificent, very rocky with nice fine sandy beaches, and nice outcroppings.

Commentary as always is by both Carmen and Bob. G'day Mate!