The Great Ocean Road

Easter brought with it a five-day weekend, so a group of us packed our bags and went to Melbourne!  We were out for the cheapest possible everything, so we flew down with Tiger Airways which was super dodgy (we got on and off the plane on the tarmac, and in Melbourne, the luggage claim looked more like a trailor) and stayed at the Greenhouse Backpacker which was super nice.  We arrived Friday night and caught a tour Saturday morning for the Great Ocean Road at a much earlier hour than any of us really wanted.                                                              

We were on a bus at 7:20 to make the three+ hour trip to the points of interest along the way.  We took the inland route to the furthest point of our journey, going through open countryside full of rolling hills covered in sheep and dairy cattle.  Victoria/South Australia are to Australia as Wisconsin/California are to the US-- cows, cows, cows.  As we got closer to the coast there was mostly bush, some of which had recently been burned back for environmental regulation, making for an interesting sight.

Our first stop was the impressive "London Bridge."  Earlier, the island part had been connected to the rest of the land with a second arc making it look like its namesake in England, but in 1990, part of the London Bridge fell down.  There were actually a man and woman on the far tip at the time of the collapse who had to call a helicopter to get back to land.   To make the story more interesting, the man had called in sick to work that day and the woman with him was not exactly the woman he was married to.  

 Next stop was Loch Ard Gorge, named from the Loch Ard, a ship that wrecked just off the coast from there with only two teenage survivors.  The erosion is so impressive- the wind and water have had its way with the coastline, and it blows my mind how the cliffs just go straight down.  Bits collapse every once and a while, but after a few years the rubble diminishes to sand and nothing remains.

     

Even more impressive are the Twelve Apostles, our next stop.  There are not actually twelve, more like eight, and there have only ever been ten, but it makes for a nice name.  These pillars are bits of the coastline that somehow managed to survive this long, now isolated off from the shore.  

We left the coast for a bit to drive inland to part of the local rain forest, which was beautiful, of course.  

Moving onward, we drove through the the town of Apollo Bay on Cape Otway, a cute little place situated among rolling hills where the Bass Strait and the Great Australian Bight meet, the closest to Antarctica that I'll get, for now at least ;)

Our tour made a pit stop at a small park/camp ground where we were able to stretch our legs, but all the while looking out for drop bears.  Constant vigilance!!  You never know when one will just come at you from their lofty perch.

Silliness aside, we got to see koalas!  There were just hanging out, munching on gum leaves, taking it easy.  You can see one of the little grey bundles in a tree below.  There were actually a few trees spotting the hillsides that were dead, and our guide blamed the koalas-- they eat heaps of leaves every day, so if a few attack a tree, it's a goner.  Koalas= vicious killing machines.

We finished up at a lighthouse lookout for sunset, making a lovely ending to a lovely day.  We had about seven hours or so clocked in on the road that day, which was rather exhausting but worth it!