Great Ocean Road Trip!
Trip Start
Mar 04, 2010
1
35
Trip End
Jul 17, 2010
Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Returned from my Great Ocean Road Trip now. It's been a brilliant few days, very mentally tiring with all the driving but all the views have been amazing. Benjy, Steph and Katie arrived in Melbourne Wednesday morning, so I stayed in the city with them for a couple of nights until they recovered from the flight.
We hired a car from Melbourne on Friday morning (a little automatic Nissan Micra!) and drove down to Torquay for our first stop. Walked along the beach, took some piccies, then headed to Bells Beach and stopped for our picnic lunch. Then on to Lorne, stopped for coffee and icecream, and drove to Erskine Falls. Back on the road, along a very coastal windy 'Great Ocean Road', to Apollo Bay. It was about 3:45 by this time, and we had heard that it's best to see the 12 Apostles at Sunset or sunrise.. (sunrise was out of the question!) so we kept driving and raced against the sun to reach the 12 Apostles for 5:30pm. We got there with minutes to spare, it was really beautiful, got a few photos and the sun was gone! So then I drove us back to Apollo bay in the dark, and arrived at the YHA Eco lodge at 7pm.
Apollo Bay
The man on reception was lovely, and recommended the Apollo Bay Seafood Cafe for the best fish & chips in town. So we dumped our bags and headed out for din-dins. The hostel was really cool, purpose built, energy saving gadgets everywhere! We sat in the lounge next to the fire and wrote our diaries after tea, then went to bed.
Saturday
We woke on Saturday to some very noisy wind and rain! So we decided to get in the car after breakfast and get some driving done. Went up to Cape Otway, walked to the lighthouse, and saw Whales in the ocean!! Driving back we also saw koalas in the trees by the road. Next stops were Gibson Steps, 12 Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge, The Grotto and Thunder Cave. After lots of sightseeing of amazing rock formations, we carried on driving to Warrnambool.
Arrived at our hostel, and were greeted by the manager, who told us there would be homemade soup served in a few minutes, lovely! Nipped to the supermarket after dinner and got a bottle of wine (or two) and went back to the hostel to relax for the evening.
Next day, we drove on a little further to Port Fairy and walked round Griffiths Island, spotted Wallaby and had an icecream. Then started the long drive back to melbourne. Stopped in Terang next to a bowling green for our picnic lunch, then Colac for petrol and saw Lake Colac, then back on the road to Melbourne. Checked back into Urban Central and went out to ChinaTown for dinner.
Awesome last weekend in Australia! xx
Comments
Really cool adventure cant believe its over...ish!