Melbourne to Port Campbell, Australia, along the Great Ocean Road

Me at the Tweleve Apostles (facing 2 of the 9 that are left)

We were up early, early, early today due to city parking issues and not wanting to pay extra money. After our lovely middle-of-the-night fire drill, and getting up at 5 a.m., we were not exactly ready and raring to go this morning. We had gone to bed fairly early knowing that we were getting up early, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. One thing that I DID NOT enjoy was the lack of coffee! It was barely dawn (and mostly dark out) as we were leaving Melbourne, so we figured we’d make it to the Koala Café in plenty of time for breakfast!

The drive to the Koala Cove Café was much longer than originally thought. We got there at 9am…great for breakfast time, not so great for our hungry stomachs! Part of it was our own fault at we made a several stops at overlooks, the Memorial Arch, and two spontaneous hikes (one of which was to a waterfall) along the way. The lookouts were quick stops to take in the view, stretch our legs, and get a few pictures.

The hike down to The Gulch was short and well worth it. It was a short hike down to the beach, but the last little ways was all sand, and down a pretty steep hill. Again, it was well worth it as we had a beautiful, very large stretch of beach pretty much to ourselves! We did some walking, shell collecting, and writing in the sand!

The spot we were at was like a huge cove, with points jutting out to the right and left of us. The point to the right had a lighthouse on it. We gave no thought to the downhill walk in the sand when we were going to the beach, but going back up to the parking lot was pretty funny! The hill is steeper than it looks in the picture. I took it running, got to the top, and took the picture of Caytie trying to trudge her way up it!

The next stop was at the Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch. I’m going to diverge from my trip information, and give a little history of the GOR here. The GOR Trust was set up to raise funds and employ soldiers and sailors returning from WWI (where 64% of those ANZAC soldiers and sailors who had gone to war did not return) to dig out a costal route to link Melbourne and Adelaide, and to provide a beautiful drive to entice tourists to the region. Soldiers started work in August 1918 with surveying the road’s route. However, due to the difficult terrain, by March 1919, only 10 miles had been successfully pegged out. The first charge was detonated on September 19, 1919, and soldiers and sailors went to work with pick and shovel digging a 100-mile coastal road. During the 13-year construction period, nearly 3,000 returned soldiers labored on the GOR. The entire stretch of road from Geelong to Warranbool was completed on April 27, 1932. The GOR is the world’s largest war memorial, as it is dotted with numerous structures that honor the memory of those who lost their lives fighting in WWI and other wars.

OK, history lesson over. :) We stopped at the Arch to read the signs and get a few pictures. We continued on along the road, which hugged the curve of the coast. I pulled over at Cape Patton for another picture (surprise) of the coast. This was an awesome spot for a view of the long coast line.

Our final stop before breakfast was at Carisbrook Falls in the Great Otway National Park, the highest falls along the GOR (although the falls are not vertical, but fall along the rock side and down the mountain into the creek below). The hike was uphill to the falls, which is the kind of hike that I enjoy because then the way back is downhill! The walk was along the side of a hill on a path that had been dug out, following the Carisbrook Creek below. Being extremely hungry by this time, we didn’t linger too long at the falls before we hiked back to our car.

Our next stop was breakfast at the Koala Cove Café in Kennett River. Yummmm is about all I can say. Part of it, I’m sure, is that it was 9am by the time we got there, and I’d not eaten or had any coffee as of yet. But my breakfast (”Brekkie”) sandwich was AWESOME! English muffin, rasher bacon, egg, tomato, and “tomato sauce” equals delish! I was so hungry and it was so good, I think I ate it in about 2 minutes.

After about a half hour, we moved on to our next stop, Mait’s Rest Rainforest Walk. The walk was beautiful! It was mostly a shaded walk, with the sun poking through the canopy every once in a while. It was a fairly easy walk too, and only about 45 minutes long (with stops for pictures). There were very few people around, which was even better. We only came across two other groups on the whole walk!

There were giant ferns, along with Euclyaptus and giant Myrtle Beech trees towering over the ferns! The Myrtle Beech trees are some of the oldest trees in the area. The rainforest is inundated with trees, some of which were being reclaimed by the forest. I was even able to stand under a tree whose roots had (a sign told me) grown around a fallen tree, which then was reclaimed back into the land. It was thoroughly restful and beautiful time. Probably one of the most unique things we did/saw in Australia.
Next we headed to the Cape Otway Lightstation, especially since we were told at one of the Information centers that the drive down to it had tons of Koalas just hanging about in the trees. The drive down to the tip/coast where the lighthouse was at took about 45 minutes. It was a fairly narrow road (not as bad as McKillop’s Road, however) and tree lined. It was gorgeous!

We had planned to go to the lighthouse and take a short walk on the beach, but once we got there, we found out it was going to cost us $16 each to go to the lighthouse, so we passed. The 45 minute trip was not a waste of time, however, because on our way down, we saw some people pulled over to the side of the road with cameras out, pointed at the trees. That’s right, KOALAS! We saw about 20 between the two different stops on our way down, and it was so cool to see them in the wild!

Our next stop on our journey along the Great Ocean Road was at Gibson Steps. We decided not to go down the bazillion steps to the beach, but we went to the overlook and took a few pictures. Because we were so close to The 12 Apostles, we decided to do our walking around there. We didn’t realize, however, that there wasn’t any down-on-the-beach walking, it was all pathways built along the top of the cliffs overlooking the shoreline with views of The 12 Apostles (of which there are only 9 left standing).

The beaches all along the GOR were beautiful, but the ones around The 12 Apostles were especially beautiful and pristine. The 12 Apostles are limestone rocks sticking straight up out of the ocean, and they were awesome. The cliffs and rocks were a gorgeous yellow and the water itself was a beautiful royal and teal blue, depending on where you looked! We looked around, took some photos, and then decided that we had plenty of time to look at the other tourist spots between The 12 Apostles and Port Campbell (our hostel location, about 20 minutes away), and then come back at sunset to get some photos of The 12 Apostles then.

We drove about 500 meters down the GOR to the next parking lot and walked out to the Loch Ard Gorge. The Loch Ard was a ship that wrecked on the cliffs near Port Campbell in 1878 killing all but two of the passengers and crew due to a mist so heavy, they couldn’t see the lighthouse. The two survivors ended up washed up on shore in the gorge. Caytie and I read the signs about the wreck, and then took the stairs down to the beach. It was beautiful! The sand and cliffs were yellow, and the water a beautiful teal. We spent a short while on the beach taking photos and looking at the cave the survivors spent the night in, and then headed back up top.

From that same parking lot, we walked down a path towards Mutton Bird Island and Thunder Cave. We couldn’t get out to view the island because the path was closed off, but we could see it from the main path. Off one of the lookouts, we were also able to see back to the beach where we had stood (Loch Ard Gorge). The cave was similar to the beach in that it was between to juts of cliffs, but there was no sandy beach, only a cave where the water crashed into it making a really loud sound (hence the name, Thunder Cave).

By the end of all these walks (about 2 hours later), my foot was pretty sore. We decided to head on to Port Campbell and check into our hotel for a short rest and to have dinner. We found an extremely small grocery store and got some bread, fruit, and more PB&J. The place we were staying was a backpacker’s hostel. It was a house that had all the bedrooms with multiple bunks, 2 bathrooms, and a kitchen. We had a twin private because we hadn’t wanted to share with anyone, but we could have done one of the bunk rooms with the ocean view and been fine because there was NO ONE else there! It was great! After walking down the main street of the “town” to the grocery store and eating dinner (surprise, surprise…PB&J!), we headed back out to The 12 Apostles.

It was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL! It was misty out, and the reflection of the sunset in the mist was awesome! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!

We stayed to watch the sun go all the way down over the horizon, and we also got to see a beautiful moon rise with the sunset reflecting in the sky!

The ride home was in the dark, and I don’t think I have ever driven through so many bugs in my life! We could barely see out the windshield after the 20 minute drive back to the hostel!

Another beautiful shot of my swollen and purple foot!