Australia - The Great Ocean Road and the Grampian Highlands – The twelve apostles, London Bridge and a random night where we shared our worst nightmare toilet scenarios!! Truly an Oz experience. Oh and not forgetting my first sightings of Koalas an

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Australia – The Great Ocean Road and the Grampian Highlands – The twelve apostles, London Bridge and a random night where we shared our worst nightmare toilet scenarios!! Truly an Oz experience. Oh and not forgetting my first sightings of Koalas and Kangaroos.

With all my tours booked it was time to start the first one, as the bus rocked up to my hostel at stupid o’clock in the morning I was the first on board and sadly for me feeling rough as hell. I had only been out for a couple of beers the night before but something was disagreeing with me. As we made our way to the next pick up point I was fighting my body not to throw up within the first 1km of the 260km ahead. Thankfully I held it together and got to the final pick up point and grabbed a much needed coffee and ham/cheese toastie. I don’t ever suffer from travel sickness and we had three days of driving ahead of us so I was praying to the vomit gods to make my stomach feel less like a washing machine. The food and drink did the trick and within a couple of hours I was back to normal and very relieved because this was not the introduction I really wanted to a new group of travellers.

The tour I had embarked on was a slow drive down the Great Ocean Road followed by a day in the Grampian mountain range. The bus was a twenty one seater and we had just fourteen people on the tour so it was surprisingly comfortable and spacious on the bus. The group I was travelling with were brilliant, there was pretty much an instant bond between all of us and the friendships and good times grew as we got to know each other better, I could not have asked for a better group to hang out with, it was a fantastic three days and a huge thank you to our tour guide and driver Rob who made the trip unforgettable.

Back to the tour, we kicked off with a drive out of Melbourne along the coast stopping at various vantage points and coastal towns such as Lorne and Apollo, sadly on the first morning it was a little over cast and cloudy with some rain but thankfully this cleared up and left us with perfect sunshine and blue skies for the remainder of the tour. The scenery along the way just seemed to get better and better and considering it started off beautiful it was simply spectacular by the time we reached the twelve apostles. I will leave the photos to explain the sights and views but it was breathe taking and left most of us just wanting to jump in and go for a swim in the rich blue sea.

On day one we stopped for lunch at an historical light house and of course had a BBQ which was really needed by this point as we were all pretty hungry. We looked around and took our photos and I found a distress call flag that raised a smile, as you can see from the photo’s I will always know how to get a tug when I need one!

We stopped at so many beautiful spots along the Coast it was over whelming, we also went on a rainforest walk and our final stop was the twelve apostles which as you will see are rather special. After checking into our hostel for the night we collected our pre-ordered pizza and beers and headed back to a place called Gibson’s Steps to sit on the beach with a slice in one hand and a beer in the other and watch the sunset with the twelve apostles in the back ground, it was a brilliant night and a perfect end to a great day. By this point I was really loving the coastal tour and the new friends I had made and couldn’t wait for the second day.

Day two kicked off early again and we took in a full day on the Great Ocean Road stopping at many more places of interest where I saw my first Koalas and Kangaroo’s. They are both very cool animals and are at the top of my “cool animals I want” list but still just behind the Panda. Along the way we also stopped at London Bridge which was beautiful. It’s very strange driving around the roads here and many other parts of Australia because so many places are named after a lot of English towns and cities such as the Norfolk Islands, Epping, Newcastle and the Grampians (ok Scottish I know before you say it.)

With the end of the Great Ocean Road completed we made our way to the Grampian Highlands and Tower Hill to check out the views of some of the oldest recorded mountains in the world. As you will see it was beautiful and seemed to go on for as far as the eye could see, so in my case about thirty meters! At this point we were treated to another session of “Rob’s Story time” where he imparted some of his knowledge about the aboriginal history onto us, it’s fair to say he knows his stuff and has a great way of passing the information over, very informative and a great laugh always ending with a story about how some species of animal has sex! Male Koalas you are bad boys, feel free to look it up if you’re curious??

Are final stop on the tour was Mackenzie Falls to soak up the views and spray before heading back to Melbourne. It was a lovely waterfall and I think we all felt a bit disappointed that the trip was going to be ending soon.

But thankfully for us Rob had a couple of small add ons for us, we stopped for a bit of Yabbie fishing but sadly no one caught anything so you could say we stopped for a bit of net throwing and we also went for a bit of a wine tasting session as well. What a great way to end a perfect trip with everyone enjoying a nice glass of locally produced wine it’s just a shame there were no yabbies’ to go with it.

As I’m sure you can tell this was a fantastic trip made extra special by the tour guide and my group! I had an amazing time and have been truly spoilt by the sights and beauty of the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians, a real must see if you are here, don’t miss it out!

So my love of all things Australian continues, after a quick stop over in Melbourne I will be hopping on board the Greyhound bus to make my way to Sydney, I cannot wait!

Oh shit I’ve just realised I missed out something I mentioned in the title of the blog, basically on the second night after a few beers we all decided to recount our toilet nightmare situations, it’s fair to say I heard some hideous accounts and learnt many new things about my fellow travellers, you bunch of weirdoes and that includes me!!

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