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Published: April 7th 2014
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Today is the return portion of our trip along the Great Ocean Road and also the last real day of our vacation, so we are going to try to enjoy it as much as possible. But there is a lot happening today, so read all about it!
Sunrise crept in our villa window and was very pretty. We got up and repacked our stuff to be ready to leave the hotel at 7:40. That gave us a little time to clean up a few of the pictures and work on the overdue blog entries. Since we have no internet service here, everything had to wait until we got back to Melbourne tonight. When we took our stuff out the van, Urs came out and said they had a visitor outside their balcony. We all went in and saw a koala in the tree, probably about 15 feet from their balcony. It was asleep but we got one more view of these cute animals (this one was certainly wild). Then we all got on the van and headed for Apollo Bay for breakkie.
We drove down to town and had a “proper breakfast”. Janet had fried
eggs and bacon, which she made into a sandwich using her toast. David had blueberry pancakes and a side of bacon. We both got orange juice and we had tea and milk respectively. The others had similarly large breakfasts, so we were fueled up for the morning.
We drove for about 1 ½ hours through the Great Otway National Park. This is a heavily forested region with lots of tall trees and Jorgen drove twists and turns through the mountain roads – yes we were diverting away from the coast for a while. Then we emerged into a farming area which marked the beginning of cattle and sheep farms, with same fields having them intermixed. We then emerged back onto the coast and soon after we reached the 12 Apostles. These are blocks of sedimentary rock (either limestone or sandstone) from hundreds of thousands of years ago. The water and wind have eroded the land around them, and now they stand as pillars out in the surf. Jorgen explained the history of their development and how they eventually will fall into the sea, but for now they are quite impressive. After about half an hour we drove
Janet & David
at 12 Apostles a short distance down the coast.
We arrived at another lookout where the clipper ship Loch Ard had been wrecked in 1878. The ship had strayed too close to the coast and was drawn onto the shoals and crashed into rocky coast. Of the 54 people aboard, 52 drowned and the two survivors were very lucky for that. This area lies between the southern tip of Australia and King Island, called the Brest Straits. This area is renowned for treacherous sailing and rapidly changing conditions. Even today, shipping stays well clear of this section of coastline. We viewed the area for about 40 minutes and then headed back down the coast.
A short distance further we stopped at Mutton Bird Island. This is another paramount standing in the sea, a couple of hundred meters distant from the main shore. This was a scenic location for us to have the morning tea break. Jorgen had brought hot water and tea or coffee “makings”, along with a variety of cookies. Janet and the others really enjoyed these tea breaks, and David certainly enjoyed the cookies (he doesn’t drink hot drinks). Then we were back in the
van and down the coast another short distance to Port Campbell, but this was just to use the restroom facilities.
Our next stop was another short distance along at a place called London Bridge. This used to be two pillars with arching structures connecting them to the shore. Around 1990 the inner connection collapsed so now there is one arch between the pillars, but no connection to the coast. Back when the first arch collapsed, there were two people out on the second arch and they were stranded for quite some time until they could be rescued by helicopter. Jorgen explained that the southern shore is gradually eroding by about an inch a year, and eventually all the existing mounts out in the sea will collapse and dissolve. However the existing shore is also eroding and will someday form a new set of arches and pillars for future generations to appreciate.
We made another stop at Peterborough and again at Bay of Martyrs, and once again at Bay of Islands. Each of these were impressive in their own right, but began to look similar as well. Each was a short distance down the road,
but each required getting in and out of the van, which got to be a bit tedious. We are glad that Jorgen showed us all of them, as they cannot be properly described (and probably not adequately photographed either), but even so they began to become a little repetitive. Along the way Jorgen took pictures of everyone, and he particularly seemed to like David’s camera.
One surprising item we want to mention is that frequently we encountered signs which said “Drive on the Left in Australia”. Maybe when tourists come to these locations and drive off in awe, they forget which side and maybe cause accidents. These signs were not common elsewhere in Australia. We also saw signs showing a picture of a kangaroo or a koala, and a distance ahead where they may be in the road. Elsewhere there were signs with both a cow and a sheep. So stay alert when driving on the left in southern Australia!
Our final stop with Jorgen and the others was at the Cheese World cheese factory in Allansford. This is one of the major cheese producers in Australia and has won many awards for their
quality. It is also the place when Jorgen was planning to have us leave the van and the others continued on toward Adelaide (2 days further to the west). His boss (Pierre) arrived to pick us up and drive us back to Melbourne. We had a nice lunch of tasty cheeses and crackers, fruit and nuts, as well as some iced tea for lunch (it was about 2:30 by now). The group did not leave until the second car had arrived and we all said our goodbyes, but it was a little unnerving until everything was completed.
Pierre drove about 3 hours out from Melbourne specifically to collect us and drive us back to town. If he had not done so, then we would not have been able to take the tour in the first place. But it was a more comfortable drive back into town and we got back to the hotel at 6:00.
We were on floor 5 the first time, but tonight we have been moved up to floor 22. We collected the luggage we had left in the “checked baggage” and are repacking everything to meet airline rules for tomorrow.
That will be the actual end of our vacation as we have a long flight back home. Watch for one more entry telling about any adventures flying home tomorrow. Anyway, we took a break and went down to the casino to eat a light dinner.
We logged on and checked our emails from the last two days and replied as needed. Janet took advantage of the time difference and was able to register for the next session of yoga. Registration began at midnight on Monday back home but worked in the evening here. One of the many comments we got about the blog was from our grandchildren saying it was strange each morning to read what Granddad and Grandma had done on the day they were just beginning. The time difference here is really strange and will certainly make tomorrow a long day.
By the way, we have an enormous number of pictures and videos, so nobody should expect to see a finished product anytime soon. What you see in the blog is probably what you will get for the near future.
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Richardson
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Thanks for sharing your trip with us. We have enjoyed the travels!