Easter & the Great Ocean Road......

Since we arrived in Australia, we'd been threatening to take ourselves down the Great Ocean Road, and visit some of the beautiful spots which everyone raves about, so we booked some accommodation and set-off to spend a few days over Easter checking out somewhere new.

We set-off on Friday morning and loaded up the car with all our stuff and some provisions. We drove through to Lorne, which a holiday town, just past where we were staying, with the idea of getting some lunch and letting the kids play on the sea-front in the playground and skate park (Ryan, Josh and Alex have become experts on their scooters). Lorne is beautiful with a big sweeping bay and beach, lovely white soft sand and the perfect waves to learn to surf. We grabbed some lunch and then head off to our accommodation.

I booked our accommodation on the net, so wasn't really sure what to expect, but we stayed at a lovely villa, about 1.5hrs away from our house in point cook, and only 5 minutes from the beach. Airey's Inlet, is a small holiday location, with a camp-site, a few houses and shops and a lighthouse dominating the cliff tops. The villa had 3 bedrooms and a living/dining/kitch area with a big gas fire, just nice for when the temperature drops in the evening. The accommodation was really nice, with tennis courts and swimming pool, with a spa (which was heated). The kids, as you might guess, wanted to jump in there immediately, so we had to get the bags out and pull out their swimming stuff. They got changed quickly, which isn't the normal, and ran over to the spa pool and jumped in. Luckily the weather had really brightened up and so Stef & I grabbed a couple of sun beds and enjoyed the sunshine.
Afterwards, we decided to go for a walk and see if we could find somewhere to eat. We walked up to the lighthouse, and onto the cliff tops and the kids loved the complex of little paths and bushes for hide and seek. Airey's Inlet is very quiet location, with not much going on, so not many places available to eat. We did find a lovely greek style resturant, so we called in and had our dinner. Kids were shattered, so afterwards, just made our way home to get them into bed and relax with a glass of wine and a beer for Stef.

The following day, we decided to explore the local area. There are some waterfalls nearby in Lorne, about 15mins drive away from where we were staying, so we packed up a pinic and made our way to the water-falls. When we finally arrived, after driving through the forest for what seemed like an age, we had to tog up in our jumpers, as it was quite chilly on the forest floor. We walked down, and down 300+ steps to get to the bottom, of the waterfall to find it was only a little trickle!! It is very dry in Australia! So we decided to go "bush walking" following the stream down the valley in the "bush". It was really a tricky route with fallen trees and rocks and undergrowth everywhere. The kids loved it, Alex liked to be an adventurer and was leading the way. Now and again we'd come across some tree vines, like tarzan, so the kids pretended they were tarzan and tried to swing through the trees, but it's a lot harder than tarzan makes it look!! I had a go too, so I take my hat off to tarzan who must have been practising for some time!!

After our adventure in the bush, we stopped at a nearby pinic site and ate our pinic. After our adventure in the bush, we returning to our little villa and grabbed something to eat. After dinner, we told the kids that there was a easter egg hunt at the lighthouse, so we walked up the top of the cliff and the kids managed to "find" a whole bunch of little brightly coloured eggs. They were really impressed that the easter bunny had been busy early so they could have some fun! after our easter egg hunt we went down to the beach and checked-out the wild life and the rock pools. The beach was beautiful, and the sea so very clean you could quite easily miss the pools they were almost invisible.

The following day was easter sunday, and good old easter bunny had been good enough to plant even more eggs and treats around the villa for the kids. Kids were up nice and early to find them all!! urgghh?! We checked out of our accommodation and decided to go to this spot where they did a tree top walk in the forest. It was a long drive down the great ocean road but the views were really great, with some beautiful villages and holiday parks to stay. In the summer it would be very nice. After several hours we did manage to get to the place. It was really good, and the kids loved the climb to the top of the walk to get a good view in the tree tops. It was another sunny day, but once again chilly at the bottom, where the sun didn't get to shine.

We had a great weekend, adventuring, but shattered and ready for a break, but unfortunately back to work for both of us!

The weather was sunny and bright for most of the long weekend, and about 22degrees, but not quite bikini weather.

P.S. Sorry about the photo quality, but our Camera has broken, so they are snaps from my phone.

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