One of the best Drives in the World

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Geo: -37.8143, 144.963

Woke up in the morning with a swelling the size of a pigeons egg on my forehead it looks awful, although the heat has died down and there's no itching or pain other than the tightness of the skin.

We're off along the Great Ocean Road today (GOR) first stop though was back to Logan Beach just on the off chance the whales may have turned up, unfortunately they hadn't, much to the disappointment of all.

Our first stop on the GOR was at the Bay of Islands once again it was a cool and breezy morning but it in no way diminished our appreciation of the views from the lookout. Surprisingly enough there are few visitors around whether its the inclement weather or they're starting from the other end of the road I'm not sure. Anyway, we were soon on the road again to our next stop The Grotto where from the lookout there's a winding boardwalk which takes you down to beach level with wonderful photo opportunities, It was a lot busier here, when we got to the bottom people were queuing as everybody wanted their photo taken in front of the arch with the sea in the background

Bay of Islands

Despite the queuing, it was all good natured with people taking photos of each other and then the favour being reciprocated, even if they did manage to chop our legs off!

Our next stop was London Bridge where the boardwalk affords wonderful views of the bridge and the bay, and from where it's just a short hop to our next lookout The Arch. After which we stopped at Loch Ard Gorge where there's a fairly steep walkway down to the beach, it's been busy here every time we've been here I suspect that in part it's due to the fact that the sandy beach is sheltered from prevailing winds by the side of the gorge.

Next stop is the iconic 12 Apostles and how it's changed from our last visit, there's a proper commercialised visitor centre now with a larger car and coach park and of course as a result there's far more people; as well as a far better boardwalk which affords wonderful views of the Apostles.

After lunch, we continued on our way along the GOR we hadn't gone far before Shell (who was driving) yelled out KOALA where we all said as she pulled over skidding to a halt, sure enough walking back a 100m or so there high up in a tree was a sleeping Koala the kids were entranced. "How the hell did you see that" I said “you're supposed to have your eyes on the road”. Within seconds cars were pulling up all over the place all they knew was that we'd seen something so everyone stopped, we made our exit and left them to it.

We were hoping to be able to have sufficient time to stop off at the Kennett River Koala Walk before reaching our hotel at Anglesea on route we noticed as we passed through Apollo Bay some wonderful wood sculptures we couldn't not stop so a quick exit from the car 15mins to look around and take photos and we were off again.

We arrived in Kennett River and having found the road leading up to the walk we set off Whilst it was a tarmac road it soon became apparent that it wasn't going to be easy as it had quite a steep incline it wouldn't have been a problem for most cars but our power lacking mini bus was another thing (more about that later on) we hadn't got far before we started spotting the Koalas in the trees and so stopped in a wider section of the road and decided to walk up the hill quietly to see the Koalas and whatever else we could see, the more we walked up the more we saw, after a while we were Koala'd out and slowly but surely the light was beginning to fade we'd seen plenty of dozing Koalas as well as Wallabies and it had started to drizzle so decided to go back to the car.

We'd parked the mini bus on a slightly wider section of the road albeit on a sharp bend but as we could see in both directions it wasn't a problem, however the road up the hill is covered in mud and it had obviously been raining during the day making it slippery and now it was raining again there was a very small stream starting to run down the road. Off we went not attempting to turn around because the location was too dangerous so we decide to go up a bit further find a place where we could do a u turn safely and come back down.

We had difficulty getting the wheels to grip when we set off but eventually they did and we slowly ascended the hill, it soon became apparent the mini bus had neither the power or grip to go much further, the light was fading and it was raining harder now and we hadn't found anywhere safe to turn around. The road was now running with water we had a rock wall on one side and a drop down the hill with no barrier on the other, not good. We daren't stop as there was the possibility we wouldn't get started again so we took the decision that as soon as we were on a reasonably straight bit of road Shell would swing across the road towards the wall I'd jump out and direct her as she reversed backwards toward the drop, after a 5 point turn we were facing downhill I jumped in and we set off downstream, ah !

We arrived in darkness and despite the sat nav after 3 different attempts couldn't find the place, after a couple of phone calls we located the park to find reception closed it wasn't even 18:00 so after some more call we were informed how to gain access to our cabin, by this time we were cold, hungry, and frustrated we parked up opened the cabin door to be hit with a blast of hot air the fire had been left on for us and there was a welcoming note explaining where everything was and a folder with all the local information you could want.

Warmed up and refreshed we set off for the recommended Chinese restaurant in the folder. I'd just sat down when I realised I'd left my wallet in the car. I was just leaving the table to go to the car when the waitress arrived to take the drinks orders, I said I didn't recognise 4 of the beers on the list and asked if any of them were wheat beers ( I'd discovered wheat beers at the start of the holiday) and if so I'd have one of them and left the table, when I returned Michelle was laughing her head off, “what's happened?” I asked, you'll never believe this after you left the waitress looked a bit confused and said "isn't all beer made from yeast?”

Following a lovely meal (without a wheat beer) we made our way back to our cabin and settled down for the night, it had been another great day.

http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/parks/port-campbell-national-park/things-to-do/loch-ard-gorge
http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/parks/twelve-apostles-marine-national-park
http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/parks/port-campbell-national-park/things-to-do/the-arch
http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/parks/port-campbell-national-park/accessibility/london-bridge
http://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/parks/port-campbell-national-park/accessibility/the-grotto

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