The emu will take your lunch!

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So I must now share stories about the Great Ocean Road.

This was something at the top of my "must-see" list for Australia...and I couldn't be more excited to see it. Man-made tourist attractions may be cool, but nothing compares with the beauty sculpted by Mother Nature.

I booked a tour with Todd, who runs his own company called Ride Tours, which is a fantastic 2-day tour of the Great Ocean Road. What a wonderful tour it was. Todd was a great tour guide, and the views were great despite the strong winds and light rain that we had on the first day.

We drove to the end of the GOR, and worked our way back along the coast, stopping at Tower Hill for lunch, an extinct volcano where we saw koalas, grey kangaroos and emus. The koalas hung out in the trees right by the road, and I thought they were surprisingly hard to spot (even with my four-leaf clover finding skills). The emus are definitely not shy, and I guess one too many tourist has fed some of them, as they came right up to us hoping to steal our food. Lunch was an interesting event.
Then we were off to a wonderful drive along the coast, with many stops at some really cool sites, such as the Grotto and London Bridge (which fell down a while ago, making more of a arch than a bridge) , finally making it to the Twelve Apostles after dinner.

It was cold and windy at most of the places we stopped. But it was still magnificent. Absolutely spectacular. At the Twelve Apostles, we waited around for sunset, which was dramatic despite the clouds; we then kept waiting and watching the beach for signs of penguins. And sure enough, lots of penguins came up onto the beach, gathering in groups of approximately 20-30 before heading further up onto the beach for the night. Group after group came up out of the water, waiting for the stragglers to stop playing in the waves so the group could turn in for the night. While we couldn't see them up close, it was still really neat to watch them.

After much chatting and laughing, we finally turned in for the night at our hostel in Port Cambell. After breakfast, we drove over to Loch Ard Gorge (which I couldn't pronounce and kept saying Lord Arch Gorge...), where we got to descend to the beach and hang out for a bit. I led a few into exploring a cave, and climbed a few rocks. Then we were back on the road to the Twelve Apostles for a look at them in the daylight (I think sunset was better, as it was still cloudy in the morning), and then drove on to see more sights. There was the option of a helicopter ride, but I opted out.

The weather got better as the day progressed, resulting in some great photos.
We got a group photo on the beach below Gibson's Steps, and I had fun getting wet in the cold waves (actually, no, that was totally an accident...oops).

We also stopped at Mait's Rest, a temperate rainforest walk. The temperature dropped quickly as we entered the cool rainforest, and we walked among trees and ferns estimated to be about 600 years old. One tree we stopped to look at was a Mountain Ash, which was about 60m tall...apparently these trees can get up to 90-100m tall, making these trees the second tallest trees in the world after the Redwoods. But these are definitely the tallest flowering plants in the world, as the Redwoods aren't flowering plants but conifers. Anyways, these are definitely TALL trees.
We continued on the walk and saw these little black snails that apparently only live in the temperate rainforests of the Otway Ranges. And then it was back on the bus for a bit more sight-seeing and driving, as well as lunch in the neat town of Apollo Bay.

It was an awesome trip. Between listening to the cricket on the radio, the sights of the ocean, the exploring of a cave, and hearing lots of stories from Todd (and some great music of course!)...it was a great couple of days. I was sad to get off the bus at the end.

But it was great, and I highly recommend joining Ride Tours!!!

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Photos

Loch Ard Gorge
Behold the power of erosion

Exploring a cave
At Loch Ard Gorge

Blue skies
At Loch Ard Gorge

The Twelve Apostles
At dusk, before the penguins came onshore.

Two Trees
At Mait's Rest, a temperate rainforest walk

Coming onshore
The penguins by the Twelve Apostles. Note the line of penguins coming out of the water, near the bottom of the picture.

Ready, Smile!
On the Beach at Gibson's Steps