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Published: January 2nd 2007
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The Great Ocean Road was a long drive (1500km) from Melbourne to Adelaide stopping off at lots of cool things along the way. For this trip we had a smaller camper van, but it was not very nice to drive - a slight breeze would try and force it off the road!
Day 37 - Shelley tried to get booked in on the neighbours tour at Melbourne but it was fully booked for the next few days, so she was pretty gutted (sad, she knows, but she is a neighbours fan). The first stop on our drive was
Werribee Open Range Zoo. This was far better than traditional zoos as they had very large spaces to roam about in, and rather than looking at them in cages we were in a safari bus which entered thier habitats. Our next stop was at
Torquay, surfing capital of Australia, where we camped overnight.
Day 38 - There were many surfing shops, surfing beaches and surfing people! We had a look around a
Torquay Surfing Museum before heading to the beach to find it was far too windy, so left promptly. Phil was well chuffed today because he got to see
Split Meercats
Photo by Phil Walker Point Lighthouse where the children's TV series 'Round the Twist' was filmed. We didn't get to climb to the top, but enjoyed exploring the area and beaches around it. After driving a little further we came to the beginning of the
Great Ocean Road and took many photos under the sign! Along the way we did a short walk to
Erskine Waterfalls. That evening we camped at
Cumberland River camp site which was really picturesque; the campsite located in a gorge and next to a beach! On a walk in the evening phil nearly walked into a Kangaroo, and then it just stood about a metre away from us for ages. We watched the sunset from the beach.
Day 39 - Today we saw lots of Koala Bears in the trees at the side of the roads. They are much bigger than we thought they would be and don't seeem bothered by people at all. They simply sit there looking at you and very rarely move. We visted the
Otway walkway, which is basically a large metal walkway that walks above the forest floor and into the tree canopy. Eventually we arrived at the
12 Apostles which was very
Monkey
Photo by Phil Walker busy with tourists - lots of them grrrr. These are quite amazing to see, but is is a shame that you can't get down to the beach to explore the area. After this we headed to a quieter place called
Loch Ard Gorge. This was a cove with cliffs on either side, which large waves smashing into it. It was a nice beach but far to rough to swim in. It is also the site of the infamous Loch Ard shipwreck where lots of people lost thier lives. We then went to see a blowhole and
Thunder cave, which are aslo coastal sites. That night we explored the beach at our campsite at
Port Campbell.
Day 40- The day started looking at few more coastal features:
The Arches,
London Bridge, and
The Grotto, all of which are interesting rock formations created by the sea. We then headed into
Warrambool where we visited the
Flagstaff Hill maratime museum. We spent a couple of hours here as it was really interesting looking around a recreated maritime village. We spent most of the afternoon taking a very long drive to
Portland. This was an amazing drive, and our first real taste of
the vastness of Australia. We saw nothing for miles and only drove past a handful of cars - when we say miles we are talking a couple of hundred!
Day 41 - On the 17th we took a steady drive to
Adelaide, stopping off at a very long beach which stetched as far as you could see - we couldn't see anyone else on it. Nearby where
The Granites - some large granite boulders laying part submerged by the sand and/or sea. We then stopped off at a
Pelican colony (Jacks point). We saw lots of Pelicans but they were too far away to get a real close look at them. We drove to a German village (forgot the name), where we managed to get dragged to an opening of an art exhibition and got to watch a very nervous lady explain her piece of art in the shape of a Christmas tree. It was enjoyable but took lots of our time up, so we ended up rushing the rest of the day and just had to drive straight to
Adelaide.
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Linzi
non-member comment
Oh my god Shell, how are you coping on your own, that hippo was a bit mean wasn't he?!xx