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Published: June 13th 2007
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The Great Ocean Road, one of the world’s great drives was our destination for the Queen’s Birthday weekend. Our plan was to head to Torquay on Friday night after work to the official start of the route, then make our way along the coast on Saturday to Apollo Bay and then on Sunday head through the Otway National Park and on the 12 Apostles and other coastal sights.
All the guides we had been reading spoke of the probability of coming face to face with indigenous wildlife, so I was as excited as could be as we left on Friday evening on our search for Koalas, Kangaroos and anything else that decided to show its face!!
Torquay is less than 2 hours drive from Melbourne, even through the rush hour traffic, so we arrived at Bells Beach Lodge in plenty of time for a few well deserved beers. So we followed our map to the centre of Torquay hoping to find a choice of bars and restaurants associated with seaside resorts famed for their surf lifestyle. However, we discovered that Torquay is a rather small town, containing a sum total of 3 pubs. We opted for Growlers as
Bells Beach Australia
Bit too cold for a surf!! it seemed that most of the town was there, had a few drinks and made friends with the locals!!
Saturday started with a trip to Surf City (so Helen could shop) before we got in the car for what would be a thoroughly enjoyable day of short drives and photo opportunities. Our first stop was one that I had been looking forward to for weeks….Bells Beach!!
From there we went along the coast stopping to take photos as Point Addis, Aireys Inlet and Split Point Lighthouse, before we stopped for lunch in Lorne. It was a good job we did have a good feed, as afterwards we headed into the forest to find Erskine Falls. It was spectacular, but it also gave us a very good thigh workout having to climb at least a million steps to get back from the bottom (I may exaggerate slightly). But it was well worth the climb as you will probably agree from the photo (yes it is cold and wet in Victoria at the moment, if you hadn’t guessed).
A couple more photo stops later we arrived at Apollo Bay, had nice warm showers at the hostel and decided to
go for a drink. There’s not much else to do in the evening along the coast, or that’s what I am sticking to anyway!!
That night we got chatting to an Aussie family in the pub, from which the mother decided that Helen was her kindred spirit…something was definitely her kindred spirit alright…rum or vodka I seem to recall.
I woke with a slightly sore head on Sunday really raring to hit the road again! But it soon went away as we hit the coast on the other side of the Otway Peninsula and got our first glance of what the Ocean Road is famous for, its splendid rock formations. Dotted along the coast are a handful of weather beaten rocks that over the course of millions of years (no exaggeration this time) have been moulded into such splendour as the 12 Apostles (although I think there are only 7 or 8 left now), London Bridge, the Loch and Gorge and the Arch.
Photo opportunities a plenty were gratefully taken up before we decided to start our trip home, as we wanted to stop off to see Triplet Falls on route. In a different part of the
national park a wooded walkway has been built in the forest to take you past the falls, so we parked up and went for a bit of a stroll.
After that stop all that remained was the long(ish) drive back to Melbourne that took us through Colac (the home of Toady from Neighbours apparently), Geelong and then back into the city. All in all we’d had a fantastic weekend, although none of the wildlife we had been promised actually materialised (apart from a dead Roo on the side of the road), but never mind you can’t have it all.
On Monday we decided that we deserved a good chilled day, as it was the Queen’s birthday public holiday, so we sat in front of the TV and watched the footie. Collingwood, Helen’s team, was playing so she was refereeing the game from the sofa, unfortunately to little effect as the Pies lost. My team always loses, so I don’t get too excited about it!
That's about all for now, apart from some photos. Hope you are all well and we will be in touch again soon!
Take care everyone!
Love Rich & Helen
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