The Great Ocean Road & Phillip Island


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December 24th 2011
Published: December 24th 2011
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Day 101, 21/12/11

Me and Stuart picked up a rental car this morning, a lovely red Renault Megane and headed for The Great Ocean Road. You have to be 21 to hire a car in Australia so Stuart had to do all the driving. I would've liked a little spin but never mind - the car was automatic too and I have never driven one of them so maybe it was best I stayed in the passenger seat.

Saw some pretty nice scenery, stopped of at Bells Beach which is said to be world famous - well I'd never heard of it until a few days ago. It was nice enough but I wouldn't spend the day there as it was in the middle of knowhere and not the nicest of beaches. Drove through some lovely beach towns called Angelsea, Lorne and Apollo Bay and stopped at Lorne for some lunch.

The road was very windy and the views were amazing, all along the coast with a sheer drop on your left side and a sheer mountain on the other. We stopped of at many look outs on the way - the main one being The 12 Apostles. We had planned to stay the night out there somewhere but in the end we decided to drive back and stay in Melbourne and not lose the night we had paid for there as we would be driving back first thing in the morning to get to Phillip Island anyway.



Day 102, 22/12/11

Hannah and Jamie were coming to Phillip Island with us today so we waited for Hannah to finish work at 12 and then hit the road at around 2pm. Stuart was driving again as you had to pay around $60 to add drivers over 21 but under 25. It took 2 hours to get there, which feels like nothing now, and when we got there we went to The Chocolate Factory which was good fun, Got a fair amount of free samples and I bought some chocolate in the gift shop afterwards.

Some some nice beaches (the surfers must love it here) and then had Fish and Chips for dinner in a town called Cowes, which is twinned with The Isle of Wight - there is also a town called Rhyll on the Island too.

The main reason why everyone goes to Phillip Island is to see The Penguins come in at night and we did just that. They don't come in until around 9pm but we sat and waited and all of a sudden we saw loads of Penguins hobbling out of the sea and into the land. They were quite comical, waddling along and bobbing up and down on the water as the waves knocked them over. There was loads of them all coming in for the night to feed their young.

Took the two hour drive back and got back around midnight.

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