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Published: February 14th 2012
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Today was the first day that this holiday really took off. Nothing against the first couple of days here of course, it's just that I'm not really sure any place I've visited can hold a candle to the sheer beauty and magnitude of the Great Ocean Road and 12 Apostles National Park.
Ali and I got off to a somewhat late start today -- which I guess shouldn't surprise anyone at this stage given present company. We had a noon call time to pick up the rental car that Ali's lovely flat-mate, Julie Z, had booked for us using her travel agency contacts. Luckily we were able to make up some time along the way because we ended up needing every last minute of exploration time on our afternoon adventure.
Started off down the highway in our tricked out Toyota Camery with its steering wheel firmly planted on the right side of the car. Of course, this was Ali's first time driving in Australia so I spent the better part of the day shitting bricks in the passenger seat while he got the hang of the new road rules. Gotta give him a little credit though…he did get us there and back in one piece.
It's hard to put the experience of the Great Ocean Road into writing. If you've ever driven PCH it's similar…but Ocean Road still blows PCH way in every measure. The roads are winding at times but they pass through some great little Aussie beach towns. We stopped at couple for some road breaks and to grab some food (Meat Pies -- huge win!). Lots of nice laid back people in those towns. I imagine with more time it would be fun to do an extended drive and spend more time in each area. For today, we were just trying to get to the Apostles as quickly as possible.
The Apostles blew the roof right off the trip. Huge columns of sandstone jutting out of perfectly clear turquoise water in various formations. The area in between the columns used to be solid land mass but years and years of erosion by water and wind dug out caves which eventually collapsed…leaving the Apostles landforms in their place. It's and awe-inspiring sight to behold in person.
There's a ton of little coves, caves and cliffs all around the area and we spent the better part of the afternoon exploring the trails and hidden spots and hiking around the trails. Actually we got a little too carried away because after waiting for the sunset to fall, we ended up out of luck finding a place to sleep and eat. All of the hostels were booked up when we drove into the small nearby town of Port Campbell and the restaurants were closed as well. Rather than sleep in the car we decided to book a hotel for the evening and we found a small watering hole for some "liquid bread" dinner. Annnnd the night didn't end there either! Shortly after we were finishing up our 2nd round of pints a group of backpackers from the UK, Scotland and Australia came in the bar and we made some new friends. We ended up closing down the bar and partying on the beach with them until early morning.
Needless to say, it was a crazy day and we didn't get a lot of sleep. We're back in Melbourne now--we took our time driving back and stopped at a few more spots along the way. There are a few more stories involving an extended cave exploration and stopping to check out Koala bears but at this point we're both exhausted and trying to sneak in some recovery time in preparation for our next adventure. The flight for Tasmania leaves at 8:30am tomorrow!
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