Great Ocean Road Here We Come!

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After the peace of the Victorian countryside it was time to face Melbourne traffic. We had been making arrangements to take care of a caravan park at Werribee South in January, and wanted to make ourselves known to the managers and check the park out. The 2-hour trip took us 4 hours due to a huge accident on the freeway. We stayed in the park for 4 nights and are quite delighted with the park and the managers, and are looking forward to helping them out.

The Great Ocean Road just happened to be the obvious way to travel to get to our friends’ house near Horsham, so we just HAD to do it. First stop was Barwon Heads aka Pearl Bay in the ABC series ‘Seachange”. It’s a lovely little town and we could have easily spent a few days here relaxing, exploring and heaven forbid! We could have even gone fishing! But the long and winding road by the sea was calling. See all the photos by clicking on "Additional photos below"

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Photos

The Victorian Rose Garden
Our stay in Werribee co-incided with peak flowering time for roses. What a picture....We took LOTS of photos! There are over 5'000 rose bushes here, carefully nurtured and maintained by volunteers!

Historic Werribee Mansion
Adjacent to the State Rose Garden stands Werribee Mansion. It's a faithfully restored 1870's Italianate residence. The Mansion Hotel and spa are now housed in the newer section of the building. Weddings are well catered for in the beautiful and opulent gardens.

RAAF Museum, Point Cook
Not far from Werribee is Point Cook, birthplace of the RAAF. With our recent connection with the airforce, we enjoyed having a look around.

The Boatshed at Barwon Heads
One of the local buildings used in many scenes in Seachange.

Attention!
Bollards are decorative features in many seaside areas in Victoria. These guys make sure that bike-riding kids get to school safely in Barwon Heads.

We're finally here.
The Great Ocean Road was constucted by returned soldiers after World War 1. Today more than 1.2 million vehicles pass through this arch.

And so it begins.
The long and winding road through beautiful country, amazing vistas and lots of surprises.

Erskine Falls
One of the highest waterfalls in the Ottway region. We took the 200 steps to the base of the falls so we could share the photo with you.

Koalas in the wild
How did we find them? We just stopped in the middle of the road to Cape Ottway behind all the international tourists!

Cape Ottway Lighthouse
The oldest lighthouse on mainland Australia.

Why are these trees leafless?
The koalas have overpopulated and have eaten them all.

Another big rainforest tree.
Maits Rest is an easy 20 minute walk through sub-temperate rainforest of mountain ash trees and ancient tree ferns.

Apollo Bay
A little-known lookout affords magnificent views .... and a geocache!

There they are!
The 12 Apostles!

The 12 Apostles
The world famous sea stacks are forever evolving. The pounding of the sea and wind is always at work.

Loch Ard Gorge
Loch Ard was bound for Melbourne in 1878 loaded with passengers and cargo when it ran into a rocky reef near Port Campbell. Of the 54 crew members and passengers on board, only two survived: an apprentice, Tom Pearce and a young woman passenger, Eva Carmichael, who lost all of her family in the tragedy. The Port Campbell Tourist Information Centre has some of the artefacts recovered from the wreck. It was quite moving to see them and to read about what happened.

The Grotto
A lesser known feature on the Great Ocean Road. That means much less tourist traffic, but it's just as amazing as all the rest.

Port Fairy Lighthouse
A much smaller construction

Port Fairy
This sleepy little town hosts an annual Folk Festival when the population goes from 2,000 to 40,000! We don't want to be there then..... although..... it could be fun!

Windy Cape Nelson
Just south of Portland, Cape Nelson is the site of another lighthouse. We'll spare you another lighthouse photo. This is Peter "just looking" at the petrified forest. Plenty of wind power being captured down here too.