The Great Ocean Road - 22/01/2015

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Hi everyone, well decided to do do The Great Ocean Road tour and truly spectacular it was. It was an early start, up at 05.00 am, packed our brekkie and headed off into the city to get picked up. It was quite busy at about 06.30 am with people doing their keep fit and running in the parks, bit like Oakley Rd park, NOT!!! So we got picked up in our little mini bus, there were about 20 of us, mostly backpackers. That brought so many memories back, I remember in my 20's when I had my little red back pack with all my badges of different places I had been too and I had sewen them on to it and it had a big metal frame that used to dig in my back, but I didn't care cos I was a real backpacker !! Anyway off we go in the bus, good atmosphere, we seem to drive all over the place looking for this one guy called Jason who for some reason kept missing the pick up points, eventually we found Jason who arrived in a taxi, think he had a heavy night. Of course he turned out to be english !! from London and a cheery chap. Over the Westgate Bridge we went, the Yarra River is below, 35 workers died building that bridge and it was built between 1968 - 1978. (I'm like an encyclopadia ! ). After about an hour we stopped for coffee, had some chit chats, then all back on the bus where Andrew our guide and driver said we must all get aquainted and tell all of us our names and what food or sport we liked. I'm loving this, so speaking into a microphone (oh yes the proper way!!) Stu introduced himself and said he liked swimming, I introduced myself, said I was from the UK and liked every single food going! It was great, everyone giggling away. The coast road is absoutely spectacular, it is on the B100, lots of winding road's, not good if you are prone to car sickness !! By one of the main gates on the Ocean Road is a blue house in the hills, this apparently was in Mad Max film. We then stopped and looked for wild Koalas and found 2, so cute. Then we travelled on to Apollo Bay to have lunch. A quaint little beach resort, very surfy. Surfy dude's and their surfy cars and surfy shops. Andrew the driver/guide was a very enthusiastic chap, gave us loads of information and appeared to have done an awful lot of travelling to other countries himself, also a very keen cyclist who has now started competing. Andrew advised us to buy some 'veggiemite' ice cream as it was the only place to buy it. Stu and I went off to try it, mmmmmmm, not bad, but you couldn't eat too much of it. All back on the bus and we went on to the rainforest in Otway National Park, where Andrew showed us different species of trees, well you might think that's very un-exciting but I can assure you it wasn't, it beats a silver birch !!! Travelled some more and came to Port Campbell National Park and there they were The 12 Apostles (Google this) well, pretty damn amazing, took your breath away, absolutely stunning, we then saw the Loch Ard Gorge (thought I was in cheddar caves !) Well sort of !!! And the fallen London Bridge or Gibson steps as it is known. You can do a helicopter over this, a lot of people seemed to be taking off, Stu and I did this once before, not for us, a very scarey moment and I have had more than my scarey quota for this week!! From there we drove through Port Campbell, a nice little fishing village and onto Colac for a bite to eat. Then headed back to Mebourne for 9.00 pm. Exhausted. We travelled nearly 400 miles in a day, (well 600 k, to be more exact) but packing a lot in, totally worth it. Infact you really cannot put the views into words.

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Comments

[debs leamon]

enjoying
hey you two, enjoying all these blogs Karol, very amusing. by the way, are you on a budget?? me and Sandy went shopping today and ended up in Trago lounge for refeshments this afternoon. Who should walk in but Pat (Pat and Jim)... with her was her mate who I recognised as a woman who went on my sicily trip two years ago.. small world eh? Things here fine, very cold but bright, looking forward to my trip in feb. Keep em coming pal (and the photos (some of you would be good) lots of love xx

[Stu muir]

Hi deb
Fancy bumping into Pat and her friend, it is a small world. Don't think the photos have been printed on this latest blog yet, takes a while to come through. Will take some of me, but I just look bloody awful in photos.