"The Great Ocean Road region hugs the contours of Victoria's rugged south west coast and offers visitors one of Australia's greatest and most spectacular coastal drives."
We headed off for the Great Ocean Road early in the morning on the 27th and started our road trip to the South west coast which is supposed to be a very scenic drive. Alex have driven on the Australian roads (steering wheel is on the right, and you're supposed to drive on the left) only a few times and I had no idea what to expect from this trip. We borrowed a GPS from my uncle Norman and had multiple different maps just incase. Thank god we brought those maps, b/c the GPS stopped working not so long into our trip.
Our first stop was to Ballarat. An hour and half of driving, we reached our first destination The Ballarat Wildlife Park, where we got to check off 'seeing Kangaroos and Koalas' off our list. Alex have wanted to find kangaroo ever since he stepped off the plane. Since we had no luck with finding any kangaroos in the city during our first few days, we were both so excited that we could not only see some kangaroos but feed them too!
They were definetly a lot more friendlier than I thought they would be. The kangaroos weren't caged so they were sprawled everywhere throughout the park. We even saw a kangaroo visiting other animals behind their cages. My favourite part of the park was definetly feeding the kangaroo and petting the baby koala.
We got really lucky with the koala b/c we happened to be at the right spot at the right time. The zoo keeper was holding the baby koala and couldn't get the gate open. We helped her and she was nice enough to talk to us a bit about the koala and allowed us to pet it and take some photos with it before she took off with it. It was so soft and cute! After finishing the park, we grabbed a quick bite before heading off to Sovereign Hills.
According to the lady at the information centre, if you told other Aussies that you went to Ballarat but didn't stop at Sovereign Hill, they would laugh at you. So we had to stop by this historic site. Ballarat is famous for its gold mining back in the days. We spent our afternoon checking out the family performance in the theatre, the gold pouring demo, the gold mine tour, and the 5 minute horse and carriage ride around Sovereign Hill. We opt out of gold panning though. This place was pretty cool, and we left w/ some gold plated souvenir and headed off to Breamlea to visit Uncle Norman, Aunty Mary and Nicole.
After an hour and 15 min drive, w/ our GPS dying halfway, we reached the Baker's holiday home. It's a very cozy and beautiful home w/ a gorgeous beach only a few steps away. We had dinner at their place w/ some other guests, and decided to stay overnight and wake up early in the morning to check out the beach, before heading off for the Great Ocean Road. The beach is really stunning. It's a hidden jem. Not a lot of people know about it, nor is it open to the public. We were the only ones there early in the morning, and it was so peaceful and quiet. I managed to get a small tan after sun tanning for only 1.5 hrs. It's pretty amazing considering that I pretty much spent most of my summer in Toronto at the beach playing volleyball and didn't even get a shade darker! We left Breamlea at 11am and headed off for the Great Ocean Road.
Our first stop was Lorne. The drive to this place was amazing. I don't think I can compare it to anything else. It was so beautiful and there were tons and tons of beaches on the coast on the way and we were so tempted to stop to have a look. We had lunch in a little restaurant and I finally had my BLT sandwich (I was craving this in Thailand). After lunch, we drove to Erskine Falls and did a bit of walking and stair climbing to stretch out our legs. I was not a huge fan of the stairs as it reminded me more of how out of shape I am.
Then more driving, as we headed to Apollo Bay. We managed to find a sign of an airplane tour of the Twelve Apostles. We decided to give driving a break, and took the hour long scenic tour. I got to sit in the front of the small plane. I was a bit worried about the plane ride and popped a Gravol right before we took off on the plane. The aerial view was spectacular. It was definetly a first for both Alex and I, since we've only flown on commercial airplanes. Another first was driving the airplane. The pilot was pretty cool and let me drive the airplane. I got to get my hands behind the wheel for a good 10 mins. It was a lot easier than standard driving. I think I did pretty ok, but I'm not sure if Alex would agree though. =) The twelve apostles were originally called, 'Sow and Piglets'. "They are giant rock stacks that rise majestically from the Southern Ocean and are the central feature of the rugged Port Campbell National Park. They were formed by erosion of the original coastline. The constant action of the sea on the limestone slowly wore down the rocky cliff, gradually leaving individual rocks." The pilot, however, informed us that there is less than 12 now, due to recent storms. After the airplane tour, we decided to keep driving on the great ocean road and take a grounds view of the 12 Apostles. We stopped at the Port Campbell National Park to have a look at this . I'm glad we did this b/c it looks completely different from the aerial view. There were tons and tons of flies at this park though. Quite a few of them even ended up on our photos. I was pretty much waving my hands frantically attempting to swat the flies away throughout the whole time.
Our last stop was at Port Campbell itself, and we found a nice restaurant right near the pier. I had oysters (yummy) and Alex tried their steak. We wanted to try Kangaroo but it wasn't on their menu. It's still on our list of things to do which includes see penguins, and throw a boomerang! After dinner, we headed to the pier to try to catch the sunset before we head back on our long drive back home to Melbourne. The sun set just before 9 and it was really breath taking. My camera decided to die right before it set, so I had to steal some of Alex's photo. The ride home was 4.5hrs in the dark, with the help of a red bull for Alex, a flashlight and a map for me, and some music to keep us awake for the long drive.
This trip is definetly one of the highlights of Australia, and it's going to be hard to top it. I'm glad I booked 6 weeks here, b/c I love it here.
What's to come:
Philip Island (to see some ferry penguins)
Yarra Valley (some wineries and more nature)
Sydney
Brisbane
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