Road Trip Day. We have our trip along the Great Ocean Highway today. Kevin got up early and picked up the car and we were on our way by 9:30. The Great Ocean Highway is a road that runs along the coast From Torquay west. I am not sure where it stops, but it goes to the 12 Apostles and a bit further to ‘London Bridge’. We are going to spend the night at a Air BnB in Apollo Bay.
The drive to Torquay and then to Lorne was nice, but repetitive. Not much of interest until we got to the coast. At Lorne we stopped at a couple of spots to see the coast, and it was nice. There was a lighthouse in town that we had to walk a couple of blocks to see, but the view was great. We stopped for lunch in Lorne at a burger place called “Bottle of Milk”. The burger was good, but neither Kevin or Joe liked the milkshake.
From there we walked around a bit, not much to see and then headed to Apollo Bay. This part of the drive was very nice. Fabulous views of the coast. When we got to the town, we stopped at our house and unloaded things and took a nap. Like I said before, sitting on your butt takes a lot out of one. After the nap we headed out to see the 12 Apostles.
This was another spectacular drive. It goes from Apollo Bay inland a bit and winds through the mountains on the way. Lots of scenic views of the valleys and forest. When we arrived at the 12 Apostles everyone was amazed at the view. The location gets it’s name from remnant formations that have had sediments and limestone eroded away around them. Originally there were 12, but one toppled so now there are just 11, but they still call it 12. There were LOTS of people there, mostly Chinese and it was VERY WINDY. I thought I was going to lose the rest of my hair. I stopped at 3 viewpoints along the 1 K walk and took pictures at each. That was fun for me.
We then headed out to see the “London Bridge” about 6 KM west. This is a spot with similar erosion remnants but in this case a tunnel had formed, making it look like it was a bridge. However, it had collapsed stranding some people on the end who had to be rescued by helicopter. You can see one more tunnel creating another ‘bridge’. There must be some very active erosion as there are no blocks of rocks left from the collapse that can be seen. They may be there below the water level, but it looks very clean to me.
We made one more stop at Loch Arde Gorge. This is geologically similar, but what makes this interesting is the erosion into a small bay. People with more energy than us, hiked down to the water and were playing in the sand. There was also a shipwreck in the 1850's at the point here. Again it was very windy and getting chilly.
Then we saw our most exciting 'Australian'. A brown kangaroo. The first and only one we saw on this entire trip. We were very happy to have seen one as it would have been disappointing to come all this way and miss the one thing Australia is know for, outside of hot lifeguards and BBQ's.
From here we headed back to Apollo Bay. We noticed that the temperature had dropped to 12 degrees Celcius (54 degrees F). Around 8:00 we passed a bar/restaurant called Roadhouse that looked interesting. Not wanting to eat late, we decided to stop there. I had the ‘famous steak sandwich’, which was very tasty and they made my chips crispy, much to my delight. Joe had a pasta dish and Kevin had their Chicken Parm, which was a huge piece of meat and a plate full of chips. He only at about half of it and Joe took the rest home for breakfast (he ended up not eating it and forgot it in the fridge. Oh well.
We headed back to the house and Joe and Kevin went right to bed. I stayed up another hour to download files and work on the blog. We are planning on taking a different route back home tomorrow.
