The Great Ocean Road

We've left the drizzly, cloud shrouded summits if the Grampian Mountains and headed due south in search of sun, sea, surf and sand...

We found all three along the 'Great Ocean Road' after a few hours of driving through rolling, green farmlands. On reaching the coast, and it's superb collection of crumbling sandstone sea stacks, we took a break at Port Campbell. This was a very chilled little village, with a with a few shops and cafes by a square cut beach. We had some lunch, a brew and soaked up some sunshine before setting off along the famous south coast road.

First stop was 'London Bridge' - or at least what's left of it. It used to be a double sea arch...

Then in the 1990s, the main bit fell down! And amazingly, when it happened, two tourists were left stranded on the remaining stack! That must have been quite a shock for them!

Slightly further east along the coast are the main attractions of the coast, known as 'The Twelve Apostles' - an impressive series of wobbly looking sea stacks. 

As a slight aside here, there's been a thing I've noticed in Australia - not only are dogs often banned from public places, but cats are too?! The twelve apostles was no exception...

Suddenly we had found 'touristville'. There was a huge car park, gift shop, board walk, heli-pad and visitor centre. Subsequently, we had to share the view with about a hundred other Japanese tourists, but to be fair, it was a good view! 

We could only count about eight of the twelve apostles...

I think the on-site helicopter tour gave you access to the remaining four, but we were happy to view from the (rather eroded) cliff tops. 

Once out of the hussle, the open road was virtually deserted as we trundled onwards. Apollo Bay was pretty much closed for the winter, but we did manage to find an ice cream as well as getting onto my first Australian Beach.

The final excitement of the day (apart from finding a laundry to do some well overdue washing), was spotting a Koala Bear up in a tree! We came across a small group of people all looking up at the tree, so went over to see what was going on, and there he was, perched at the end of a high branch! My photo doesn't really do it justice!... But you'll have to take my word; he's up there!

Oh, and finally, forgot to mention that yesterday, we sampled some Australian wine from 'Clare Valley'! We would have liked to have made a visit, but it's miles in the wrong direct near Adelade....