A Trip on the Great Ocean Road

7 November 2015

Kristen says...

Hooray for long vacations!! :)

Since I had two weeks off of school in early October, Chris decided he could take a few days off and we would go drive the Great Ocean Road!

Image from: http://www.atn.com.au/topdestinations/victoria/great-ocean-road.html

 The Great Ocean Road is loacated in the state of Victoria, in southern Australia. The start of the road is just about a 9 hour drive from Canberra.

Even better, Pip got to come along for the trip!!

We spent our first night and joined the road in the city of Torquay, a beautiful place to start from and very indicative of things to come!

Early morning beach in Torquay

The beach and sky in Torquay

Pip remembering Honduras on the beach (although this one was MUCH colder!)

Surfers in full wet suits--remember the water down south comes straight up from Antarctica!

The purpose of the trip was to drive the road, rather than visit the cities along it, so we very quickly left Torquay and headed on down the road.

And then very quickly stopped to take in the view. The drive is, for the most part, really not commercialized, but does provide many opportunities to pull off to the side of the road and see the view from your car, or walk a bit and see a little more.

Chris walking for the view

He found it!

Family picture!

Chris and another beautiful view

Flies! The flies are really getting bad in Australia this time of year. Ew.

Chris is pointing to Tazmania...or New Zealand. I can't remember.

Most of the road had two types of view, sea or tree.

Trees along the Great Ocean Road

Sometimes you were high above the beautiful beaches, and sometimes you followed a path that lead directly to them.

We spent over a half hour just wandering on this beach--it was beautiful, almost deserted, and probably my favorite place of the trip.

One of many lighthouses seen along the Great Ocean Road

Another amazing beach with the Great Ocean Road beyond. You can see how close we were to the shore!

Chris, Pip and our little red clown car.

We stopped for our second night in Apollo Bay (if we had driven straight without stopping we would have arrived in less than 2 hrous) and had a nice time enjoying the rest of the day and the beautiful weather.

Pip looks thrilled, doesn't he? :)

Water Fountains are called Bubble-Ups here. Funny.

The next day we followed the Great Ocean Road north through Great Otway National Park (the tree part of the GOR), where we saw koalas! In the wild!!!

It was interesting--the closer we got back to the coast, the more scraggly the trees became.

We stopped in the tiny (seriously, like 3 buildings) town of Princetown for lunch and Pip and Chris took a bit of a nap.

Aussie mailboxes.

We stopped for two nights in Port Campell, one of the largest towns on the GOR, where we enjoyed such delicacies as cookies in a bag and coffee in a tube! Mmmm, mmm. :)

Port Campbell is the nearest town to arguably the biggest draw on the Great Ocean Road, the 12 Apostles. There are actually only 8 currently standing, but they are quite beautiful.

We visited early one (chilly) morning and again later that (even more chilly) night. If you time it right, you should be able to see some penguins coming back to roost for the night...unfortunately we saw the spectacular sunset but no penguins!

The next day we took off for our last day on the GOR, stopping to see sights like the London Bridge (it used to be connected to the larger rock but fell in a few years ago)

And took one more family picture (Chris has his driving face on)

And then we drove back to Canberra and started term 4, which is why I'm only just now getting around to blogging about this! :)

All-in-all it was a WONDERFUL trip, and I highly recommend you come to Australia to see the Great Ocean Road!

KF