Great Ocean Road
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2008
1
24
84
Trip End
Ongoing
Melbourne,
Australia
Sunday, April 13, 2008
I decided to book a day trip to the ocean road which is a 130 km coastal drive with magnificent rock formations. The bus picked me up bright and early to begin the journey. I sat next to an old Irish man who was very nice and talkative. His 3 daughters backpacked last year so he was very interested in hearing about my plans.
Our first stop of the day was to Bells Beach for morning tea
Beautiful Rocks
. This is one of most famous surf beaches in the world and has the longest running surf competition in the world. I didn't drink any of the tea but I enjoyed the cookies and the wonderful view.Our next stop on the trip was to an area of Forrest that had tons of koala bears. They were so cute! They sleep over 20 hours a day and eat the whole time they are awake. A baby koala is the size of a peanut when it is born. It immediately goes in the mother's pouch for six months. The next six months it begins to immerse itself into the world by staying on the mother but venturing outside the pouch. The guide said that if you wake up a koala it can be very aggressive and dangerous. It kind of reminded me of my reaction when someone wakes me up unnecessarily :-)
Next, we went for a hike in Otway National Park, which has one of the oldest temperate rainforest's in the world. The tree trunks were massive! I couldn't get over their size. Also, it was neat to see how some trees had grown into one. The best example of this was the "Three Sisters."
After our hike, we headed down to the "Great Ocean Road" through Port Campbell National Park. After World War 2, the Australian government needed something for the returned soldiers to work on. So they decided to create a 130 km coastal highway. So the 3,000 soldiers used axes to carve out the road. It took them 13 years and many of them lost their lives while working on the project. It must have felt like Mission Impossible to them. The views from the road were amazing! We stopped off at a view places to view the rock formations. The "12 Apostles" is the most well-known rock formation on the Great Ocean Road
Bells Beach
. They are huge, interesting rocks that come out of the water. Next, we went to Loch Ard Gorge. In 1878, the ship Loch Ard crashed right before commencing a three month journey from England. There were only two survivors. They buried their friends and passengers as the dead ]bodies came ashore. They made a makeshift grave site by carving the ships name into the rock above where they buried the bodies. The area where the boat crashed is very beautiful with a huge beach and lovely rock formations. However, the beauty was slightly tainted because of the sad history of the site.
By this point, I was getting really hungry. Luckily, we drove straight to the town of Colac for some dinner. The nice Irish man bought my dinner and said that he would have wanted someone to do that for his daughters when they were backpacking. It was so sweet of him. The more I travel, the more I realize that people are generally good. By the time we got back, I was completely exhausted.
