Wednesday 6th March 2019 - Great Ocean Road day 2!

We woke to quite a different day. These had been heavy rain in the night and strong winds. The winds were still strong and there were showers about, so the view from the picture windows was of a much rougher sea, but it was still blue!

We continued westwards, but ironically, inland! We travelled as far as Marengo but then through the Great Otway National Park, cutting off Cape Otway. I loved going through the forest. So many gum trees. Google tells me there are about 700 different eucalyptus trees, most of them found in Australia, and they are part of the myrtle family. I have no idea what kind of gum/eucalyptus these were, although there were obviously different varieties, and also some beech trees like the beech of New Zealand and not the UK. Anyway, the eucalyptus looked stunning especially when the bark had cleanly peeled off leaving a clean, creamy-white bark behind. With a backdrop of the darkness of the forest, other trees at different stages of their bark peeling, the height of some of these trees and light filtering through, it all looked very beautiful. Unfortunately the road was very twisty and turns and did not allow for us to stop and take photos. Not that you could ever capture it!

Our first stop, once we were driving alongside the ocean again, was at Castle Cove Lookout.

Today was the first day it had been cool enough to demand jeans since we arrived in Auckland back in January!

From here it was onto The 12 Apostles, probably one of the best know parts of this drive. The cliffs here are of limestone and a combination of erosion from rainfall and wave action creates gaps in the rocks that over time become coves and then arches and stacks. It takes me back to my geography lessons at school! There are currently about 8 stacks and there was an arch called London Bridge, but that collapsed a few years ago to create new stacks. The coastline constantly changes!

Next up it was Loch Ard Gorge, so called because of the shipwreck of a ship called the Loch Ard which foundered on this coast back in the 1800’s, which only 2 people survived. This section of the coast is also known as the shipwreck coast because of the number of shipwrecks that occurred in the early days of shipping in this area and the difficulties of navigating a tricky coastline and water channel.

Whilst out at the furthest point we experienced Melbourne’s famous 4 seasons of weather in a day, going from warm sunshine through to a cold shower with hail and then back to sun again all in a matter of minutes!

We then headed for Port Campbell, which although not quite the end of the drive was the place where we were to turn and head for home. This was our lunch stop, and again a very pretty little town on a protected bay.

Our drive back took us inland and then eastwards back to Melbourne. It took us through a variety of scenery, rolling hills, a lot of cattle and sheep, some areas that were really parched and arid, a few greener river valleys, bits where we could see for miles and miles, then some wooded areas as well. It was a long drive for Viv and the plan was to go back a different way once we got to Geelong. Here we turned right instead of left and this took us to Queenscliff at the south western end of Port Philip Bay which Melbourne sits on. We made the ferry with 5 minutes to spare! Is this going to be a habit?! It was then a 40 minute car ferry ride across to Portsea and an hours drive north back to the suburb of Black Rock. The bay is so big that you can’t see Melbourne as you are on the ferry, it is too far away!

On the way back we picked up fish and chips for tea. It had been a long day.

Later in the evening we managed to have a FaceTime call with Helen to say Happy Birthday and apologise that our card will be late 😳 It will of course be worth waiting for!! Modern technology is wonderful sometimes!

Unfortunately I then made it a bit longer, inadvertently of course! I’m not really sure what happened other than it was something to do with the lamp by my bed which I somehow managed to touch in a way that blew the fuse! 😳 I had to go and get Viv out of her bed as none of the downstairs sockets were working, and we needed to check the fuse box. Unfortuntely that is located outside, so there we were, Viv in a dressing gown, me in my PJ’s walking up a path by torchlight to the fuse box! As you would expect I was looking carefully at where I put my feet!! I thought we had sorted it, but no! Geoff fixed it in 2 minutes the following morning 🙄 !!