Great Ocean Road - Big Holidays

After the initial big groceries (at Aldi!) we started our trip from Melbourne in the direction of the Great Ocean Road (GOR).

The Great Ocean Road is one of the world's most picturesque and most spectacular panoramic routes. For Australian proportions it is not too far away from Melbourne, its start is only 100 km southwest of the metropolitan city. The road winds through nice but small holiday villages and offers in every bend a marvellous view. In the interior part the road leads through the Otway National Park, an ecologically rich and beautiful forest landscape. Between Port Campbell and Port Fairy rugged cliffs and rough sea impress the traveller. In the Port Campbell National Park amaze the famous icons like the Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge and London Bridge.
The serpentine road has been created after World War I through a state-sponsored operation for unemployed war veterans.

Our trip leads us first thourgh Bells Beach where a naturally created rock slab under water contributes to the excellent surfing conditions. Every year on the Easter weekend an international surf competition takes place in which professional as well as amateur surfers participate and which attracts thousands of visitors.

Next we drive via Anglesea to Lorne, another surf paradise where all year round many surf courses are offered as you can see on the picture. The beautiful surrounding forests are great, especially for walking and hiking - and for Marco to climb huge tree stumps :-) That's why we made our way to the Erskine Falls and the Cara Lynn Cascades.

Along the winding road and through Apollo Bay and the Otway National Park we continue the next day towards what everyone was looking forward to see: the Twelve Apostles, supposedly the highlight, but surely the symbol/emblem of the Great Ocean Road!

These giant rock stacks soar from the swirling waters of the Southern Ocean and are a central feature of the spectacular Port Campbell National Park that extends from Princetown to Peterborough.

The imposing limestone cliffs that are the backdrop to the Apostles tower up to 70 m, while the tallest of the rocks is around 45 m high.

The hard and stormy Southern Ocean and blasting winds gradually eroded the softer limestone, forming caves in the cliffs. The caves eventually became arches and when they collapsed, rock islands up to 45 m high were left isolated from the shore. This has created the Twelve Apostles and other stunning natural features along this remarkable stretch of coastline.

While anytime of the day provides great views, sunrise and sunset are particularly impressive for the magnificent gleaming colours it gives the rocks which makes them look like this:

Well, but unfortunately we haven't been there at sunrise or sunset, but still we had a great day visiting these amazing natural icons. And while the above picture is "stolen" from the web, the following ones are ours, showing you how beutiful that place is.

Victoria’s most tragic shipwrecks was played out at this very next spot more than 120 years ago, giving the name to the gorge. 52 people died after the sailing ship, the iron clipper Loch Ard, rammed into the cliffs on 1 June, 1878. The only two survivors rested in the cave of todays Loch Ard Gorge, which is still accessible to people from the small sandy beach.

No, this one is not London Bridge... but still beautiful.
And from a last lookout:

Well, and that's the way it all looks from above when you pay $50 for a 15 min. helicopter flight over the scenery:

We didn't afford this so - I'm sorry again - this is not my picture... but isn't it still nice?

Our trip continued towards the west of the Great Ocean Road to Warrnambool where one can see right whales along Logans Beach between May and October, so unfortunately not while we were there. And since there were no whales to see for us we made our way to the end of the Great Ocean Road, to Port Fairy which has been a prospering whaling centre between 1830 and 1850.