The Twelve Apostles and the Great Ocean Road of Australia

Our first stop on the Great Ocean Road was the Bay of Islands. Just a short few steps from the car park to some awesome beauty with sandstone rock formations that are isolated out in the ocean to form multiple pillars or multiple islands. They are just gorgeous. 

It was a cooler and cloudier start to the day unfortunately.

The second stop was the Bay of Martyrs and it was similar to the Bay of Islands and I would skip the Bay of Martyrs if we came through this road the next time. 

Our third stop was The Grotto and this was so cool you had to walk 700 m to the stairs or platform and then you had the choice to walk down into The Grotto which I highly recommend. It's so peaceful and serene we had the place to ourselves. Nobody was down there with us and it I could have stayed there longer. It's absolutely a stunning view.  They have since built a rock wall to view from and you can no longer go right into the pools where the ocean surge is up and perhaps because it was dangerous. This was totally worth the stop and we got to see flying sea foam which I've never seen before. Bits and pieces of flying sea foam all over the place was really cool.

The wall which stops you from entering the Grotto now.

Growth on the Grotto

Loch Ard Gorge was our next stop. The Loch Ard was a ship that got tangled up in the rocks and 57 people drowned and two people survived, this happened in 1878.  It's a beautiful picturesque area with a nice 1 km walk and some great photo opportunities. 

Two nice bridges have formed in the rocks.  Eventually the top of the bridges breaks up and falls and you have two pillars of sandstone and a bunch of sand.

There are people on top of the cliff to give you some sort of perspective.

We continued on towards the Twelve Apostles which unfortunately there are no longer 12 due to storms, erosion and time.  We stopped and parked at Gibson's Bend first and looked around and this is where you can see the first Apostle.  We took the several flights of stairs down to the beach and walked along this beautiful, gorgeous windswept beach all the way down towards  an Apostle  When you walk closer you can actually see that there are two Apostles there.  I had to go to the bathroom so badly and in all of these stops there had not been any bathroom which is very strange. Darren got ahead of me on the walk and called me over.  There were some large rocks which he spotted and I literally peed behind them with my back to the cliff.   It was hidden from the numerous people on the beach and the people up over on the lookout which we were going to next.  When we headed back the wind had picked up and we got savaged by the sand.  It even ended up in our teeth but I really had to find the privacy to go to the bathroom behind those rocks along the cliff. We had to take the sandblasting.  Later that night Darren had something in his eye and I had to fish it out and it was a tiny piece of white sand of course.

The first glimpse of the first Apostle.

Climbing down the stairs at Gibson's Bend.

On the beach with the cliffs, the beach is huge and the waves are monsters and it is a bit disconcerting walking down there.

Darren had this stretch of beach to himself.

Just gorgeous.

When you continue to walk west you see that there are two Apostles with the one hiding behind the larger one.

Getting Sandblasted.

Walking back and it is a bit of a hike against the wind and sand.

We headed back to the car and drove back about one kilometer or so to the car park for the Twelve Apostles Viewpoint. There is a visitor center there washrooms, and a cafe.  There is a 1+ kilometer walk out to the viewpoint where you walk in the tunnel which is under the Great Ocean Road and there's many viewing points.  There is a built out viewing platform which is actually on a future Apostle where you can see it being formed by erosion. Here you get views of the rest of the Apostles which are six and a half. I say half because one has since fallen in 2005 and you can see a little nub of rock sticking out and that was the 9th. 

Sign that leads you to the tunnel under the Great Ocean Road.

You can see where the one Apostle has broken and collapsed into the water.

From a different viewing platform.

This one is the closest to the cliff so most likely a more recent Apostle creation in the last million years?

These are the two Apostles that we walked down on the beach to see and these are the most easterly ones.

The Twelve Apostles are beautiful and even more beautiful when the blue sky is shining around them. Unfortunately today was cloudy but still absolutely gorgeous views and completely worth driving the Great Ocean Road for.  Literally hundreds of tourists were parked in this very large car park so that they too could set their eyes on these gorgeous limestone rock formations that have eroded over millions of years and continue to do so. 

There is a large viewing platform built out that floats off the cliff.  This is going to be a future Apostle but none of us will be around to see this as erosion takes millions of years.

I zoomed in for this shot to show you the rocks that I peed behind which are tucked into the bottom of the cliff on the left hand side of the photo.

Next on the agenda was the Great Otway National Park which is a rain forest.  Australia is extremely lucky because it has two rain forests one in the south and one in the north.  We were travelling in the South and our first stop was going to be Melba Gully.

Melba Gully or Madsen's Track is another name for it.  Aussie's call a hike or walk a track.

These are ancient type ferns and plants.  This rain forest is much like it was millions of years ago except for that guy walking on that trail.  Oh that's Darren.

Love the Tree Ferns behind me.

'When a tree falls in the forest does anyone hear?'  This one crashed right through the bridge railing.

This place is so fertile, moss and plants will grow anywhere.

This is a form of Ganoderma and the largest that I have ever seen which was about the size of my head.

And another bridge almost got taken out by a tree.  The rangers come along and cut the tree into sizable chunks and leave it to rot for the future soil.

Melba Gully was absolutely a gorgeous walk covered in tree ferns.  The walk started off at the picnic area and then it took you 45 minutes down and around into this Gully or lower area.  The trail was nice and spongy and so wonderful to walk on.  The smell was this divine scent with this earthy freshness. It was gorgeous. Then we walked up about 100 stairs and then back down into the gully again.  It was a very beautiful walk in the Great Otway National Park rain forest. 

The Otway Ranges are such thick forest.

Lots of logging here but lots of re-foresting as you can see with the straight lines of trees in the middle of the forest.

Wheat fields of Victoria State in Australia.

 We continued on the Great Ocean Road and stopped at Castle Cove Lookout which gave glorious views of this raging powerful ocean and the colors were so pretty, well worth the stop. 

We were driving the speed limit and both of us gasped because a Koala ran across the highway in front of our vehicle and Darren slammed on the brakes.  I jumped out of the car because he parked his butt on the side of the road.  I thought he was injured but he was probably exhausted.  Eucalyptus leaves do not give them much nourishment and this is why they always look so sleepy.  It is a myth that they are stoned.  He eventually scampered and climbed up a tree. 

That's him motoring towards the tree.  I would say he has a super cute butt.

I had to zoom in on this shot because his furry butt is so cute and look at those ears, adorable.

Look at him, what a cutey!!

He stopped and looked at me because I was talking to him.  I was not moving towards him.  I started taking photos of him. He was the most adorable animal I think I've ever seen next to a dog of course or a Red Panda.  He was simply the cutest most adorable furry little cutey. 

I may have discovered an Australian Supermodel Koala.  Man he was cute.  Look at him?  He looks fake like a Stuffy.

Still cute even though he has some serious claws.

He had some seriously big paws.

Koalas are much faster than we are led to believe. He was motoring up that tree.   When I moved closer to the tree, he scampered up pretty quickly.  I personally could have stayed there all day and talked to  him but we were parked quite precariously on the side of the road and we already had one car honk at us.

We have seen a Koala now in the wild and now we just have to see a Dingo. As long as it's not chewing on my neck we should be okay. 

We stopped at Mait's Rest Rain Forest Walk and began our 30-minute hike into the rain forest. This hike was much different looking than the last rain forest walk. Mait's Rest had these gigantic trees, Myrtle trees and Eucalyptus trees.  It was a beautiful combination. It was an absolutely stunning 30 minute walk. 

This is interesting.

The moss growing up this tree was fascinating to look at.

Large trees.

I want this tree for my backyard.

This tree was probably 15 feet wide at its base.

Driving through the Great Otway National Park is a gorgeous drive through rain forest and Myrtle and Eucalyptus trees, rolling hills, glimpses of the ocean and all this comes with a beautiful fresh smell.  On the last walk it started to rain on us but the canopy was thick enough that we really didn't get that wet. 

We had to check into our hotel before 6:00 pm and it was getting close to that time.  Our time had come to an end in Great Otway National Park. 

Stunning views of rolling hills and sheep.  This sheep was curious about me and started walking towards me while the others walked away from me.

Gorgeous ocean views at every turn.

Beach erosion is happening all over the world and Australia is no different.  On this beach close to Apollo Bay they have started to bring truck loads in to replace lost sand.

Stunning country views.

We continued on and checked into the Apollo Bay Waterfront Hotel.  It was a really cute little studio suite with everything that we needed and oceanfront.  There were some kite surfers out that we noticed so we walked down to the ocean to take some pics and watch for a bit. 

Super cool Umbrella like trees near the beach.

Kite Surfers

I checked out the 'restaurants near me' on my Google Maps app and 600 meters away was a Brew House which had a good looking menu.  We actually both ordered the chicken schnitzel and it was excellent and we liked the ambiance as well.  We walked into the closest IGA on the Great Ocean Road and bought some yogurt and fruit for the morning.  

It was a great day!

We got a call from our son so that was the first thing that we did the next morning.  It's very hard to coordinate phone calls when you are 16 hours ahead. We continued on our day after the phone call and began the drive down the Great Ocean Road towards Melbourne.  

We stopped at Smyth Creek and I took some photos. We stopped at a few lookouts and took some absolutely gorgeous photos of some stunning Great Ocean Road scenery.

Sunrise photos taken from our waterfront suite in the early morning.

So pretty as the ocean mist is turned a gorgeous orange with the sunrise colors reflecting on it.

This image is locked in my brain.  It was a bit of a rainy morning and the clouds were every shade of grey and the sun was trying its hardest to come through.  It produced some gorgeous moody photos coupled with the early morning sea mist.

More sea mist.

Smyth Creek

The ocean is so powerful and the colors are so beautiful and this section of the road is very close to the cliffs and the road is extremely winding with many hairpin curves. There are a ton of camper vans and fifth wheel type of contraptions filled with either international tourists or Aussies.  We would love to return to this part of the world and camp.   This would be a great country to rent or buy a camper there are so many sites and National parks to visit.

We stopped at Kennett River which is a small town.   There was the Kennett River Nature Walk and we started the walk and there were some people laying down on the ground and we knew  that they had spotted a Koala, which they had.

More Koala bum to view.

We watched him or her for a bit and continued into the trail which was very narrow and completely a nature walk and a bit too close for comfort. There are venomous snakes in this area so that definitely had me a little bit worried. I like a wider trail in this regard so you can see around you.

The Ocean Creek leading into the trail.

This rock was green in color and I wonder what had to happen volcanically to produce this colored rock?  I think I just made up a word above?

The beginning of the trail was all 'roses and sunshine' looking.'

Then it gets a bit more congested looking with no strong trail lines.

These are some sort of miniature orange mushrooms that are almost neon in color.

The walk was nice. There was lots to see and observe and it was quite a pretty trail along the Kennett River.

There are Lookouts every kilometer or so it seems in this section of the Great Ocean Road, from Kennett River to Lorne and the road is extremely narrow.  We were headed east so we had the sheer rock cliff wall literally right beside us on our left and then on the other side the cars have the cliff down to the ocean or beach.  It is quite dangerous if you go over the speed limit with lots of hairpin curves, etc.

This was a cool shot because it looks like the people are lower than the waves coming in.

So pretty.  I would love to do this drive again from the other side.

This is what the road looked like a lot of the time.

We stopped at Teddy's Lookout which took us to the top of the mountain overlooking the town of Lorne and this road was crazy narrow and it was straight uphill. Darren really had to goose it quite a few times just to get up the steep road.  We parked, got out of the car and had to duck quite quickly due to a bird swooping at us.  We started hearing these weird tigerish bird calls and all of a sudden one just flew over us again very, very low and Darren said 'that's a Kookaburra.' 

They are very pretty and their feathers look like soft fur.  They love to get their photo taken apparently.

Each Kookaburra is very different looking.

The Kookaburra Whisperer talking to one which is in the tree.

There were several Kookaburras there. They are the prettiest most interesting bird and they're not small. They've got some girth to them. They have these big heads and apparently they are Posers too.  The Kookaburras seemed enamored with Darren and would not leave him alone.  They were circling him and swooping at him and seemed to want a piece of him.

They seemed quite tame, unfortunately I'm thinking people have been feeding them.  The lookout area afforded some amazing views of the ocean, beach, the road we just drove on and the Otway Ranges.

More crazy hairpin turns on a narrow road with a cliff beside you with nowhere to go.

The Otway Ranges are solid forest and rain forest.

This is the Great Ocean Road taken from Teddy's Lookout and I had to zoom in for this photo.

I wanted to show how narrow and precarious it was.

We passed under the Welcome to the Great Ocean Road sign so we had to stop and take a picture of that. We missed the one when we entered from Warrnambool or the Western side of Australia .

Darren needed a Coke or some caffeine to wake him up so we stopped at a general store just outside of the town of Lorne.  As he got back into the car he realized he was bleeding quite a bit from his inner ankle. His sock was soaked with his blood, his runner was soaked and he didn't feel anything.  He most likely poked himself with a stick on that last walk or a Kookaburra got him.  He did say that one almost touched him when it had swooped at him, he thought?  When I saw the amount of blood dripping from his ankle I thought right away he had been bitten by a snake when we did the nature walk because I thought I saw two holes but thank goodness, there was only one puncture wound.  He probably did get stabbed by a branch or a sharp blade of grass. That's what all the locals were telling us.  We were trying to clean him up with the few mini wet wipes that we had.  There were so many nice Aussies that came to try and help us and then one lady said I'm going to go get you some wet wipes and other things and she was gone quite a while.  She returned and she actually went to the pharmacy or Aussies call them the Chemist.  Apparently he told the lady that if it continues to bleed to come back and see him.  He gave her gauze, bandages, tape, wet wipes everything that we needed for free. It was a really nice community effort to get Darren to stop bleeding out.  The lady also made him elevate his leg on the bench, which he wouldn't listen to me and do it.  With the bandage and the tight tape pressure and elevation it soon came to a stop after about 15 minutes.

We thanked the nice lady and continued on the Great Ocean Road stopping at Eagle Rock Lookout.  We really had to just go to the bathroom because we had seen enough rocks at this point, but the bathroom happened to be 450 m downhill from the Split Point lighthouse.   Walking another 1/2 of a kilometer when you really have to pee really sucks.  We did have some nice views on the way down the trail.  And in trail talk what goes down must come up again.

We walked down to the bathroom and then realized it was almost at beach level, therefore, we continued to walk down to the beach after the bathroom stop.  The beach was actually part of the Eagle Rock Sanctuary. We saw some cool shells and the sand was gorgeous. There were a few photo ops of Eagle Rock and the gorgeous wide beach. 

On the walk down hill Darren spotted a ton of Black Swans on the pond to the right of the beach.

This is the pond that the Black Swans were on.

The glorious Eagle Rock Beach.

Cool cliffs.

Voila Eagle Rock.

Eagle Rock from above.

At this point the half kilometer walk back up to the lighthouse was a bit cruel and then to the parking lot and we were already tired.  We got into the car and continued on our way towards Melbourne. 

This is an Australian Magpie.  They are much smaller than Canadian Magpies and they don't have the blue feathers.

I had some time to think about the Kookaburras on the rest of the drive to Melbourne.  I realized that maybe the Kookaburras liked the smell of Darren's blood. I told Darren that the Kookaburras that were circling around him were actually smelling his blood-soaked sock and shoe and wondering when the steak tartar was going to be sliced up. Darren never believed me that these birds were carnivorous. I looked it up on Google and the Kookaburras were 100% carnivorous and they wanted to eat him.  The whole time I thought he was a Witch or a Kookaburra Whisperer because they were all circling him and he even videotaped it.  Everyone at the lookout that walked by him thought it was weird as well and the whole time he was bleeding out.

Look at that one little Kookaburra it's looking at him and wondering when he is going to fall over so he can begin his dinner?

So cute but so carnivorous.  Only in Australia.

The Great Ocean Road is a Bucket List trip.  I absolutely loved it and can't wait to do it again!!