Twelve Apostles and The Great Ocean Road – Day 12

We have had a really fabulous day today. In order to pack everything in we had an early start well breakfast was at 8.15! We planned to drive as far as the iconic Twelve Apostles and then work our way back along the Great Ocean Road. One of the advantages we have is that Barbara and Iain are prospecting this trip for us as they completed a similar itinerary ten days ago. As usual everything in Australia is a little farther than you think, but even so we rolled into the visitor centre around 10.30. Although it was busy, it was not unbearably so as we were probably in advance of the coach tours.

We hoped that we were not going to be underwhelmed by today, as the Great Ocean Road is one of the most hyped scenic attractions in Australia. There was no danger the coastline is stunning, and the National Parks of Victoria have done a magnificent job of keeping it pristine and largely uncommercialised. At the Twelve Apostles there is an extensive car park and a ten-minute walk to several viewpoints. There you look over a series of yellowy orange stacks being pounded by an aquamarine ocean. You can visualise nature at work in the continual process of erosion. A parallel walk to Gibson Steps allows you to get the perspective from sea level. It is great just to stare and take in the beauty of what you are viewing.

Nearby is Loch Ard, which is more of a cove again surrounded by stacks. Again lovely walks to stunningly situated viewpoints.

Lunch was at the suggestion of Barbara and Iain, we diverted off the main tourist route to the small town of Timboon. There was a lovely ice cream parlour serving twenty-four flavours. I thought of granddaughter Martha when I saw a poster advertising Sundae School, just the type of education she would not mind attending on the weekend.

After lunch we returned to The Great Ocean Road, this time taking in three major sites. The first London Bridge is the site of a collapsed arch. There were originally two spans but one collapsed about twenty years ago leaving an isolated arch. This was doubly unfortunate for the couple stranded on the isolated arch; although they were rescued the publicity revealed that they were on an illicit trip to the area unbeknown to their partners. On a serious note it does illustrate the dynamic process of the erosion taking place along the coast and how the landscape is continually changing.

Finally we visited the Bays of Islands and Martyrs. Here I was able again to walk down to beach level and get a different perspective of the coast. As you can see the weather was magnificent, around twenty-two degrees with a cooling breeze. The first part of our trip to the Great Ocean Road more than exceeded our expectations.

Then it was back to Port Fairy to observe the surfers before retiring to the hotel for coffee and biscuits on the balcony. This evening we were recommended to eat at the oldest inn in the State of Victoria, Merrijig where we had the best meal of the holiday so far, and the bar has been set very high. We both had a lovely smoked port loin chop, and because we could walk we shared a bottle of the local Riesling, every bit as good as the ones we buy from Alsace. One of our discoveries is that every area has excellent local wines that have small productions and are not exported to Britain. We will sleep well tonight in preparation for the second part of The Great Ocean Road.