The Great Ocean Road

On Saturday, I completed my things to do in Melbourne list by taking a trip to the Great Ocean Road with 5 friends. It was a great day.

Our first stop was Bells Beach in Torquay, the capital of Australian surfing. Every year for the last 35 years, Rip Curl has sponsored a surfing tournament at Bells, so there is a lot of history there. Driving through town, I almost had a heart attack. There was one strip mall that instead of having normal stores, had all surfing brand stores. Roxy, Billabong, Rip Curl, Quiksilver, even one called Ashley Surfing Company. If you know me, you know how much I love these brands. I was very sad as the tour bus drove past this mecca of surf shopping. Anyway, we got to Bells Beach where despite the 60 degree ocean temps, there were a few diehards catching the waves (above). The surf wasn’t that impressive when we were there, but usually it’s really dangerous because the waves are huge and there’s rocks and corals on the bottom (above).

Then we actually started driving on the Great Ocean Road (us at the beginning of the road). The road was built as a response to the Pacific Coast Highway in California, and exists solely for tourists. We drove between the two yellow stars on the map (above). It was really bendy, and at some parts there was just a guardrail to prevent you from careening down the cliff to the water below. Eek! Since so many tourists drive the road and it is so dangerous, there were these signs everywhere that said “Drive on the left in Australia” (above). But since the road hugged the coast so tightly, the views were spectacular (above, pictures courtesy of Brittany).

After lots of driving, we pulled onto this small road into a koala neighborhood, if you will. Basically there were a lot of eucalyptus trees, so there were a lot of wild koalas in this one area. Naturally we went koala-spotting. Most of them were so high up, all you could see was a little round ball silhouetted against the sky (above). I did find some that were closer (above, koala in circle) so I was able to capture them on film better (above).

Near the koala neighborhood, the tour guide gave us some bird food to bribe the native birds, the rainbow lorikeet (the green ones), and the scarlet rosella (the red ones). While Matt was able to remain calm when the birds landed on him (above), the rest of us were very excitable when they landed on us (above). It was great fun. Then we drove to the Maits Rest rainforest, which had the biggest trees I’ve ever seen (above). To give you an idea of the scale, here’s Kaitlyn standing next to the roots of one (above).

In the afternoon, we got to the most famous part of the Great Ocean Road, the Twelve Apostles. They are giant sandstone monoliths that rise out of the ocean right next to a spectacular coastline (above). There are only eight apostles left due to the ocean’s erosion, and eventually they will all fall into the sea. My pictures don’t really do it justice because the sun’s poor position (silly sun) washed out most of the color. They were beautiful.

A 5 minute drive from the 12 apostles was the Loch Ard Gorge (above). The gorge was named for a ship sailing from Ireland (named Loch Ard) that crashed off the shore in 1878. Only two people survived. To steal from Ithaca’s slogan, the Loch Ard Gorge was Gorges. The yellow sandstone contrasting against the turquoise water was stunning (above). Here we had beach access, so we did what you usually do on a beach: act silly. We posed on some big rocks (above), and Matt and I had a jumping contest (above, you be the judge).

The final stop on the tour was London Bridge, a sandstone bridge (above). It used to be connected to the land, until a section collapsed in 1990. When it collapsed, two people were stranded on the bridge. It turns out that those two were a couple having an affair with each other, and they were outed by the media. Funny stuff. We took the opportunity to play the children’s game London Bridge, which Mary didn’t appreciate it (above).

We loaded back into the bus, where we were given PSPs to watch movies on. I watched Priscilla Queen of the Desert, an Australian movie about 3 drag queens that take a road trip through the Australian outback. It was hilarious, especially since one of the drag queens was Agent Smith in the Matrix.

It was a fabulous ending to a fabulous day.