February 25th - March 1 - Great Ocean Road

Woke up at Aireys Inlet - no swimming this morning as it is a dull day.   We came upon the Great Ocean Road sign and stopped to take a picture along with 100 others.  A tour bus had just stopped.  This Chinese New Year holiday thing is starting to be a pain.  Every where we go there are hundreds of people doing all the touristy things we are doing.  What a bummer.  Here I thought we would be alone...us and 20 million Australians.  I thought all the tourists would be in Canada watching the Olympics.

We just thought this was the strangest thing, what a view.  We saw the house when we were photographing the sign.

We stopped at a little town called Lorne and had lunch at "Bottle of Milk", did I mention that they have funny names for things.  We were told about it by one of the ladies from Sovereign Hill, she said it had the best fresh food and made great hamburgers, they did.

Next on to Wry River where we had a beer on the deck of the Wry River Hotel, the Lonely Planet said we should so we did, even had our picture taken.  The scenery was great, just like everything else we have seen so far.

 

 

We stayed in Apollo Bay for the night and woke up to a beautiful sunny morning after sleeping in until 8:00, a first for Dalty.

Our first stop was the Port Otway Lighthouse, the most important lighthouse on the coast as it has the rockiest reefs and many shipwrecks happened here prior to the lighthouse being built in 1848.  It has the largest crystal, I don't remember how many tonnes but it cost over $1,500,000. and that was a lot in those days.  It is hard to believe they replaced it in the 1990s with a smaller version, but you know technology.

There was also a woman there in period costume that was doing a reinactment of a trial regarding one of the shipwrecks prior to the lighthouse being constructed.  She was from England and one of the 6 survivors of the wreck.  It was very interesting to us and also the 2 dozen students there, presumably on a field trip.  Kids in Australia sure get to do some neat things.

The vicinity of Port Otway is also home to many koalas, we saw one little guy running across the road but couldn't get our camera out in time to take his picture so we had to settle for seeing about a dozen in trees all the way out.  We got several pictures, they are so cute, too bad they sleep for 19 hours a day, Dalton says they remind him of me.

Next stop was a place called Blanket Bay, we headed down a secondary road to see if we could spot some koalas and we came upon this fantastic beach, the water was really warm, however, if you can believe this, there was a jet skiier on it.  Is no place sacred!

Next we stopped for lunch at Otway Junction Bistro, the grumpiest guy in Australia works there, makes you want to write to the Lonely Planet and tell them to put in their guide - "Don't go there"!

12 Apostles next - the sandstone has been washed away by the waves that now there is only 7.  They are amazing to look at.  Mutton Bird Island, the Arch, the Grotto, all of the sandstone formations are really something to see and, in a few years they could all be washed away, makes you sad to think about it.

 The Apostles

This is to show how the water is so strong it swirls around and you can see how the sandstone would be worn away. 

 

This is the Arch.

We took 7 hours to drive 115km. today, lots to see.  We pulled into the Great Ocean Road Tourist Park in Peterborough for the night.  We met a couple, Marion and Doug, from Geelong which is about 3 hours down the road, they come here often just to enjoy the area and the people.  We joined them for dinner at the little pub across the road.  The food was really good and inexpensive too.   After dinner Doug and Marion invited us to their caravan for a drink.  They were a couple of talkers so we got plenty of information out of them as they had done extensive travelling in and around Australia so they gave us lots of pointers, especially "up the gullet" as Doug refers to the road to Darwin.  They told us all the places to see and most importantly the places to stay away from.  We stayed at their place until about 11:30, very late for us.  

Got up the next morning to find someone had stolen our beach towels which we had left hanging to dry.  We had gone for a swim when we arrived in Peterborough, we saw a lovely beach and it was so hot we couldn't resist.  Hence hanging the towels outside.  I was some pi--ed off.

We stopped at the Warrnanbool Cheese Factory.  All local cheese and wine, they had a tasting, which we partook of, the cheese was great, we loaded up on cheese, sausages and wine.  

Next was the whale nursery at Logan Beach, no whales, wrong time of year, however, the beach was beautiful, too cool for a swim though.

We got to Port Fairy, which had formerly been called Balfast, however, the Irish settlers didn't like that so they changed the name.  It is not unusual to see a sign reading the name and under neath saying "formerly called" something else.  You always have to have an updated map just in case you run into one of these situations.  Sometimes the maps provided in the tourist parks are so confusing you can't find you way around anyhow.

Dalton wanted to play golf at the course here in Port Fairy, it is a Links course and is one of the top golf courses in Australia and 2nd in Victoria.  We booked in for 2 nights so he could play.  He loved the course and, he even played well.  What more can you ask.  

After the golfing, Dalton felt so good he went and joined the neighbor for a beer.  Turned out to be a good thing because he invited us to watch the Canada vs. US Hockey game...We won Yea!!!