October 19th, This is Great Ocean Road

We woke up pretty late this morning and freezing cold! It seemed it was going to be a pretty cloudy day all day, but it ended up clearing just when we needed it. We started our day off with a stretch on the beach near our campsite then headed out of the park and back on the Great Ocean Road. We saw a few more koalas on the way out. They are such funny creatures. They’re so lazy. Just out of the park, and for a while on the GOR, we drove through Australia’s version of rainforests. The trees were massive and a lot greener than I’ve seen out here so far. It looked like Jurassic Park.

We finally made it to the 12 Apostles!!!! I’d only heard about them and seen them in pictures, but I never imagined they’d be so majestic. We walked part way down the Gibson Steps to see the first one. The rest of the steps were closed for some reason. I think the sea has been too rough lately or something. I’m pretty sure they don’t want just any random tourist making their way to the tiny, private beach at the bottom. It was way too cold and windy anyway, so we got back in the car and drove to the next lookout spot. There was a trail running under the highway and out onto a cliff ledge. The view of the rest of the Apostles was spectacular. You should look up the 12 Apostles…they’re basically just massive rock formations out in the ocean. Pretty cool.

Another thing you should look up is the Loch Ard tragedy. It was a shipwreck in 1878 (I think) that hit on Muttonbird Island, which is the area where we spent the next few hours. 52 people died and only 2 survived and only 4 bodies were recovered. It’s a pretty amazing story, but I don’t have the patience now to explain it all. Google is good…

We hiked around the cliff-edge trails for a bit, seeing the shipwreck site, the beach where some of the bodies were washed up and the cemetery where the 4 bodies were buried. It was the best part I think…so interesting! On our hike we saw an ocean blowhole that went back into the land about 150 meters. It was all underneath us in a cave. There were signs everywhere warning hikers to be cautious of the fact that the caves and arches we were climbing along could basically collapse at any point in time. It was kind of nerve-wracking, but also well worth the beautiful sights. We also followed along another guided trail that was a self-guided geology tour, full of geological formations with obvious markings from millions of years ago.

So, back to the car and prepared to complete the GOR, we drove quickly by the Arch, the London Bridge, the Bay of Martyrs and the Bay of Islands. All were equally as incredible and full of history. Oh, so this portion of the GOR is called the Shipwreck Trail. Something like 80+ wrecks happened in that area. It’s at the beginning of the Bass Straight, so it used to be a highly traveled spot. It’s all on the Net. Ha!

It was getting dark and cloudy again, so we decided to call it a night and look for a caravan park to plug-in to for the evening. All of our cameras and computers and things were about dead, so we needed a bit of electricity. I’m also pretty stoked for a shower by now. We made it to Warrnambool, the official end of the Great Ocean Road. It really was great…not to be cheesy, but I’ve never seen anything like it. I hope you get at least of a bit of the sensation out of the pictures that we got out of it in real life. Pictures never seem to do justice.

I’ve learned that I can hardly stand not having contact with my family for more than a day. I lost cell phone reception for two days and literally broke down in tears this afternoon. Pretty pathetic, I know. I really could not be any further from home, but today it really felt like it. We’re staying in this town for a couple of days, so I should be good again…

Tomorrow I will write with clean clothes on and with a body that doesn’t stink. Yay!