Great Ocean Road

February 22, 2013 - Friday   Today we drove the Great Ocean Road.  It took us forever to get out of Melbourne because of morning rush hour traffic.  Finally we got out of town and started our drive.  The Great Ocean Road hugs the Victorian coastline for much of its 300 km and provides spectacular sea views.  The road was built by returning servicemen between 1919 and 1932 as a WWI memorial.  We first saw the coast in Torquay and the nearby beach of Bells Beach.  This beach has some of the biggest waves in Australia and is a surfers paradise.  They are the black spots in the picture below.  They seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Anglesea has a great beach hidden from the road by sand dunes and the golf course is known for its resident kangaroos.  Then on to Aireys Inlet.  This was once the staging post for Cobb Co. Stage Coaches which we had read about in more detail at the museum.  The red-capped Split Point lighthouse was built in 1891.  It is 34 meters high and 66 meters above sea level.

Info about the lighthouse.

A large granite rock at Split Point near the lighthouse.

The "Diggers Statue" complete with man in orange shirt that is pushing the wheelbarrow.   This statue honours the 3000 Australian returned soliders and sailors of WWI who built the Great Ocean Road as a memorial to their fallen comrades.

Info about road.

The beach at Lorne.  We bought take away sandwiches from across the street and walked over and ate on the sand beach as we watched the waves and heard the sea.

Cape Otway has a lighthouse that we got off the main road to go see.  This is the oldest surviving lighthouse on the Australian mainland.  The best part about it was about half way on the back road we found a whole colony of koalas in the gum trees.  There were 3 to 4 in a tree and more than we could count.  It was so neat to see them in the wild.

This one is having some lunch.

This one is stretched out to get more of those yummy leaves.

The lighthouse - it is 20 meters high and 90 meters above the sea - very quaint looking.

The coastal strip between Princetown and Peterborough was declared a national park in 1964.  This is one of Australia's most famous coasts.  The most admired of these are the Twelve Apostles, a succession of limestone pillars rising to 50 meters (165 feet) from the ocean.  These are two.

Marty on the beach - what a beautiful day to visit.

These are more - only from the other direction.  There is a mist in the air from crashing waves that caused the haze.

Dale in front of the first 2.

Roaring sea in this area - place of many shipwrecks and it is claimed that more than 80 vessels in the days of sailing ships were lost along this rugged coast.

Loch and Gorge - named after a legendary shipwreck in1878.  An apprentice ships officer and an Irish immigrant woman, both 18, were the only survivors and were washed ashore here.  The ship was the Loch Ard.

Muttonbird Island - 50,000 muttonbirds call this home - they fly from here to Alaska every year.  It is a lovely home.

London Bridge - in 1990 the arch closest to shore collapsed leaving 2 tourists stranded on the outer section.  They were rescued by helicopter.

We arrived in Port Fairy around 7:00.  Port Fairy was settled by the Irish and first named their little town Belfast.  It is an historic and quaint little town.  We ate at the corner "Hub" and the owner apolgized for the noisy group toward the back.  Turned out their are sheep farmers an hour inland, but call their group the "Yacht Club" even though they are over an hour from the sea and most if any don't even own a boat.  They get together once a month - we think mostly to drink beer together.  We met and talked with several.  Some knew about the "American Pickers" from Iowa - one of their favorite shows, wanted to know what part of North America we were from and even wanted to know how we could live with all of those guns in our country.  One even knew that Iowa was a swing state for the election.  Australians do pay attention to us.  After a great meal and trip around town we settled in for the night.  The meal above was breakfast the next day - waffles with ice cream and green eggs and ham - wonderful!!