2002 Day 6-7 - Great Ocean Road to Melbourne

(Refer here for someone's photos. I hope to have my own up shortly.)

Day 6 can be summed up as Great Ocean Road in dreadful weather. After an initial good start at Tower Hill, a national park inside a volcano crater with all sorts of native wildlife (mostly koalas, emus and small cute birds) which is not on any of the tourist itineraries except Wayward's, the really bad weather kicked in. Most people (even the English amongst us) got sick of horizontal rainfall and high winds and decided to throw it in at Port Campbell, where we stopped for what ended up being a 1.5 hour lunch at the local pub. While the wind didn't abate, the rain did, and we got to see Loch Ard Gorge and the surrounding area, and the 12 Apostles. This time I took the western pathway before visiting the gorge (in 2001 I did the eastern pathway). Lots of magnificent scenery, made all the more impressive by the high winds stirring up the oceans. All I can say is no wonder it's nicknamed "The Shipwreck Coast". The 12 Apostles was just too much wind and package tourism for most of us to handle (a lot of people, tourist buses etc) and we only stayed there about 20 mins.

Photo 1 - London Bridge
Photo 2 - The Blowhole at Loch Ard

(Better photos to come when I can get them scanned...)

The better part of the trip was our visit to the Otway Ranges. In 2001 the AAT Kings/Gray Line tour driver literally speeded through this and there's something really unromantic about seeing dense eucalypt forests at 100km/h from a coach-style bus. Wayward took it slower and we stopped for a rainforest walk at a place called Mait's Rest, which has to be one of the highlights of this whole tour. Massive trees and creeks covered in vegetation with a density that is just freaky just has to be seen to be believed. Unfortunately, my poor little Kodak disposable had no chance whatsoever in the poor light conditions.

Now I hear you asking "rainforest? in Victoria, at 39°S?!" There's only 14km² of it in the Otway Ranges, but it is there. It's a cool, temperate rainforest and meets all of the criteria needed to describe rainforests.

We stopped at Apollo Bay overnight. From this point on, I think it hit most of us that we were in our last 17 hours together, and between collaborating to buy group dinner, playing pool, listening to Dutch and Croatian music and talking about relatively normal "home" things like work and families and stuff kind of did bring us closer together. My motel for the night, Coastal Motel, was right on the coast, and had a sliding door leading out to it - all very nice :) I made sure I got to savour and enjoy the room this time.

We left Apollo Bay at 7:30am this morning. It was pelting with rain both there and the whole drive winding tightly around the twists and turns of the Great Ocean Road until we got to Lorne - having seen it in fine weather in 2001, it gave a bit of contrast for me, I guess. At Anglesea we stopped at a golf course and pissed off a load of golfers while acting like typical tourists and photographing kangaroos which were all over the place (including on and next to the holes). On the bus we did a massive email exchange project so we all have each others' email addresses, and at Bells Beach, a famous surfing beach near Torquay where events are regularly held, we stopped for a group photo.

Photo 1 - Kangaroos at Anglesea Golf Course
Photo 2 - The sign greeting visitors to the Great Ocean Road.
Photo 3 - Bells Beach.
Photo 4 - Melbourne from the bus, 10 minutes before arrival.

Arriving in Melbourne was both sad and happy - I am quite tired after 4 days of full on activity and am welcoming the solitude of getting around by myself in a big yet friendly city (any of you who have heard me talk about Melbourne know how much I like the place) but at the same time it meant parting with the group who had become my friends. The goodbyes weren't tearful, but they were emotional and warm.

Photo 5 - First shot in Melbourne, on Latrobe Street facing west.

And that's where I'll stop. This afternoon has just been a big unwind and would sound extremely boring on paper. :P