Great Ocean Road 3/3

After a nice sleep in probably the most comfortable bed we slept in all week. The picture below is the view from our little budget cabin that we got for the night. It was nothing fancy but suited us just fine.

We knew that we were really close to the twelve apostles. We hoped on the highway and imediately saw a sign for Gibson's stairs, lucky I was quick on the trigger an pulled in. Turns out you get to walk down this gorgeous beach and see the first two apostles from the ground up. A lot of people seemed to miss this and it was worth the walk down a tight set of stairs. People were writing their names in the beach and taking pictures from up top on the cliff. This picture below is the view from the beach, and for the first thing we did all day could have been enough to keep me happy. We spent about an hour on this beech just walking in the water and getting soaked. The second picture gives you an idea of how big the cliff is that we walked down was to get on to the beach.

bucket list, cross it off

yep thats me!

 Next stop, the official twelve apostles stop. There was a big parking lot, kiosk and helicopter tours. Jess asked me if i looked up the how much they tours were, when I told her $600 she laughed and said " Geuss were too broke to do that huh?" We both laughed and started the 300 meter walk under the highway to the lookout. It was remarkable how well the sky started to clear up just as we got there. It really was hard to get great pictures because they keep you so far back from the cliffs. It is neat how they form, the waves crash against the base of the cliffs, erode away the bottom and cause a arch underneath the rocks. Then when the gap gets too large, the top collapses into the water leaving a stone form in the water. We read on the signs that the cliffs are moving back 1 foot each year. The salt water really erodes the limestone quickly. It was quite cool, it showed the original twelve too, they had a different name back in the 80s but I can;t remember off the top of my head what it was.

Next we stopped at the Loch Ard Gorge, the Razorback is one of the rock formations (below). This is a ridge of sandstone rock jutting up from the sea just offshore. Beyond it is Pudding Rock. The Razorback is really an elongated stack, which used to extend much further into the sea, but centuries of erosion have reduced it to the length seen today. Eventually the stack will be worn away. Also in the area is the Island Arch. Loch Ard Gorge is so named after a shipwreck in the area, there is also a really neat little cave in the back of the gorge.  

Just up the next path was Thunder cave. This cave runs back about 35 meters from what you can see in the picture, the wind was really wiping around when we ere standing there and the waves crashing into the cave made it really loud. Jess and I could ahrdly hear each other speak, we took the photos and moved on. You could really tell that that two currents were meeting here and the waves in two different directions. It was around lunchtime, Ross our boss at Flat rock told Jess that we should check out a cheese factory that was really close to this spot. We headed inland for about 20 minutes and hit up the Timboon cheese factory. We did a really good cheese tasting there and hard a delicious spread that had sun dried tomatoes, garlic and chives in it. We then got a plate of nachos that had the spread on top with brie cheese. It was delicious. Jess linked a picture of the nachos on her blog. I however just for my mother, took a picture of a beautiful flowers that were in the gardens surrounding the cheese farm.

  After we got all filled up on cheese we headed back down to the Great Ocean road. The next two stops The Arch and The Grotto were probably the most picturesque and best photos we took all week. The arch the first picture below was truly jaw dropping, the waves crashing into the side, the sun was blazing down as hot as we had felt yet and it was finally supper hot out, 38 degrees! The Grotto, the second picture below was on low tide and was in my opinion the best picture I had taken all week. The ocean behind, then the pool of water and rocks in front gives such a contrast to the picture.

 

The Arch

Next stop, London bridge. The was a piece of land attached to left of the arch now, in 1982 the bridge collapsed when two people were still on it. They had to get air lifted off.

London Bridge

The Grotto. Beautiful

After I just got crushed by a huge wave, Jess laughed.

The picture above is from the Bay of Martrys, we stopped in there because it was so hot we both needed to cool down. I felt adventurous and tried by hand at fight off some of the waves, needless to say its not fun getting pummeled by 8 foot waves. After a good walk down the beech, a run and race back to the clothes. We headed on to the bay of Islands. This bay has 35 islands all scattered throughout it, you can only see a few in the picture but there are so many we did not stop at all them.

getting some tan!

We did a little bit of driving after this, picked up some fruit and juice for in the car. We headed up towards, of course before we got there we had a pit stop at Tower hill game reserve. I saw this place at the last second and almost got in a car accident but it was worth it. We were driving into the conservation area, that had an elevated drive and out of the corner of my eye i saw some feet. I slammed on the brakes and handed Jess the camera and sure enough there it was...

Our first wild KANGAROO!!!

This was such a good spot by me and picture by Jess it happened so fast, we drove through the rest of this reserve and there were wild Emu`s all over the roads, walking in front of the car, beside the car. We were so happy to have a kangaroo picture it made our night. We headed into Port fairy and checked into a Caravan park and hope in the pool for a couple hours. We both were very hungry and a lady told us about a supper Thai place called Lemongrass. We checked it out and she was right, it was the best Thai Ive had bar none. I had a Roasted duck red curry with coconut rice and it was sooooo gooooddd!!! Jess got her pad Thai and loved it. Busy day,  that came with some of the most beautiful pictures and two pretty good forehead burns from the sunroof.