Kathleen
E0A-9F0D888DDF56 – This is the link to a video I took. It may or may not work if you click on it…
Port Fairy & Apollo Bay, Australia – The Great Ocean Road
April 12-14, 2016
Every book and person tells you that the Great Ocean Road, the area they call the stretch of coast going westward out of Melbourne for about 150 miles, is not to be missed. It is true that there is a lot of limestone in this area and the rock formations jutting into the sea are extraordinary. There are vast expanses of white beaches, rock formations and grottos, and bustling little towns. The color of the shrub grasses in the early fall took your breath away, and the gigantic waves were fun to watch even without surfers (there were lots of surfers to watch). We took two days to drive the coast and sincerely enjoyed the natural beauty.
Port Fairy had very good accolades as being a pretty town. We found it a bit disappointing on that front, but cute and historical and the park on the harborside was one of the most magical places I have been. There were thousands of little white butterflies in the scrub and grasslands on the edge of the sea, and everything seemed to be shining and glowing with them.
Apollo Bay had a lovely slate rock beach walk, unlike anything we have seen. You could walk a long way on vast plates of relatively flat black slate rock that was sitting on the sand. Hard to describe, but very cool. The three of us had a lovely dinner at a local place recommended by the guesthouse where we stayed, and it was a wonderful experience over-all. Probably the best part was seeing our first wild Koala bears. There was one that frequented our guest house, and the owner told us where to find him. We had seen Koalas in the zoo, but this was the first we saw in a tree, so it was pretty awesome.
The next day, after another encounter with a Koala bear (there was one in a tree at a lookout we stopped at by the side of the road) we stopped in Torquay, at the end of the Great Ocean Road, on our way into Melbourne. This town had lovely coastal walks and lots of little seafood places along the shore. We stopped in one for lunch and had some of the best calamari and fish we have tasted.
We would miss the ocean road, but were excited to see the sites of Melbourne.