This was our second tour with Oceania Tours and Safaris (our driver was Fred). They are not affiliated with the Oceania cruise company in any way. Leslie started coming down with something during the wine tour. We thought at first maybe it was just allergies. But she had a miserable night and was not feeling well at all in the morning. So, David headed out on the tour by himself. A couple from England (and Sweden) were on the wine tour yesterday was also on this tour. First stop on our tour was at a chocolatier where David picked up some chocolate for Leslie and some fudge brownie ice cream for himself. The next stop was at the official start of the great ocean road. The road was built between 1919 and 1938. With soldiers returning home from WW1 and the economy depressed (IE high unemployment), there were not jobs for the 6,000 returning soldiers. So, they decided to build a costal road linking the small costal villages west of Melbourne. The effort employed about 3,000 former soldiers and another 1,000 civilians to build the road by hand. The arch at the beginning of the road is to commemorate the effort of all those people. Fred was in a hurry to keep us on schedule, so he blew by a lot of really pretty overlooks in his haste to get us to the designated lunch spot. He made one stop to show us how he feeds the Magpies at one overlook. He even managed to get a Kookaburra to take a “twisty” snack from him. A first! He made another stop because he saw a crowd that was trying to get a picture of a Koala in a tree. But it was napping and not cooperating with the photographers. We stopped for lunch in Apollo Bay for lunch. After lunch we drove to Melba Gully, in Great Otway National Park, where we all hiked down to Anne’s Cascade. There was an alternative route back, but it involved a lot of stairs. Wanting to get away from the crowd, David elected to take the alternate route back. Unfortunately, the stair climbing aggravated a muscle pull he had from a Charlie horse a couple of nights before and he was limping by the time he made it back to the van. Next stop was to see a mob of Kangaroo. David stayed back by the van rather than limb out into a field to see the kangaroo. But there was a caravan setting up nearby and he walked over to talk with the couple, like RVers all over the world would do! After a pleasant conversation with them about RVing in Australia and their rig, he reluctantly went back to the van. Finally, we got to the Twelve Apostles in Port Campbell National Park! This was the real goal of the trip, to see these great buttes jutting out from the sea! It was a beautiful scene, even with the hundreds of people vying for the perfect picture! We made one more stop at Loch Ard Gorge before pilling in the van for the three hour drive back to Melbourne. David got back about 8:30pm. Leslie was still sick but seemed to be on the mend after a day of rest.
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| Coast along the Great Ocean Road |
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| Start of the Great Ocean Road |
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| Fred feeding the Magpies |
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| Pair of Kookaburra in the wild |
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| Apollo Bay |
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| Anne’s Cascade |
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| 12 Apostles |
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| Loch Ard Gorge |
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