Great Ocean Road

20090423SW6537
Originally uploaded by s webster

After returning to Melbourne from the Grampians national park I found my two friends from Dublin. I had been planning on driving the great ocean road by myself but decided they should come with me. So we rented a car and headed out Monday morning.

First stop was Phillip Island, home of the penguins and Grand Prix race track. We got to the island and purchased our 3 park pass getting us into see the penguins, koalas & Churchill Island. Then we proceed to find our hostel. It was a nice little place seemed to be built out of an old house. It had everything pool, lounge, bar, Free Breakfast. Though only one problem it shut down at 8:30pm so basically we had to go to bed early. Our first stop of the night was to see the penguins. They are little the biggest being 1 foot high. The night before they had 450 come into shore at 6:15 our night only 250 came in and it wasn't until about 6:30 that they started to show up. We sat on the beach and watched them come out of the water and run up the hill. They would run back and forth into and out of the water until they were sure it was safe. We weren't allowed to take any pictures so I have none to show you!

The next day we went and walked Churchill Island it was a great little place. We ended up walking around the entire island. After which we went and saw the Koalas though they were all asleep.

Day 3 we stopped at the grand prix track to have a look around we just missed the walking tour so I got a shirt took a few pictures and we carried on to the chocolate factory for our free samples. They even had a few penguins made entirely out of chocolate. We got our samples and bought some more it was really good.

We continued on our travels to meet the ferry this would cut out 4 hours of driving. We got the car on and went up to make our lunch of cheese and a baguette it was quite good. Went to the top and took some more pictures though we did not see any dolphins as they do on occasion.
We continued along the road to Lorne stopping at a lighthouse in Aireys inlet to watch the sunset.

Day 4 we awoke to the Cockatoos; they are very loud and as you can see come right up to you to see what you’re going to feed them. Or possibly they will take from your hands as you try and eat!

Following breakfast we set out to the information centre to find out about the local walks in the Great Otway National Park. We got one that would take us about 3 hours to do. It was up the mountain to Erskine falls. Here the trees are huge and the ferns stand well over 15 feet high everything is green and it's a little cool walking along the path. We criss crossed the river so many times sometimes jumping others walking across fallen logs or even just stones. We found another track that would lead us back to town. This one there was not a sole to be seen as the bridge was out closing down the track. Though we did find a way across it. This trail had 2 separate waterfalls the last being the phantom falls here we found a wild apple tree with some fruit still on it.

It was a nice little journey totaling over 30kms we got back at around 7:30pm. We made some pasta for dinner and I sat down to download and catalog my pictures for the past 2 days. I didn't take all that many only 330. I will need to press that trigger button some more!