The Great Ocean Road

March 30 – April 2, 2008 Our Great Ocean Road Experience:
Sorry we have been out of touch, our ability to get wireless internet has been nil, we are hopefully back on this evening (Wednesday night 4-2-08) --- We left our friends’ Jenni and Rob’s wonderful accommodation (Thanks J & R for the wonderful time, visit, food, grog were beyond imagine, love ya both!) on Sunday morning and traveled through the before mentioned Bendigo, on through to another mining town of Ballarat. We visited the Eureka Stockade Museum, and learned the history of the miners and their struggles against the government’s licensing fees to mine for gold. Geelong was our goal for the day. It was another picturesque day of pasture lands, dotted with interesting patterns of planted trees as “wind rows”. We traveled several miles along a detour; very narrow two lane road, where we spend the majority of our time on the shoulder (Karen wincing as the signs and road markers just nearly missed her side). Phew it was exciting, none the less.
Monday morning we awoke and headed to Apollo Bay the beginning of the Great Ocean Road (GOR). We arrived at Anglesea mid morning and arranged to play golf. Not your ordinary nine holes, but golf with about 300 grey kangaroos. It was a fantastic couple of hours. We rented a cart, Karen drove (scary as that may seem) and Mike drove the clubs. The second hole out; we were greeted with many of the very tame marsupials. Karen was madly clicking away on the camera and Mike was swinging away on the course. We saw literally saw 100s of the “roos” just lazing around tees, the fairways and on and about the holes, but they appeared to leave the greens alone. Because of the drought the greens were very, very fast, the greatest cause of Mike’s somewhat high score. This was undoubtedly one of our most memorable experiences so far. We headed on down the road and made our evening’s camp in Apollo Bay.
Tuesday morning we continued along the G.O.R. We enjoyed such a beautiful variety of scenery: we saw unimaginable ocean views, rain forest, rolling hills, cut tree plantations, cattle, sheep and HUGE bales of rolled hay. We arrived at Port Campbell about noon and took an awesome adventure of a life time: a helicopter flight (our first ever) out over the sandstone features of the 12 Apostles, Bay of Islands, Bass Straight, Ship Wreck Alley, and over some beautiful farms. We have been on this adventure for one month; oh my time does fly when you are having fun….
Thursday morning we awoke to lots of WIND and rain. Such a drastic change from the beautiful temperate weather we have been enjoying. We headed to Camperdown to visit a friend of ours from 35 years ago. Pam was a teacher with Mike in Melbourne. We had a great morning; touring about her little town, going out to her farm and meeting her sweet little Jack Russell Terriers, reminiscing and catching up on our present activities. We had a wonderful time, “Thanks Pam!” We left and headed back to the coast. We drove through Warrnambool, the largest town we have been in on the GOR. We arrived in Port Fairy mid afternoon and took a quick tour of the town with the interesting stone houses reminiscent of Ireland. This area was settled by whalers and seaman who thought that it reminded them of their homeland of Belfast. With the weather being still problematic – WIND & rain we decided to head to camp and call it a day.