| Frank & Lisa's Amazing Cross-Australia Adventures |
| on to more Great Ocean Road ...or |
| Victoria - Great Ocean Road |
| Our first stop along the Great Ocean Road (GOR) was the Bay of Islands. Walking up to the Bay gave us our first real glimpse of what the GOR lookouts were going to be all about. It was pretty awe inspiring. As far as the eye could see up the coast were a series of rock islands with sheer cliff walls marking their shores. (pics below) |
| After our visit to The Arch we stopped in Port Campbell to check into our cottage and have some lunch. We still had a good portion of the afternoon and it didn't get dark there until 8:30, so we decided to continue our adventure down the GOR so that we wouldn't be insanely rushed the next day. And so off we went to the next stop along the Road, Loch Ard! It hosts a few attractions, including Loch Ard itself, the Thunder Cave, and it's associated Blowhole. Loch Ard is popular as the site of a major shipwreck in the 1800s. Only 2 passengers managed to survive because they were washed into this gorge. However, like everywhere else along the coast, the beach was surrounded by sheer cliff walls. So they weren't out of the woods yet! A poor half drowned and rock battered ship's crewman now had to climb the cliff faces to seek a rescue party for the female passenger with him. We got to climb down a set of steps to Loch Ard beach where they washed ashore (pic below right). Standing at the bottom looking up made you really think about how stong the will to live is! Right around the corner is the Thunder Cave (pic below left) is actually a blowhole mouth where waves crash up and wash into a long shaft that has been worn away by the water over time. The blowhole (pic below middle) is several hundred metres down the shaft where the ceiling of the cave has eroded away because the waves are pushed high into the air when the pressure reaches the correct conditions during high tide. Apparently many Loch Ard casualties were recovered from the blowhole. Makes you realize how lucky those 2 people were to have reached a nice dry soft beach! |
| Our next stop was a place called The Grotto (pic below left). Basically, the power of the waves have caused a little arch and tidepool to form here (pic below middle). During high tide waves wash up over the sides of the rocks and settle in the pool. Even during low tide, though, the power of the patterns of the waves crashing against the rocks (pic below right) was great to watch, as it would be at all of our future destinations along the Road! |
| The third port of call was called London Bridge (pic below right). This place comes with a story behind it. Apparently this little stranded archway island used to have another archway attaching it to the mainland... (You have to admit that the name doesn't really make much sense without this little tidbit of information!) The attaching bit collapsed on January 15, 1991 and stranded 2 tourists who had strayed out onto the rocks (despite clear signage requesting otherwise)! Oops, how embarassing! We bought a postcard of the "old" bridge, but since read that the second arch was |
| Next we visited The Arch (pic left). By now you may be realizing that someone had to spend a lot of time coming up with a variety of names for a bunch of very similar rock formations! Indeed the grotto had an arch and the London Bridge did, too. (Although, at least it had a double arch at the time it was actually named!) This particular arch, however, protrudes from a cliff on the mainland. |
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| computer generated. ...Seems odd that they didn't have any other postcard pics prior to 1991 that they'd have to do that... Then again, maybe tourism wasn't booming enough then to justify postcards past the Twelve Apostles! |
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| Northern Territory: Red Centre , 2 / Top End , 2 NSW & ACT: Hunter Valley / Sydney / Canberra , 2 Queensland Coast: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 South Australia: Barossa Valley / Kangaroo Island / McLaren Vale & Coonawarra Victoria: Great Ocean Road , 2 , 3 / Melbourne New Zealand (North Island): Aukland / Rotorua / Tongariro / Wellington (South Island): Nelson / Westland / Queenstown / Milford / Dunedin / Mt Cook / Christchurch |