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After work on Friday we got a train out to Colac to stay at Irene and Goff's for the night, ready for an early start travelling the most spectacular stretch of the Great Ocean Road.It is also known as the shipwreck coast because it has been the end of well over 100 ships in the past. It is a limestone coastline with big cliffs, lots of stacks and plenty of islands just off the coast and a few natural bridges thrown in too!
We asked the family if anybody wanted to come with us and our request was accepted so we ended up travelling in a two car convoy with Caroline and her three, (Sarah J, Laura and Ryan), as well as Mike's (Caroline's youngest brother) three (Ben, Jessie and Emily) and their friend Serena, so all in all there were ten of us, three adults and seven kids! "Good Luck" was all Goff said to us as we left their house early on Saturday morning!
From Colac we headed south, past the Otway Ranges and over Lavers Hill until we reached The Twelve Apostles.There are significantly less than twelve Apostles now as quite a few have collapsed over the years! They were incredibly spectacular, a few hundred feet high, towering over the sea below and with the weather starting to clear too, we were in for a beautiful day! I know we have said this a lot but the photos again really don't do the place justice!
We then continued up the coast, stopping at all the vantage points. Loch Ard Gorge is so named because it was the site of a major shipwreck in 1878 of the Loch Ard, only two people and a china peacock survived!Again it was a beautiful spot with golden sandy beaches down in the gorge.Here we also saw Thunder Cave and The Blowhole, although because the weather was so nice they didn't really live up to their names!
By about 1pm attention spans were waning so we grabbed some lunch at Port Campbell, a very touristy little town and then headed onwards along the coast.We were really lucky because even though it was a Saturday, the roads were really quiet and we were able to have all the view points pretty much to ourselves.I have heard horror stories about a completely congested Great Ocean Road during the summer so I think we managed to pick a good time to do it and because we started from Colac we were ahead of all the tourist buses from Melbourne!
Our next stops were The Arch, which as the name suggests was an arch in the limestone rock.Next it was onto London Bridge, which actually fell down in 1990, so now it is really another arch!Then it was our favourite place, The Grotto, a cute little cove with colourful rocks.
Further along the coast we stopped at The Bay of Martyrs, which was truly beautiful with lots of little islands dotted within the bay.At this point the kids could no longer control themselves and were straight into the sea and had great fun running into and out of the waves!They were all soaked, clothes and everything!Our final stop along the Great Ocean Road was The Bay of Islands, again beautiful.These are parts of the Great Ocean Road that often get forgotten about, yet we though were more beautiful than the Apostles!
We finished the day in Warrnambool, where everyone went swimming in the sea, before we had dinner and then headed back to Colac, all thoroughly exhausted!It was a great day though, another highlight of our trip!
We have got three weeks left at work now before Christmas then it is back to proper travelling up the East Coast! It is very strange trying to get in the Christmas mood when it is 30oc, bright and sunny everyday! But I'm sure we will manage!
Hope everyone is ok back in the cold and dark UK!
Lots of Love
Andrew and Sarah xxx
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