L0p3z and Neno's Upside-Down Adventure: Great Ocean Road

Yesterday we took a tour down the Great Ocean Road. This is a 151 mile stretch of road that runs from Torquay to Warrnambool. It was built by returning veterans from World War 1. Pretty impressive considering they did this with little machinery, just hard work and some dynamite. The tour took in many sights along the way, it passes through a varied landscape from sandy beaches to rainforest covered mountains and on to dramatic cliffs. The first stop was Bells beach which is a world famous surf beach. At this point I learned one of the most important lessons of being a tourist, remember to put a battery in your camera, oops. Luckily Janine had her camera so we managed to get some pictures. We stopped at many interesting places including the Split Point Lighthouse used in kids TV show Round the Twist (Colin are you jealous now?). Lunch was a BBQ at the Cape Otway lighthouse, this marks the end of the Bearing Straight and the start of the Souther Ocean. Amazingly a few weeks ago we were over 2000 miles away at the other side of the southern ocean in Cape Leeuwin. The trip to the lighthouse also included a stop to look at some wild Koalas. These were reintroduced as part of a regeneration program, but now they are overpopulated in the area. This means that large areas of eucalyptus has been stripped of its leaves and will die.

After lunch we hit the main highlights of the tour the 12 Apostles limestone rock formations and Loch Ard Gorge. Both were very impressive parts of this dramatic coastline and a great way to finish the tour. Although there are no longer 12 rocks standing out at sea, time and the elements have taken some of them, its still stunning. Luckily, as time passes and the coast erodes, more of these limestone stacks will be created.

Arriving back in Melbourne late we met up with Tom and my cousin Jacob for a beer. The family back home will be glad to know he is OK Randomly he had been given a Tutankhamen mask from a customer at his work, so he was lugging this around for the evening.