Today was my first day in Melbourne ('Mel-bun' I was told by a honey-mooning young teacher I met on my reef tour in Cairns). I had to walk a whole 2 mins to the pick-up for my great ocean road tour at 7:35am. There were 30 people on the tour but they'd put on a full coach so we were not cramped in.
Leaving Melbourne.
The motorways around Melbourne are quite pretty with lights at night and these coloured sheets visible by day.
Many of the fields were corn or sheep.
We had a 1.5hr drive to our first stop for a toilet break and cup of tea. Colac.
Then we had 50 mins to have a look at the 'twelve' apostles.
The view platform on the left of the image
Interesting plants around... full of butterflies, apparently there are also wallabies and snakes.
Looking west...
My phone captures the blue and turquoise better...
Looking East
After a short drive we had another 40 mins at Loch and Gorge.
Looking East at the end of the 12 apostles.
To the west, the Loch Ard was wrecked just off these rocks in 1878.
Our next stop was lunch in the rainforest. Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) temperate rainforest, very different wet tropics rainforest near Cairns.
Next stop was Apollo Bay
We then had a long run along the ocean winding back to Melbourne. Saw some Kangaroos but not quick enough for a photo. Lots of lovely scenery, including some rivers meeting the sea.
With another beautiful beach.
The Fairhaven light house on the headland.
This is close to where they filmed the original Mad Max.
Our final toilet stop was only for 10mins in Anglesea so I stayed on the bus.
It was an amazing day for the trip, totally beautiful. As the tour guide suggested it was more of a road trip than anything else but definitely worth it to get out of Melbourne and see a tiny bit of the Great Ocean Road.
