The Great Ocean Road & the Grampians

Two weeks ago, I spent 3 days driving the Great Ocean Road and staying at the Grampians National Park. The Great Ocean Road is about 270 km long, it starts in Geelong and ends in a town called Warrnambool. The road was built after the WW1 in honour of all of the fallen soldiers. It took 3000 men about 13 years to dig out the road, but it is admired but hundreds each day, and millions each year. The Great Ocean Road is so spectacular because it is lined with amazing rock formations.

Our first stop before was at the famous Belles Beach where they host top surfing competitions every year.
The waves are massive here.
The town of Torquey is home to the original Rip Curl Surf Shop, and the Billabong Surf shop.

Our second stop, we headed to see some Koala's in the wild. This was pretty amazing, as they were all just hanging out in the trees...sleeping. Koala's are known to sleep for about 16 hours a day, and only wake to eat. They sleep for so long, because they are very weak, as they only eat eucalyptus leafs.

We then headed to some rainforest to hike up to a waterfall. We found a very rare species of a snail which is a carnivore and eats meat! If you put it on your hand, you may notice a slight tingling and some sort of rash as it is trying to eat you!It was quite the hike, we had to hop over some rocks to get over a moving river, and beware of snakes.

We then started to head to our camp ground for the night, when we came across as huge pod of Kangaroo's.We saw them fighting, eating and mating...it was quite the experience, very eventful indeed. As we were leaving it became a little bit of an irony for the Kangaroo as they were on the menu for our dinner that that!

When we got to our campsite, we enjoyed a true Ozzie Barby, with sausages, salads, and KANGAROO!!!
I finally was able to try some Kangaroo, and it was amazing!!! It tasted like steak, but was a little lighter, and so flavourful.

After dinner, when it was dark enough, we left the campsite to head back to the rainforest where we were able to take a glimpse of glowworms. It was pitch black in the rainforest, and all you could see was these little green lights all over the forest ground. Glowworms glow so that they can attract their prey. There was no way to get photo evidence of these glowing wonders, as it was something you had to be there for.

The next morning, we got up bright and early and watched some baby Koalas play in the tree. It was the coolest thing, as they were very active, and usually when we have seen them they have been sleeping, so this was an extra special experience. The baby was so cute, and tried to be independent from its mother, by climbing down the tree, then hoping onto another one. It was incredibly special.

We then headed to see some of the stars of the Great Ocean Road...the rock formations!

The most famous of these formations are the Twelve Apostles, or their original names, "Sow and Piglets", but was changed to a more appealing name for tourists.


There is also the "London Bridge", which used to have two arches, but was left with only one arch when the part attaching it to land collapsed.Thankfully no one was hurt at the time it collapsed, but there were two people on the other side trapped who needed to wait for a helicopter to collect them hours later.

The Loch and Gorge is also a very famous place on the GOR, as it is home to many shipwrecks. The most famous was that of the Loch where a boat coming from a 3-month journey from Ireland crashed on the shores, and only two people survived. A worker on the ship survived and was trying to recover on shore when he heard a woman screaming out in the ocean. He swam out, and saved her by keeping her warm by feeding her whisky.
When we were here however, it looked quite beautiful and peaceful.

After the long day of seeing the coastline, we headed to the Grampians National Park.When we arrived we hiked up to see some Aboriginal Drawings. This was a very cool, as these illustrations were made thousands and thousands of years ago. It was really cool to put yourself in the mind frame of when they lived, and try to picture what it must have been like. When I think of how complex and technical our world is now, it is quite amazing how far we have come.

We found some Emu's.

We then headed back to our new campsite, where we all sat down and played trivia games, and had a few drinks. It was pretty fun to try and play trivia games with different people from around the world. It is quite humourous to realize the types of knowledge we all have about certain things such as pop culture, and politics.

In the morning, I was one of 3 who chose to ATV. The campsite that we stayed at has over 100 acres s and we were able to take our ATV's and roam the land. It was pouring rain, but it was one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had.
It kind of felt like we were in a Jurassic Park video game, as creatures would pop out from everywhere, bunnies, birds and Kangaroos!! It was so amazing to be riding right beside hopping Kangaroo's...this is an image I will never forget.

After being completely soaked, we quickly tried to try up and headed to our next destination. We took the steep walk down to the Mackenzie Falls.

This was really cool, as we got to walk right down next to the waterfall, and get really close to it. Of course, it was still raining, so it was a little overwhelming trying to take in the spectacular views, while trying to be super cautious of not slipping and falling off the steep steps.

We then headed to to Balconies look out, which gave us an amazing view of the Grampians.

After another full long day, we finally headed back to Melbourne on a 2 hour bus ride. What an amazing weekend!