The Great Ocean Road 3

The bus picked us up from our hotel at 8:00 am and it returned is there at about 9:00pm.  We spent the entire day driving down Australia's Great Ocean Road.  It was started after World War I by some of the returning troops and some sections weren't finished until the 1980's.  It was fashioned after California's Pacific coast Highway.  It's a twisty, turny road tha thugs the coastline heading West out of Melbourne.  You can Google it to learn all about it!

Our driver was nonstop information telling us all the interesting facts and stories.  Much of it occured back in the 1800's during Australia's gold rush. 

He talked alot about Victoria's life with the eucalyptus trees.  Apparently there are over 100 varieties.   We walked into an ancient forest of eucalyptus and tree ferns that had never had a forest fire.  They were the biggest eucalyptus trees I have ever seen--even bigger than Kitty's trees! 

The Koalas we saw were in the wild.  Of course they are protected by law, but they were not caged or fed or restricted in any way.

We talked about the geology of the coastline and how the erosion caused these pillars that remained after the beach cliffs eroded away.  They call the collectively the Twelve Apostles.  Not for any religious reason, but just as an approximate number of the pillars.  They continue to form and erode and fall into the ocean.

One of the interesting stories was about the one called the London Bridge.  It used to be connected to the mainland by a bridge and you could walk out onto it until sometine in 1990 when the bridge collapsed into the ocean (thereby stranding a couple out on the rock!)

It was long and tiring but it was a great day.  We had a fun time. Print this post