Woke up at 625, gogogo! Went through everything again and our driver Cameron was off. The Great Ocean Road tour.
First town we passed through was Torquay, the hometown of QuikSilver and RipCurl! Passing over a small bridge, we were off! And our first stop: Bell’s Beach. Morning Tea and biscuits… We had a lot of germans on the tour, france, ireland, thailand, japan and korea as well.
As we went along the road Cam elaborated on the road and explained to us that this road was built by the returning soldiers of WWI. Since they did not have jobs when they returned they were shown gratitude by being given this task which proved to be difficult and actually take some more lives, adding to the many already lost in the war. The road is very windy, motion-sick-enducing. Most of the views were basically the same, beach, cliffs, waves, eroded sandstone formations…
Split Point Lighthouse. Apparently this was the location of an old comedy that aired in Canada as well O.o… Hmm.
Wild Koalas. Kennett River. Driving up a pathway of a national park we were able to spot koalas up in the trees and we actually found one on the ground, moving to another tree. It crossed the dirt road right in front of us, illegal to touch them, and pretty dangerous too.
Cameron told us some stories of animal accidents that took place involving koalas and others with kangaroos. A girl on one of the tours came to Australia with her mind set on cuddling a koala, but being disappointed that the first ones she saw were up in the trees too far to hug. On her way to the toilet she spotted a koala sleeping on low tree and just had to get her hug! She ran up to it and tried to pry it off of the tree to no avail. Managing to wake the male koala, it held out an arm and she saw it is an invitation and ran in… Only to receive a nice big slash in the cheek 75mm deep. Ouch.
One morning as a man went through a park, an eastern grey kangaroo was hopping on through and saw and turned towards the man. Pretty cool, right? The kangaroo stopped shortly before the man, fell back onto its tail and threw the man meters away with its legs, piercing him with its nails in the process. Of course, the kangaroo had to make sure its point was made with a couple more kicks, breaking some ribs…
Otway’s Rainforest. A looped pathway through a cool temperate rainforest full of eucalyptus trees.
Loch Ard. Razorback. Salt and Pepper shakers. Three Sisters. London Bridge. Besides Loch Ard, the rest of these are rock formations named after their shapes. Loch Ard Gorge was named after the shipwreck that took place and the story alongside it.
Loch Ard was the name of the ship that sunk, obviously. It was carrying mostly fine goods cargo, pianos, etc, but also some families and crew, totaling around 60 passengers. The compass wasn’t working as it should be was dismissed because of the iron in the ship. The over confident captain thought he knew where he was but in the fog ended up closer to Tasmania than intended. Unable to readjust the heading in time, punctured the hull and sunk. A family from Ireland was on the ship heading to Melbourne, sans a son who stayed back. The daughter, Eva, was saved by crew mates and placed in a tub that kept her alive, while the crew mates eventually got too cold and drowned… Tom Pearce, one of the crew-in-training was lucky enough to wash up on the coast which happened to be the gorge. He then spotted and rescued Eva, bringing her back to the gorge and scaling the cliff to bring help. The hero of the town he and Eva eventually fell in love after she recovered. Later on Eva’s brother requested that she come back home so he could take care of her, as their family would have wanted. What followed was a heart-breaking tale for Tom, working towards being good enough for Eva only to be too late as she moved on with her life and was actually very ill. He then also moved on and had two sons, who like their father became men of the sea only to become victims of shipwrecks… Hahah I’m sure the story sounded better to me than how I wrote it here 🙂
12 Apostles. Port Campbell National Park. Apparently the names of these formations were made for tourism sake. To attract the european crowd, the 12 Apostles. Along with the bridge of the London Bridge, a couple of the apostles have collapsed as the years go by as well…
We set out to get home but not before dropping by a small town to grab a quick dinner. Red Rooster!
Another story told by Cam as we passed a town celebrating an anniversary of the rabbit and later on, the fox… told of a man from Europe who moved to Melbourne and through letters conveyed that he was missing his old home and requested that his nephew could send him something that he could hunt. Being the good nephew, he sent some rabbits! But rabbits doing what the do best, became too much for the uncle and others to hunt. He then requested that his nephew send an animal that could help hunt down the rabbits, the fox. However, the fox did not only hunt some rabbits, it also damaged the marsupial population greatly… More damage caused by the conquering queen.
Anyways, off to New Zealand tomorrow after exploring a bit of Melbourne!
Loch Ard Gorge
A part of the 12 Apostles
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