Great Oceans Road and 12 Apostles tour – pickup was at 0700 at the Immigration Museum and it was a 7 minute walk from my place. Got there early so camped out on the steps waiting until 0700. Issue today is my bag was in the rain for 1 hour when the airport in Melbourne shut down getting wet. Clothes are pretty dry but pack not so much and I will be wearing it today, oh well. As I wait on the steps others are joining me so I guess they are my friends for the day going on the journey. The ages are all over the board with some oldies like me and then some youngsters in their 20’s. Lots of people started hanging on the stairs I think for the journey or maybe they just wanted to hang with the old American, we will see soon. The tour operator said to get at the pickup point at 0700 but driver was 5 minutes late. As luck would have it there were a few tour operators who had stops at the museum so some of the young group was on a different tour than me. Our driver also shut the door in the face of a couple saying he had all of his riders. Our driver also told me we had everyone and off he went. I asked if this was all the people for today and he said yes but then we had a few more stops to get more people, I guess American and Australia need to be translated a bit better. All of the pickups were completed at 0730 and we started out of town. I was wrong we had two more pickups before heading out of town. I did notice the license plates in Victoria call it, The education state. I like that they put focus on education. Well this is fun I have been on the bus for 45 minutes and I am back to the place where I am staying for the last pickup, WTF. I could have had a bit of a sleep in and walked around the block but I did get a seat I liked. The seat I liked the driver told me to I had to move as I was a single. The driver then told us we had 600km of driving and we had to be back into Melbourne by 1930. The tour is not starting off well for me as I am not happy with the driver etc but let’s see how we can make the day enjoyable about 1 hour into the trip we had a young lady get motion sickness and threw up on the bus, good news the driver did stop to clean it up and let the girl have some fresh air. The day is going to get longer I think as we have 10 more hours to go. Our first stop was a car park to use the toilet and tea and coffee and it was about 30 minutes. The next stop is a golf course to see some kangaroos maybe if they let us in the course, seems a bit sketchy. We did only a drive by and no kangaroos to be seen.
Our next stop was the arch, indicating “the great arch” road. The road was built by WWI veterans and it is now a heritage site in Australia. It took 14 years to complete the road as they were able to do only 3Km per month. The road is very windy and the workers had to hold the detonators on their laps when going to work. These veterans worked 6 days a week and 10 hours in a day. The first town along the road is Lorne and it is a nice little coastal town but is the largest town on the road. The town has a fishing pier and one time a year there is a race called pier to pub. You dive into the water off the pier swim to shore near a pub and drink a pint to finish, sounds like fun. The great ocean road reminds me of the Pacific Coast Highway or the drive on the Oregon and Washington coasts. If you have ever driven on the Amalfi coast the road is similar as well with the narrow road, hairpin turns and right on the cliff.
We stopped at a Koala looking spot. I walked up the road without any luck, darn. On the way back down the road however I was able to spot two! One was high up in the tree and the second was quite low. The Koala bear is actually a marsupial and a few facts is that they have VD. They also eat some of the leaves that make them halocinate
Lunch stop was at Apollo Beach a small town with beach access and plenty of shops for lunch. I chose to eat at the American Beach Diner and enjoyed lunch with a few other passengers of my bus. The young lady is from London and the young man from The Netherlands. She is working and on holiday and he is in college. They met at a hostel in Sydney and the ended up staying at the same hostel in Melbourne. In Apollo bay there was plenty of backpackers and camping places are all around on the great ocean road.
Our next stop is the 12 apostles. In order to get there we have to go through a rain forest. Some of the ferns in the rain forest are prehistoric and they even found fossils of them on Antarctica. The duck bill platapous is also in this rain forest but they are protected so don’t mess with them or you get the large fine, over $100,000! The trees in the rain forest are also able to grow quite tall with some over 100 meters or 300 feet. As we drove through the rain forest soft music was being played and most of the bus went to sleep. Then we had a fog up on the bus and the few of us awake could not see out the windows since they were fogged up. Not much to see in a rain forest for 1 hour with fogged up windows. When the windows were not fogged up we were able to see the beautiful countryside. There were sheep, cow and alpaca farms along the way. The hills were rolling and the grass was green a deep green like in Ireland
We made it to the 12 Apostles and the Port Campbell National Park. The apostles are limestone rock formations that were warm down into an arch and then the arch fell. There are more than 12 Apostles but they are getting more or less depending on the erosion. After the 12 Apostles we went to view some additional formations. These formations had names like razorback, and shipwreck
Grampians National Parks
Multiple pickups with a van and one of the stops we had to wait for a young lady who went to the wrong place. It was fine as we got to use the restroom and even change seats. Melbourne has a river that runs through called the Yara. Yara is a word from the original inhabitants and the English asked what it was called. The locals said Yara which is river so the river is called river river. Our bus had wi-fi which was very nice. Lucy was the driver for the bus and she was a hoot. One thing I liked is she mentioned that smoking is OK outside but in Australia there is no littering and butts is litter. She will yell at you if you litter. Additionally she has a penguin who is the co-pilot but he also allows us to spot the bus when at a stop. The drive to the park is 3 hours and is broken up by a little town stop for coffee and tea.
One thing is Australia is that they talk about the aboriginal people and that the land is aboriginal. The people have been around for 65,000 years, the oldest/longest society in the world.
As we head out of town I notice that there are plenty of warehouses and even a golf course or two. Less than 1 hour outside of town you get past the burbs and into the country. You pass some new developments of houses but also some wineries. The countryside is nice with rolling hills but as Summer is starting the land looks very dry so it maybe a bunch of wildfires this year as the ground is very dry.
Ballarat was our first stop on the journey. The town of Ballarat is known for it gold rush in the 1800’s. The state had a tax on gold mining which raised yearly until a rebellion which lasted 20 minutes and 28 people died. The tax was eventually lowered but not at that particular time. The stop was at a local park that had restrooms and some picnic areas. The pool was not open at the time but a lovely pond had a few ducks, frogs and lily pads. Ballarat is an aboriginal name of two words being ball which is bent elbow and arat is laying down. So if you think about laying down resting your head on your hand with a crooked elbow. The aboriginal people used the town as a place to rest.
Beaufort was a small town on the way and its average age of the inhabitants is 70 years old! The town gets together at Christmas in the AM with a brass band. The town sure is a farm town as if you blinked you were through the town.
Grampians are home to 80% of the rock paintings in Australia that was done by the aboriginal.
First hike is silver band falls was a short hike from the car parking area. It was a hard packed trail and very little elevation gain/loss. The falls had some water coming down into a pool but the pool was very shallow. I was able to get within 2 feet of the falls without getting into the water. We were able to hike there and back without seeing many other people on the less than 1/2 mile hike. If you are in area near Halls Gap it is worth a visit to the falls.
After lunch in Halls Gap we headed to the Grand Canyon of the Grampians. The hike was a trail through the rocks and it had a bit of elevation gain. The through hike was stopped due to the trail being washed out so it was out and back. The car park had 4 separate trails to take and only 1 went to the falls. The hike was all rocks with a bridge over a stream. The weather is getting hot here as it will be in the 90’s today so a bit sweaty. Grand Canyon when I think of that it is the US Grand Canyon and this one is not the same. It is a canyon but to call it grand is a bit of a stretch.
We went to a lookout called Reid’s and it had a 270 degree view of the valley although not at the same, bummer, you can see for miles here and enjoy the mountains. No hiking was done here as we had only 15 minutes but of course we had a guest the went to the fire watch tower with only 5 minutes left so everyone is waiting for him 10 minutes. I asked if I had time and was told no so no lookout at the fire watch tower for me. At least Lucy, the driver, left the bus running with AC on.
Our next stop is a McKenzie waterfall that is the longest continuously flowing waterfall in Victoria, the state. At the falls stop there are three trails you can go. One trail is 570 meters and is on a slight downward slope. The next two go the same way and one is an overlook at about 150 meters and the last one is 510 meters and has 290 steps to go down then up. I chose to do the 290 steps and go down to the bottom of the falls. I am tired but thankful that I did the steps as the exercise has been lacking for me and it feels good to get a nice sweat in. Now we have a 3 hour drive back to Melbourne in a bus of 17 of my sweaty friends. Maybe I will catch a nap and not notice the smell. I am looking forward to laundry tonight and have clean clothes for my next stop.
Fun fact is that a marsupial does not all have pouches but it is that their young are born not fully formed. The young Joey (they are all called Joey) climb into
