The Great Ocean Road

Things certainly began looking up as my family and I took off on Saturday morning. Mom planned the entire trip for us and it was fantastic! Our Great Ocean Road adventure had begun.

We drove all the way to Warrnambool (pronounced ‘War-na-bull’) and visited Cheese World. It was rather boring, if you ask me. The cool part was driving alongside the coast, snapping pictures of all the bays from there to Port Campbell. There were plenty of things to see. The rock formations created by the wind and water were breath-taking. The two coolest places were The Grotto and the Loch Ard Gorge. That brings me to the next thing we did.

That evening, after we’d checked into a hotel in Warrnambool, we went to the visitor center for a laser show called ‘Shipwrecked’. Our tickets looked like boarding passes for a boat trip. The whole group split into pairs and each pair was given a lantern. By the light of our lanterns, the guide led us down through the recreation of Flagstaff Hill in 1850. Then we sat on these wooden benches and the show began. It made us feel like we were actually being shipwrecked! The benches jerked back and forth, rain fell, thunder crashed, lightning flashed! Lasers recreated the shipwreck and made it seem so real, I actually got scared!

Info: Loch Ard set sail from England to Melbourne in 1850. The voyage lasted 13 weeks. When it crashed, 52 passengers perished. No one survived but 2: Eva and Tom. None of the cargo could be found, except for the most important piece of cargo, that was found washed up on shore in a crate. The item was entrusted to the captain to deliver to Melbourne. The item was a porcelain peacock that survived the wreck with nothing but a chip on its beak.

Loch Ard Gorge was where it crashed (who knew?). 11 bodies actually floated through an underwater cave and into a blowhole area.

Brrr… I had chills just typing that!

The next day, we drove down the road to see the 12 Apostles. By then, my camera had completely run out of battery juice… But that’s ok. What we did there was amazing enough.

James was too scared to do it, but dad, mom, and I went up in a helicoptor!!! It was a 15 min. flight to Port Campbell and back. I sat up front with the pilot and mom and dad sat in the back. We all had these headsets on so that we could communicate with each other over radio. It was the most spectacular thing I’ve ever had the chance to do!!!

Next, we drove down to Apollo’s Bay to see the lighthouse there. It was a long drive and James and I slept the whole way there. The lighthouse was kind of a rip-off. All we did was climb to the top and get a good view over the ocean. Man, was it windy up there!

Afterwards, we drove a little farther into the Otway Shire National Park. I hiked through a rainforest! We went up on these platforms high in the trees. We were in the middle level!

We went back to Apollo Bay and spent the night in another hotel. Today dawned bright and a little warmer than yesterday.

The only thing we really did today was hike up to the Eskrine Falls. It was a hard trail, but the end was totally worth it. The falls were 30 meters tall, part mist, part water. The rainforest around us was cool and wet.

Then we went home. I am exhausted… But happy.