Day 18 The Great Ocean Road and the 12 Apostles

I really think I have messed up counting my days here, so I have decided to revert to using the same number that everyone else on the trip is using.  This is now day 18.

We woke up this morning at about 6:00 a.m. and loaded into a van/bus.  It was a 21- passenger beast of a road warrior that was ready to blaze the trails down the Great Ocean Road with 18 Americans.  Our journey would take us about 3 hours away form Melbourne to the Pacific coast where we would then drive up the Great Ocean Road to the 12 Apostles.  The 12 Apostles are some very famous sandstone structures that have been formed over many years off of the coast due to a mixture of the tide and the wind.  On our way there we stopped in a small town for lunch.  It was a foggy Saturday and this small town was hoping with tourists.  Every restaurant was packed and there were people all over the place.  A group of us finally stumbled upon a local seafood restaurant just off the main street that appeared to have reasonably priced items.  The kicker here was that everything was a la carte.  I also seemed to miss the fact that everything in the entire restaurant was fried unless specified otherwise.  Usually I would insert a picture of my delicious meal here, but lets face it a plate of fried food doesn’t necessarily look that special.  I had ordered the barramundi and a potato cake.  The barramundi was incredible, and the potato cake was not.  It too was deep-fried and during one bite I could see and taste an entire chunk of flour. 

We then got back on the road towards port Campbell, where the 12 Apostles are located.  This extremely treacherous two-lane road weaves in and out of lush farmland with sheep and cows and even rolling hills of beautiful Australian landscape.  This was the Australia that I had been waiting to see the entire trip.  When we finally arrived at the site of the 12 Apostles I was ecstatic.  I was awestruck as soon as I saw how massive these rock formations are.  I feel like pictures speak louder than words, so I’m just going to let y’all look instead of read what I have to say about them.

brackish water at our first stop before getting to Th Great Ocean Road

Chris made this out of sea weed on the beach

A light house at our first stop

Not part of the 12 Apostles, this was at our first stop too

The pacific coast

Part of the 12 Apostles

Another coastline picture

Start of the Great Ocean Road

The 12 Apostles

One of my favorite pictures

Just to show you how big these things are

It looks like it is balancing

Taking a more direct and less curvy way back to Melbourne was a big bonus for our crew.  We had endured a lot of crazy turns and inclines on our way there and were all much more relaxed on the way home.  Pulling back into RMIT Village a little after 7:00 p.m. we were all starving and exhausted.  After a hot meal of a lamb kebab down the street I was fat and happy and ready to hit the sack early.  This was an unbelievable day and I think it was also my most favorite day of the trip thus far.  Until next time, cheers!