Australia Part One and a Half: The Great Ocean Road

Our last day in Melbourne was the first day of the Hub's true vacation...no more meetings or colleagues needing his time, all of the dinners were finished and his training wrapped up.  So we decided to do something big for our last day: The Great Ocean Road.

The inspiration for this stunning, winding cord of road was US1 in California, the Pacific Coast Highway.  The Great Ocean Road was built by the returning Veterans of the Great War, WW1.

 

Here's the Hub at Bell's Beach, where they have the famous waves and an even more famous surfing competition every Easter:

Our tour took us to places where koalas nest and eat a whole lot of eucalyptus...and where we got to see and feed some gorgeous and hungry birds:

And we got the chance to do a small Rainforest Walk, in search of the dreaded carnivorous Black Snail!

But the highlight of our tour was when we took a helicopter ride over the rock formations that lead into the famous 12 Apostles-also rock formations...but there are only 9 of those apostles left!

In the picture above, we are holding a photo of what the London Bridge rock looked like before the first section collapsed.  There is a great folklorish story about the collapse...apparently you used to be able to walk out to the end of the rock formation.  Soon after Lexus filmed a print ad campaign where they drove cars out onto the rock to be photographed, the first arch fell through.  When that happened, a couple was stranded out there and the media frenzy started.  They hid their faces, though, from all of the news cameras and didn't want their identities released.  The story goes that this married couple were not actually married to one another, but to other people.  They had gone for a romantic drive down the Great Ocean Road and were in the wrong place at the wrong time while they were wronging their spouses....oops.

Our trip was a day-long, 13 hour event, and it was the perfect way to say goodbye to Melbourne.  Next up, the Whitsunday Islands and snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef!