The Great Ocean Road - with photo blog # 7

The Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia.

We took a 10:30 train from Melbourne to Geelong, which is a beach playground for Melbourne. It was the first day of a three-day weekend, so very lively along the promenade with lots of kids in the water and a wooden boat show, which we glanced at.

We had to walk about half a mile from the train station to our lodging, Gatehouse on Ryrie, just 4 blocks from the promenade. It was a slight uphill and we are not doing really well with our relatively heavy rolling bags. We came upon a shopping cart near a bus stop fairly soon and used it to get the rest of the way across town. The Gatehouse was built in the late 1890s, so very historic. The current owner has had it 15 years and runs it as a B&B – 7 rooms with 2 shared bathrooms. It had great character (in a good way), beautiful dark wood trim and banisters, a nice lounge/sitting room and breakfast room. The kitchen was available for us to cook if we chose (we had kebabs down the street instead).

One thing we have found with Australian B&Bs (either traditional or Airbnb – and with other hosts) is that breakfast is a very basic self-serve continental affair and rarely anything more than white or very nominally wheat bread (more colored than whole grain), granola, cereal, yogurt and maybe fruit, though usually not. Since we are used to self-catering anyway, we have had our own multi-grain bread, which works fine.

The Great Ocean Road is a beautiful drive. We took a detour to Queenscliff which has been a seaside resort for the well-to-do for over a century and is still quite popular. There’s a car ferry across the strait to Sorrento so, in theory, you could drive all the way around and back to Melbourne – the bay is huge, however, and it’s not a feasible day’s drive. Queenscliff has also been the site of pilot station for “The Rip” a narrow opening to the open sea. We watched a couple of ships go through (we’ve been through it on a cruise ship, but so late at night that it was too late (and too dark) to see much. 

Then we were off along the Ocean Road to Lorne for two nights. It’s a beautiful drive on an historic, cliff hugging road that was built by soldiers returning from WWI and in memory of those lost during the war. Our AirBnb was a nice little home straight up about 3 blocks from the water – pretty much like a staircase if you walked it. We had a very nice bedroom and shared the bath with the owner. We used her kitchen both nights to cook dinner. It was a very comfortable place and while we didn’t see the local wildlife, we knew they were around.

We’ve been seeing lots of new birds – beautiful parrots, cockatoos and a variety of others. Opportunities for photography have been everywhere. We have also managed to see kangaroos, wallabies and koalas – not a lot, but enough. There are lots of road warning signs but we’ve not encountered any actually on the highways.  There’s a been quite a bit of road construction, but one time we got to watch a koala high in a tree overhead while we waited.

Our second stop along the Ocean Road was in Yulong, a location but not really a town any longer. . The drive was another day of driving along gorgeous ocean views, including a stop in a known koala area. We were glad that the holiday weekend was over, though tourist groups are around everywhere. 

Since it’s off season, it hasn’t been too terribly crowded.  We again shared a home - a lovely, hand built home overlooking the sea. It was build of re-purposed wood – huge beams from wooden docks and other buildings. Our hostess designed it herself and found a supplier and builder who could do what she wanted. It’s located on seven acres of mixed land; fields, bush, gullies, etc. There are sheep grazing but they are not her sheep. For a variety of reasons, she is planning to sell this home and move into a small city. I’m sure it was a difficult decision to make.

Our third day on the Ocean Road was on the most well known and popular section, Port Campbell National Park – along the shipwreck coast – cliffs, rocky shoreline and many monoliths and arches along the way. During the days of the clipper ships, Melbourne was reached by sailing along the south coast of Australia. Unfortunately, many ships were lost along this rocky shoreline. The wind, rain, and sea cause constant changes to the sights. We had mostly cloudy skies for our day but just a bit of sun now and end to shine nicely on the sandstone cliffs. It’s quite beautiful and parking is easily available (at least at this time of year).

After another relaxing evening and walk on the property, we headed off the our last stop on the GOR, Port Fairy. We stopped in Warnambool and went to their local living history museum, Flagstaff Hill. They have moved into the modern age with a new building to share the history of shipwrecks along the coast. After that we went out to the village - a recreated replica port village with two lighthouses that are still in use. It's a locally created museum, with lots of detail in the buildings and furnishings. At the end of the walk, there's what I assume was the original shipwreck museum, with pictures and articles about several of the major wrecks. 

It's only about half an hour to Port Fairy from there, but a stop at the Tower Hill protected area was highly recommended. It's comprised of an old cinder caldera and the resulting valley and lake in the center. There were about half a dozen emus as we approached the visitor center, so that was fun. We took a short walking trail along a boardwalk and out to find one more koala that had been reported (also saw a small brown snake sleeping in a corner on the boardwalk itself). As I walked along, there was a commotion under the boardwalk beneath me and out hopped a black wallaby. I think he was as surprised as I was. As we were leaving the park we saw someone taking pictures of a hillside (a sure sign of something worth stopping for). It was an echidna rummaging in the dirt for grubs, etc. We watched him for quite awhile before heading on to our place for the night.

Port Fairy has a reputation of being the best small town for livability - not totally sure what that means, but the small downtown is obviously doing well, with lots of everyday and boutique shops and numerous options for eating, even into the evening when some places roll up the carpet. Before dinner we had walked out to Griffin Island to the lighthouse. Along the way we started seeing little black wallabies. For awhile they seemed to be everywhere though we probably only saw about half a dozen. We were going to try to wait for the Shearwater birds to come in for the night but it was getting too late. We had salad back at our room, so stopped for a very nice gourmet pizza - a nice change for me since we avoid carbs in general. The next morning we drove around the town just a bit to look at the old houses from the early days before heading inland to the Grampians.

Stan's photo blog

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