The Great Ocean Road (GOR)

We left the outback on Friday.  We had spent the prior night at a truckers hotel on the main road in the desert between Adelaide and Darwin.  It was actually quite nice, except for all the signs to be watchful for venomous snake. 

The flight to Melbourne was 1200 miles.  We picked up a rental car for the next chapter of our adventure, the great ocean road.  We arrived at our motel at the beach town of Torquay in time for dinner at a nice Brew Pub.

The next morning, we awoke to a beautiful sunny day, with promises of a 85 degree forecast.  We had breakfast on the beach, watching the local enjoy the beach with their families.  Soon afterward, we began our trip down the coast.

The great ocean road (GOR) is a 200 mile trip down the coast, west of Melbourne.  It is a combination of small beach villages, hiking trails, wildlife and natural wonders.  It is like the California coast near Big Sur, but much greener and far fewer people.

The first couple of stops for us were some beautiful hikes.  It was so beautiful, we could not stop.  We hiked about nine miles along the coast.  After a picnic lunch of avocado on sourdough bread, topped with ham, we went for a swim at one of the many beautiful beaches.

Sunday, we had a big change in the weather.  We had lots of wind and it was 25 degrees cooler.  I know that I should probably not complain about 60 degrees.  We had scattered showers, but it cleared up nicely between them.

Our first adventure was to look for Koalas.  We went to a lush forest and looked hard for the little creatures.  We were successful in spotting them in the wild and got a few pictures.  They sleep 19 hours a day, but we did see them move a bit.  After a 5 mile hike, we spotted another female with a young one in her pouch.  Unfortunately, we could not get a picture of the young one.

The Koala hunter

Sleeping Koala

There is a baby Koloa in there

Along the hike, we did get temporarily stopped by another not so cute example of Australian wildlife.  We met this snake and fortunately, he did leave the path before we ran past.  After that, Julie was not so anxious to take the lead on the rest of the hike.  We looked it up when we got to our lodging and it appears to have been a Mulga - extremely venomous.  We have meet 2 of Australia’s 135 venomous snakes.

Cape Otway Lighthouse 

Our Serpent friend

Beach along the hike

Our last day on the GOR, we went to see the Twelve Apostles.  It is a famous geographical site along the coast.  Unfortunately, the weather was not perfect, but it was a fabulous site.  

After that, we headed back to Melbourne for three city days of exploring.  Hopefully with no snakes, although the press has stories of a young boy being attacked by a python in the area.  Fortunately, he survived with some broken ribs.  The python does not even qualify as a venomous snake.