We got out of town this past weekend for a long weekend and took a road trip along Great Ocean Road. It is 243km drive along the southern coast of Australia, to the west of Melbourne. We stayed two nights in Lorne and one night in Port Campbell.

Since it’s winter, it probably wasn’t the best time of year to go, but we were looking for a change of pace. And, it did allow us to not have to deal with the summer crowds. We’ve had a lot of rain this winter and sure enough, our first day was filled with rain. We had planned on spending the day hiking around Lorne, surfing and playing at the really cool beach playground, but instead, we did the next best thing (according to Brent) as a back up and went to a few breweries. Brent still hasn’t found a beer to his liking yet….But anyhow, that’s when we got to see our first kangaroo sighting. We were on some back roads {which is pretty much anywhere- more on that later}, and here they were just hanging out in the field. They really are almost the equivalent of our deer population, where you see them in the fields and hit along the side of the road.

But, before I get into the beautiful sights that we saw. I have to say one of the things that I didn’t comprehend about Australia was… well, I guess, first, the distance from everywhere. But, second, I didn’t realize how small the population is compared to the size of the country. There are roughly 25 million people in Australia with about 10 million of those living in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney. The size of country itself is almost the size of the United States. So, double the size of Pennsylvania’s population and spread that population across the entire U.S….that’s what the Australian population is like.

I share this because once you get out the city, it quickly becomes rural farmland. {At least on the outskirts of Melbourne that we’ve seen}. It is refreshing to see rolling hills of farmland filled with cows and sheep with the backdrop of the ocean. It’s just not something that I’ve seen in the US.

Without further ado, oh wait, I take that back… Disclaimer: bear with me on the quality of the pictures. I’m trying to learn how to shoot photos on the Manual Mode, so the exposure isn’t always correct… and I don’t know Photoshop to make them look better, so hopefully you’ll see them gradually improve over time… Plus some of my “subjects” don’t stay still long enough… Blah, blah… but I think you’ll get the gist of the sights….

Okay…here we go.

After our brewery tour, it finally stopped raining in late afternoon, so we did get to spend some time at the beach playground and playing in the sand while Brent did some surfing. Yes, he caught a really good wave and I did not get a picture of that…

It was a bit overcast for a nice sunset, but we did venture up to Teddy’s Lookout on the mountainside of Lorne at dusk. You can see why the road is called the Great Ocean Road as it winds along the coast.

The next day, we continued along the coast. The scenery just doesn’t get old. We made our way to Cape Otway which is a national park that has a lighthouse that we visited. We also had to make our way through the cow paths to get there. I wasn’t kidding when I said it can get rural.

I snapped this picture of out lunch spot, but I think I actually captured quite a serious conversation…

We, unfortunately, did not get to see any whales, but the kids had fun playing on this one carved from a tree. Apparently this time of year, the cold Antarctic water pushes north so the whales come closer the coast to warmer water. Or at least that is what a surfer told me. He also told me that while he was surfing earlier in the day, they were within about 50 meters from him. {This may have been the beers talking- not sure.}

We continued our drive along the coast to the area of Port Campbell National Park where there are amazing limestone cliffs and rock formations. These have formed from millions of years of erosion from the stormy sea and winds. This is the area called Loch Ard Gorge.

The kids weren’t too impressed by the views, and rather wanted to go to a playground. Once we finally got down to the sand, they were excited that this was their opportunity to play and build a sandcastle. They weren’t thrilled to find out that we weren’t staying much longer than to snap a few pictures.

Yes, that is Greyson trying to climb over the wall.

After several kilometers of carrying the kids around this area, we called it a day and figured we’d finish the rest the following morning. It actually worked out because it was a beautiful, sunny day. We arrived early so the sun was hitting the rock formations very nicely.

This area is called the 12 Apostles, though now there are only 8. They were once connected to the mainland, and they were formed by caves eroding into the cliff walls which formed arches that eventually collapsed leaving the stand-alone structure. The 9th Apostle fell in July 2005.

This formation is called the Arch.

This is London Bridge. It was connected and tourists were able to cross the “bridge” part, but it unexpected collapsed in 1990 which left two people stranded on the outer structure. No one was hurt, but they had to be rescued by helicopter. True story- not told by a surfer…

And lastly, I visited the Grotto. {The kids were done at this point.} You could walk down in the caves, and I wish I was more skilled in photography. I couldn’t get the lighting right, but it was really cool because you could look through the arch to see the ocean and other structures that were reflecting in the pool of water under the archway… I’m sure I’ll be back there with visitors to try again! 🙂

It was a busy few days, but as I mentioned, I’m sure we will be back with visitors so can explore further.

And in case you want to see what the real photographers can do or learn more, here you go….The Great Ocean Road