Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road lives up to everything people tell you it will be and more! It is the most beautiful part of Australia I have seen, and I've been scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. There's just something about standing on the edge of the world and seeing the apostles rising out of the ocean. It's breathtaking.

I went through a tour company called bunyip and they did an amazing job. They picked me up in downtown Melbourne and did all the driving for me. That's definitely the way you want to do it. It's not fun if you're the one driving and can't look at all the beautiful scenery surrounding you.

  

Trivia fact for you! We went through Torquay Beach. It has the coldest waters in all of Australia, but it's a huge surfing community. Since it's so cold and people wanted to suft, they started creating different kinds of wet suits. This created the companies Ripcurl, Quicksilver, and Billabong.

  

The weather was a typical Melbourne day. We drove through pouring rain and into random sunshine and back into pouring rain. The wind was blowing hard enough to move the van around and it was freezing cold..especially for a Texas girl like me! All this would usually make for a terrible day, but it was just not possible to be upset with the amazing view around me.

  

Our first stop was at the Great Otway National Park. There they had wild parrots and cockatoos.. The second I got out of the car, one decided I was his new best friend and landed on my head! It freaked me out pretty bad at first, but then when he realized I didn't have any food for him, he moved on to someone else. It's pretty funny watching these birds swarm onto people searching for seed. It's like feeding the ducks back home..only the ducks don't land on you.

Not only did they have wild birds, Otway has wild Koalas! It was the most amazing experience looking up into a tree and there is a little grey koala just casually taking a nap. The further we went into the forest, the more koalas we found. They were everywhere! It was amazing. I really wanted to take one home with me, but apparently that isn't an appropriate souvenir..

  

After we had all taken hundred of pictures of sleeping koalas, we packed into the van and went to the Otway lighthouse. The Otway lighthouse is on the Bass Straight and where two different seas meet. This creates large winds and crashing waves. It was gorgeous.
It was also where the weather stopped cooperating with my trip.

The twelves apostles is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life. But the name is deceiving. There are only nine left standing. Erosion and the ocean have destroyed the others. While I was there, there was a brief moment there was a glimpse of sunshine, but mostly we were bombarded with freezing rain and high winds. The rain stung every time it struck my face. I was soaked, losing feeling in my fingers and my shoes were filling with sand. I stood in the terrible weather, barely holding onto my camera in the fierce wind and I just started laughing. This place is so beautiful that even the worst weather couldn't taint the view. I sat on the railing of the cliff with two backpackers, all of us soaked and freezing, but not wanting to leave.

(I didn't take this picture..obviously because the weather is perfect and not all these are still standing.)

The Great Ocean Road was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life. Not even the terrible weather could ruin it.