February 6 – Driving the Great Ocean Road

Today we drive the part of the Great Ocean Road, the portion from Warrnambool to Lorne.  The Great Ocean Road is 243 km (151 miles); it officially runs from Allensford (near Warrnambool) in the west) to Torquay in the east.  While the coastline of Western Australia seemed to be wall to wall white beaches, this stretch is dramatic cliffs and gorgeous views ...shear cliffs, sea stacks, sea arches and major wave action. And the weather cooperated most of the day, giving us glorious sunshine. What a drive!!!.  For much of this drive we stopped every few miles at another great lookout or another beach or another quaint village.  

So running west to east, this is what we saw:

Bay of Islands

Bay of Martyrs

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Video of  Bay of Martyrs
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Peterborough Coastal Reserve (we picked up lunch here and headed down to the headland for a picnic...great views)

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Video of  Peterborough Coastal Reserve 
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The Grotto

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Video of grotto
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London Bridge (appropriately enough, one of the arches has fallen down)

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Video of London Bridge
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The Arch

Port Campbell

Archway Island

Razorback

Loch Ard Bay and Beach

Twelve Apostles

and Castle Cove.

There were lots of flies at every stop.  They seemed to particularly like Paul.

We made a detour to visit the Cape Otway lighthouse.  Unfortunately it had just closed and there were so many trees that we couldn't even see it from a distance.  The drive did take us by an area that had burned out a number of years ago.  The dead trees were quite stark.

By the time we got to the end of the day the sunny weather had turned overcast and misty.  That made the quality of the photos marginal.  That was most unfortunate because the scenery in this stretch was amazing.  It reminded us both of Big Sur in California…a truly beautiful stretch of coastline.

We ended the day in the town of Lorne.  Our hotel room overlooked the beach.  Great day.