Great Ocean Road Day 2

We were up early before the sun. Luckily no unexpected knocking on the van to say move on from our sleeping spot. We packed up our things and went back towards the Twelve Apostles.

We got to the Twelve Apostles before sunrise, but it was pretty cloudy, so we didn't see the sun light up the rocks. At least we got a good sunset yesterday! We could see all the little penguins footprints from the penguins coming ashore last night, so they definitely exist! We walked back to the parking lot and drove a couple minutes to the Gibson Steps. Hugh Gibson carved the original steps out of the cliff face to better access the beach. We walked down the now concrete steps and headed along the beach. We walked to the end where Allan gallivanted over the rocks towards a cave while I looked for shells and took pictures of snails.
Then we walked back in the soft, orangey sand and up the steps.

We drove back the way we came towards Loch Ard Gorge. The gorge is named after a shipwreck that took place nearby in 1878. The ship traveled from England and carried predominantly cargo. It has 36 crew and 18 passengers as well as the cargo. They spotted the coast and had a party on May 31 to celebrate the last 3 months at sea coming to an end. Thick mist rolled in and by the time the crew realized it, they were headed for the rocks. Despite their best efforts they crashed. The only two survivors, Tom and Eva, washed up in the gorge and were rescued.

Unfortunately, erosion prevented us from going down the steps to the sand in the gorge, so we walked around it from as many different paths as we could. The water was crazy blue, even though it was a bit cloudy. We also walked over to two stone pillars in the water, aptly named Tom and Eva, as well as a long, skinny rock formation with lots of bumps called Razorback. It was a nice walk around the area and once we got back to the car, we headed back into Port Campbell for gas and coffee on our way to Timboon Railway Shed Distillery.

Timboon Railway Shed Distillery was about 25 minutes inland and is a single malt distillery in Australia. We both ordered the whisky flight which includes 5 samples of whisky. As we made our way through the whiskys, we picked our different smells and flavors. We both really liked the 4th one, Christie's Cut, as well as the 5th, the limited edition Distiller's Cut. The nice barman also brought us a free sample of the coffee cream and the salted caramel whisky liqueur. They were both dangerously delicious, so I ordered an espresso martini that included both of them. It was pretty tasty! We bought a bottle of the salted caramel and he waived one of our tastings, which was a nice bonus too. We really enjoyed our little diversion to Timboon!

We left Timboon and headed back to Port Campbell to get back on the GOR and head to London Bridge. At London Bridge, we realized we could see a bit of it from Loch Ard Gorge. This rock formation has a small carving from waves that looks like a rock bridge. At one point there was another chunk that connected to the mainland too, but that eroded and fell. London Bridge is falling down and all that 🎶. The waves were pretty big, and as we visited different viewpoints, it put the size of the waves into perspective. We also saw more penguin feet and the lookout points are much closer to the sand so it would be a lot easier to see them from here rather than Twelve Apostles. The water was also that crystal turquoise I've come to learn spans the coast here.

Two minutes down the road is The Grotto, former swamp land that slowly went through the clay into the limestone and then eroded the limestone to form the grotto area. It was very quiet when we got there and slowly got busier. It was a beautiful little place, and behind the grotto the sea was crashing into the rocks and sucking back out in a way that was mesmerizing. We walked back out and had some snacks in the car before continuing on.

Our next stops were the Bay of Martyrs and the Bay of Islands. These were very close together. The Bay of Martyrs was an open bay and we could go down and walk on the small beach that was there. We took some nice pictures and Allan got surprised by a big wave while trying to clean his flip flops and got a bit wet 🙈. It got its name from the tragic killing of indigenous people who were pushed from the cliffs by European settlers. The Bay of Islands has lots of rock pillars that look like small islands in the bay. There were a couple viewpoints at the Bay of Islands and it was much busier than the Bay of Martyrs. Both were very beautiful and I liked the really jaggy rocks at the Bay of Islands.

We left the bays and passed through Nullawarre, the last town of the GOR. Then it was time to head a bit more inland and on to Adelaide. Luckily there are still some nice things to see along this last part of the drive! We drove over a crater lake at Tower Hill. Soon after reaching the visitor's center, I was jumping out to see two koalas sitting in a tree right where we had parked. There were also two emus wandering the parking lot! They came pretty close to us (and Allan sought refuge in the car at one point when they got a bit too close). We walked a couple paths and saw at least 4 more koalas while we walked around. It was so exciting and they were so cute! The Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve is well known for its koalas, emus, and kangaroos. We didn't see any kangaroos, but I can vouch for the other two!

We left Tower Hill, sadly saying goodbye to the koalas, and carried on towards Port Fairy. It's a little village with a river. We made a stop at Battery Hill (it should be called "Battery Smallish Mound") to try and see sunset, but it was so tiny we saw nothing. We walked around to Battery Point to try and get a view, but still nothing. We drove towards the beach to see the sky lighting up, but there weren't any clouds so the sky didn't do much. We left Port Fairy en route to Mount Gambier.

We got to Mount Gambier just after 8. It was dark, and we'd had an early start, so we decided to get some food and find a rest stop for the night. We got a cheap pizza at Domino's and tried to charge our phones a bit. It's been tough trying to keep them charged with no way of charging them in the old ass camper! We decided to find a quiet corner of a parking lot to sleep, much like yesterday, to save ourselves the extra drive outside of Mount Gambier. Hopefully it goes as well as it did yesterday!Read more