Melbourne to Great Ocean Road

Today we joined a bus tour along the Great Ocean Road. The coastal route was built in the 1920s as a project to employ soldiers returned from World War I. With a length of 150 miles, it is considered the largest war memorial in the world, dedicated to Australian soldiers killed during the war.

The sights along the way were pretty, but the 8-hour drive out (with stops for lunch and other sightseeing) was a bit tiring. It stayed chilly and cloudy all day, as you can see from our photos. Still, we got to see a couple of koalas munching in the eucalyptus. We learned later that they sleep for up to 20 hours a day (probably not continuously!), so we may have been lucky to see them in action.

We also climbed up the Cape Otway Lighthouse, the oldest standing lighthouse in Australia. It is fully automated—no lighthouse keepers, with solar-powered lights (only six 35-watt bulbs). The turnaround point was at The Twelve Apostles, a group of limestone pillars out in the Tasman Sea.Read more