The Great Ocean Road Tour, Australia

While in Alice Springs we decided it was time to get a flight home so we flew to Adelaide and then took a small bus tour to Melbourne to catch our plane. We decided to take a small bus tour so we could see some of the countryside and in particular The Great Ocean Road which has been described as one of the best coastal drives in Australia. Our group turned out to be only five...Nicole and Roger from Switzerland, Amanda from Sweden and two of us with our awesome tour guide, Darren who is also a photographer. Here is his picture of us in Grampians National Park...

It was great to travel two days with young people as their energy is contagious and it makes for an enjoyable tour.

Since we have used flights to get around Australia it was nice to go on a road trip and see some of the countryside...

There were lots of wide open spaces...

We passed through many small, rural towns which like elsewhere in the world are struggling economically and some of them decided to start a silo mural project....

These silos are 30 meters tall and feature schoolchildren from the community who represent the future of their towns and were amazing!

The first day we spent in the National Park and went on a lot of hikes to awesome lookouts...

Do you see the crocodile?

This girl was serenading us with her singing and ukulele...

There were pink salt flats...



A long hike down to a magnificent waterfall...

The top view...

Nicole...look at me! 



Enjoying the views, pic by Darren Donlan...

Our last lookout at the town where we would be spending the night...Roger, Don and our mascot Charlie...

The town has wild kangaroos all over...

We spent the night at a hostel which was without power when we got there so no socializing that night. Up early the next morning where Roger was trying the Australian Vegemite...

It has a very unique taste! 

The next morning we went for a bush walk to see if we could find some kangaroos and koalas in their natural habitat...

This one was having a lunch...

Don and Amanda were enjoying a chat as we walked...

We were fortunate to see some koalas in the eucalyptus trees...

And then we headed out to the coast and started our trip on the Great Ocean Road, this was our first view...

The Great Ocean Road is an Australian National Heritage listed 243 km stretch of road along the south eastern coast. It was built by returned soldiers between 1919 and 1932 and dedicated to soldiers killed during the World War 1 so the road is the world’s largest war memorial.

The views are quite spectacular...

And because we had lots of photographers in our group we actually got some pictures of both of us which is rare, in fact I have discovered by going back through some of my albums there are countries we have visited where we do not have one picture of us! 

There are many landmarks along the road including London Bridge which actually did fall down over the course of time to create two separate sandstone towers instead of being joined in the middle...

Spectacular beaches...

Then there are the Twelve Apostles which is a collection of limestone stacks that are spread all along the coast...

So many cute little towns, here is the place we stopped for lunch...

Then there were the hidden coves...

Another great photo by our tour guide...

A few more stops along the way...

And our last stop was for a photo op at the end of the road...

With our guide Darren...

And our travelling companions...

What a wonderful way to end our Australian holiday, the next stop was Melbourne with no time to explore the city as we had a flight to catch. We both really enjoyed Australia and would love to go back to see more of this diverse country, maybe another time.