We picked up our rental car this morning and headed out toward the Great Ocean Road, which runs along the southern coast of Australia from Torquay to the east to Allansford some 243 kilometers (150 miles) to the west. We headed out of Melbourne on the M-1 motorway (i.e. Interstate, more or less) to highway A-10 to highway B-100 along the coast. The Great Ocean Road was built from 1919 to 1932 by WWI veterans as a tribute to all the soldiers killed in the war. We got on the road at Torquay and the scenery was just beautiful. This is a shot from the first place we found to pull off the road at Anglesea:
The weather was brisk today, with temps in the low 60's, winds of up to 25 mph, with clouds in intermittent showers all day, so we were surprised to see people in the water, sailing, surfing, kayaking, and swimming. I don't know what the water temps were, but I did see that everyone had a dry suit on. You can see a few of them here:
This was taken a little further down the road near Anglesea:
And this was taken at the same spot looking north:
And just in case you were wondering which way the winds blow down here, up hill:
We headed on down the road toward the Split Point Lighthouse, some 12 miles east of Lorne. The lighthouse was built in 1891 and is 34 meters (112 feet or so) high, standing on a bluff above the ocean. The lighthouse is nicely preserved and you can take the 134 steps to the top to take in the views. The original stables have been converted to a gift shop/cafe and are nicely maintained. This is the lighthouse itself from the approach road:
The view from the lighthouse was really interesting. This is a shot from the lighthouse toward the south:
The terrain here was interesting. You can see black coloring at the bottom of the rock here. That's basalt, which was laid down some 24-29 million years ago when there was a volcano in the region. The sandstone on top was laid down from 24 million years ago to about 10 million years ago, when the area was under the sea. You can see where the sandstone has been eroded away from the cliffs and has shaped the landscape. The area around the lighthouse was sold to developers in 1935 and houses were built in the area. You can see two overlooking the sea above the shoreline here:
This rock was about 100 feet away from the big one above. You can see that it is entirely basalt and that its overlying sandstone has been completely eroded away:
As we were leaving Split Point, we passed the cafe and a few of the local patrons (magpies) having a tea party:
And here is one more shot of the shore that we took near Lorne:
Pat's Paragraph........... The road was winding today with switchbacks and really tight curves to get around the cliffs. In some places there were not even guard rails and since we're driving on the left, guess who was closest to the steep cliff drop offs?? It doesn't help to move over a little toward the middle of the car when you are in the passenger seat. I think I left my finger nail impressions in the plastic door frame. To pass on this narrow road, there were side area pull offs to let others go by. I wish we could have gotten some pictures of the houses that were perched on the almost vertical cliffs with huge kick outs counter-balanced with the rest of the house or had huge cement supports sunk into the rocky cliffs. But this is the only road and you didn't get to stop to take pictures.
There were really cute towns in all the coves, one of the largest being Lorne. They had huge hotels, some old and some new, with a long pier that jutted out in the ocean. It kind of reminded me of Vail in Colorado with all the shops, restaurants and tourist stops. They had picnic areas with outside kitchens, parks, paths leading to the beach and even had 'barefoot bowling', which we didn't get to see, a country club, even a yacht club. This was a summer place Utopia and was packed with people and more traffic.
As we drove through, there were cockatoos and brightly colored parrots sitting on the the light poles and signs. They have become 'opportunity feeders' and the local stores, pubs and cafes frown on feeding them. The beautiful birds have a tendency to leave reminders when they take off to fly elsewhere, maybe on you or in your meal.
