Day 4 in Melbourne: Great Ocean Road Part 1!

A&A signed up for a guided tour through the Great Ocean Road before they went to Australia, and on the 4th May, Uncle Keith dropped them off at Glen Waverly station bright and early at 6am, and they scampered off to take the train to Flinders' Street. From there, they went to Hotel Rendezvous to wait for the bus, stopping enroute to grab a coffee at Gloria Jeans.

The bus came on time, and there were 18 of us altogether. All of the tourists were rather aloof and didn't speak much, but that was fine because we really just wanted to see the scenery without having to worry about social interaction with complete strangers.

After 2-3 hours on the road, we reached our first toilet break. Even the toilets were interesting! Here, A&A experienced their first rain in Australia. It wasn't like the rain in Singapore, where every drop threatens to smash your face in and steal all your money. The rain here was light, misty, and was actually quite refreshing (until you stood in it for too long and started getting the shivers something terrible).

Communal Toilet - before entrance of Great Ocean Road

View of front porch of GOR

Our next stop, about another hour's drive away, was the actual Entrance into the Great Ocean Road.

Clear blue skies again! With a house perched on a hill! Reminded Adal of a hobbit-hole: a house in a hill!

Touristy shot of honeymooners with Adal leering slightly

After another hour or so, we reached the camp area where we had tea and biscuits. Even the camp area had a fantastic view!

Sun's rays reflected off the distant ocean

After tea, we drove up to Cape Patton lookout.

And there we lingered a little bit, enjoying the cool ocean breeze and marvelling at the bright azure skies, endless horizon and for city folks like us, being able to see houses located so near the ocean is always a bit of a wonder.

We then drove off to Apollo Bay for Lunch! It's a quiet town with not many shops, but mostly catered for tourists and vacationeers. It has a wonderful view of mountains and the sea in the distance, and would be a charming place to retire in.

The guide recommended we try Nautigals for its fish and chips, and being the law-abiding Singapore citizens we were, we obediently tried it.

Fish and Chips! The salad was, once again, really fresh! But the fish had a slightly strong smell that could mean it wasn't very fresh. The chilli/Tartar sauce was good, though.

Next stop, we went to Koala Cove to try to spot Koalas! The guide cum bus driver was really nice, and even stopped along the way when he spotted one, herding us to safety's way when incoming vehicles threatened to run over the foolish tourists who stood in the centre of the road clicking away at their cameras happily.

Unlike the tame ones in the zoo, these actually bite, and are very bad tempered. The guide's advice was to keep our hands away from them and to run really fast if they chased us.

Plant food! From the left: Old Eucalyptus, Teenage Eucalyptus, Young Eucalyptus. Koalas are clever enough to eat only the young ones, as the older ones are tougher and could even be poisonous. The interesting thing is, the Eucalyptus leaves all smell different at different ages!


Our next destination was the Mait Rest Rainforest walk.

Unlike the Bukit Timah Reserve or Mount Faber, this rainforest doesn't smell bad, is actually cool (to the point of cold), actually has lots of fungi and plants and so on, and has trees towering at over 20 metres high easily.

This particular tree even had a cave-like root structure, which could easily fit a person inside!

After the rather tiring walk, they retreated back to the safety of the bus, and on to the second leg of the journey!