The Great Ocean Road

MountGambier is known as "the BlueLakeCity" and is South Australia's second largest city next to Adelaide.Located midway between Adelaide and Melbourne, it is set amidst a unique and ancient landscape of volcanic craters, lakes, caves and sinkholes.The Crater Lakes Complex comprises four craters - BlueLake, ValleyLake, BrownesLake and Leg of Mutton Lake.The BlueLake is the city's water supply containing 30,000 million litres and average depths of 70 metres.It is world famous for its annual colour change from a steel grey in winter to a brilliant turquoise blue in summer - hence its name.After a drive round the lake with some stops to take photographs, we headed south back towards the sea and the Great Ocean Road.

As we passed through the town of Nelson, we left South Australia and entered the state of Victoria - where we lost ½ an hour!!!Once again we stopped at various points along the road for coffee, snacks, lunch and to take photographs. Today was a grey overcast day, signs that autumn, and ultimately winter, is on its way.At Port MacDonnell where we stopped for coffee, we were lucky enough to see a dolphin feeding really close to the jetty.We also saw the strange sight of a horse being towed through the waves behind a boat!!! I assume it was hydrotherapy.We were also lucky enough to see an echidna sitting on the side of the road - this is the first sign of wildlife (other than dead!!) that we have seen since leaving KangarooIsland.I'm sure that in sunlight, Port Fairy would have lived up to its name and been very pretty, however, when we got there, it was very grey and overcast.By the time we got to Warrnambool (a city of almost 30,000 people), our stopover for the night, it was still raining.We dodged the raindrops to quickly drive to the whale nursery.Almost every year between June and September, the female Southern Right Whale returns to the waters off Warrnambool's Logan's Beach to calve.The whales often swim within a hundred metres of the shore - unfortunately we were there in March so there was nothing to see but expanses of grey ocean.

Warrnambool is the gateway to the Great Ocean Road - a 353km (220 miles) scenic coastal drive to Melbourne.The next morning we set off to travel the Great Ocean Road stopping at various points to take photographs of the giant limestone rock stacks, sculpted out of the cliffs by the wind and the waves, which are the central feature of this rugged coast line.The most famous of these is the 12 Apostles and other formations such as The Grotto, LondonBridge and the Arch line the road.The weather remained grey and overcast but dry as we headed east towards Melbourne.We stopped once more at Maits Rest to take a walk through the giant ferns of a temperate rain forest before reaching our hotel for the night at ApolloBay.ApolloBay is an idyllic fishing village with spectacular views of the coastline and mountains.

It was very misty and cloudy as we left ApolloBay the next morning and the low cloud hanging over the Otways in the distance made a great early morning photo.Our destination today is Melbourne (continuing along the Great Ocean Road) via Torquay.We made just one stop on route to Torquay at a place called Lorne where Teddy's Lookout over looks the KennetRiver as it flows into the sea.We still haven't seen any wildlife despite numerous signs warning of koalas and kangaroos!!At Torquay we stopped to buy the obligatory postcard and take pictures of the beach and local fish and chip shop!!From Torquay we left the ocean road and joined the M1 to Melbourne (and yes it was reminiscent of the M1 back home!!)