A couple of days ago we took a day trip along the Great Ocean Road. It was a very long day, leaving the hostel at 6:45am, returning at 7:45pm and then going out to celebrate St Patricks day in the evening!

The Great Ocean Road was constructed by soldiers returning from fighting in Europe after WW1. It was the middle of the Great Depression and work was hard to find and so the government, recognising the potential for tourism along that particular stretch of coastline, began a road building project. Despite this, the men were not paid at the beginning they were just volunteers but thousands of men turned up to work at the beginning. The road took 13 years to build and is known as the largest war memorial.

We went through several coastal towns that used to be fishing towns, but are now based on tourism, making several scenic photo stops. The landscape was really beautiful, bright blue sea and thankfully the sun even made an appearance.

Before our lunch stop - a BBQ at Cape Otway - we passed through a eucalyptus forest where we went wild koala bear spotting! To start with they were quite hard to spot but after a while you can see them everywhere, balls of grey fluff sitting high up in the trees. Luckily there were a couple sitting quite close to the ground so we got a really good view.

After lunch we drove over to the twelve apostles, which are giant stacks of rock that have been separated from the coastline. We were just coming out of the toilets before catching the bus back when we bumped into one of the girls who had been on the stray bus in New Zealand with us! Small world.