We arrived in Port Campbell yesterday evening after meandering our way along the Great Ocean Road for a couple of days, taking in the views along the way.

We left Melbourne on Monday afternoon and arrived in Anglesea in the evening for our first night on the road again after a short drive to break us in gently. Although there wasn't a great deal to see and do in Anglesea we did drive through Torquay, home of Surf City - an entire strip of surf clothes shops and the Australian Surfing Museum - so we made a point of returning for a look around yesterday morning! After we had window shopped 'til we dropped we headed out to Bells Beach, which is where they hold the Rip Curl surf tournament in Australia every Easter as part of the surf world championships tour.

From Torquay we headed back through Anglesea and on towards to Apollo Bay, which is widely thought to be the most spectacular section of the Great Ocean Road (in fact, until Torquay the road had mainly wound through inland forests instead). We drove along the coast until we reached the seaside town of Lorne and headed up to Teddy's Lookout, which had some great views out across the water and also allowed us to see just how the road winds along coast as it clings to the cliff face.

The journey to Apollo Bay was punctuated with several pauses at various lookout points along the side of the road and then the road continued on inland again until coming out back onto the coast about twenty kilometres out from Port Campbell. Just a little further along the road we caught a glimpse of the most famous sight of all along this stretch of the coast - the Twelve Apostles.

We pulled into the visitors centre car park and headed out to the viewing area where a few people had already gathered to watch the sunset behind the rock outcrops. Although we had seen loads of photos of the view, it was still an amazing scene to look out onto such a famous landmark and watch the sun going down in the distance. There are several lookout spots connected by a wooden boardwalk and each one offered a dramatically different view out over the Apostles as some of the stacks that were previously hidden would come into view. From the most well known of the lookouts, seven of the stacks were visible and the only real way to see all twelve is from the air, but it was amazing how many people would turn up and vehemently express their disappointment that they couldn't see them all and not even realise that some of them were in fact, behind us all!

Once the sun had disappeared behind some clouds that had rolled in, we continued along the road until we reached Port Campbell and got ourselves set up and ready for a busy day of exploration the next day.

This morning we awoke to a fairly heavy drizzle but were not to be deterred, so we headed back past the twelve apostles lookouts to the Gibson Steps that led down to the beach where the first of the Apostles was. We walked out along the sand as the rain came and went until we were almost level with the first of the huge stacks of rock that stood in the water less than one hundred metres away. We had hoped to continue right along the beach, but when we saw how quickly the tide was coming in we decided that we didn't fancy getting marooned and headed back up the steps.

Our next stop was just a short way along the road at Loch Ard Gorge, where a ship ran aground a hundred or so years ago and only two of the thirty-four passengers and crew survived. There were loads of walks around the top of the gorge offering different views of the coastline and down into the gorge where the two survivors spent the night sheltering from the night. We walked along the length of the cliff tops before descending into the gorge and exploring around in the caves that were covered in stalactites (could have been stalagmites - they came down from the ceiling).

From Loch Ard Gorge we headed a few hundred metres along the road to a couple of blowholes and Thunder Cave where we stood for a while watching the water rush in from the ocean through a tunnel and into the cave. The water came in with such force that it was like we could almost see it eroding the rock away as we stood and watched. Before long we headed back to camp as the weather was beginning to take its toll on us, where we shall remain for the rest of the evening before getting up tomorrow morning to watch the sunrise over the twelve apostles.