We had a long way to drive today, so we got up early and were at the caves before they opened at 9am! We booked ourselves onto the 9:30 tour of the Alexandra Cave, and paid extra to look around the fossil exhibition and the Wet Cave.

We looked around the Fossil exhibition first, which was a recreation of animals that used to exist in the area thousands of years ago. They found this by examining fossils found in the caves underground. A lot of the models moved and made sounds which freaked me out a bit! All of the information was displayed on A5 notepads and was hand-written and drawn - I thought it was quite a nifty way to do it, as if you're reading notes that an explorer has made!

At 9:30 we joined our guide and the other 2 people on our tour (a Canadian couple), and headed to the Alexandra Cave. We entered the cave through a door (not an original feature) and headed down the steps into the main body of the cave. Our guide was very informative and told us all about how the limestone cave was formed and how long it takes for the stalagmites and stalegtites to form. You're not allowed to touch any of the formations as the oil from our skin is harmful to them, but we were allowed to feel some spots on the floor where formations are in the (very) early stages. At one point in the tour, he turned off all the lights and we were in total darkness for the first time since we were in the Blanchard Caverns in Arkansas - a very surreal experience!

After the tour, we had a quick look around the Wet Cave - we would have liked to have spent more time there but were on a tight schedule to get to Melbourne the next day, and see all of the Great Ocean Road, so we left at 10:30am and hit the road!

By lunchtime, we had made it to Port Fairy, a very pretty historic town, so we stopped and had lunch at the bakery. After lunch, we had a look around Mott's Cottage which is only open on a Wednesday and Saturday 2-4pm, so we were lucky to see it! The small cottage dates from the late 1840s and is an example of an early working mans home, furnished to look like it would have then. We had a good look around, and Dave had to watch his head a lot, especially on the low staircase!

Flying visit over, we left Port Fairy, drove through Warrambool and onto the famous Great Ocean Road! We stopped to take a photo of the road sign as we were both very excited to finally be there - another thing ticked off the bucket list as Dave said (we seem to be doing quite a few 'bucket list' activities on our travels!).

Over the next few hours, we drove most of the road, ending up in Apollo Bay for the night. We made lots of stops to see the famous viewpoints along the way - Bay of Islands (our first 'wowza!' moment), Bay of Martyrs, The Grotto (beautiful spot , and well worth all of the steps!), London Bridge (which, ironically, has fallen down a bit now), The Arch, Lord Ard Gorge, and of course, The 12 Apostles (although there's actually only 7 left). Most of the stops have just a car park at the side of the road, but the 12 Apostles has a massive car park and visitors centre. The visitors centre was closed by the time we got there, but we weren't too disappointed as the LP had described it was pointless. There's a long walkway which takes you under the main road, and to a few viewing points of the Apostles, which are quite stunning to see up close, after seeing many iconic pictures. The sun was beginning to go down and we could see people setting up ready to take sunset photos, but we were so exhausted by this point, after driving all day, and with still a few hours driving to go, that we left after taking a few good photos.

At around 7:30pm, we arrived in Apollo Bay and checked into a campsite. We then drove into the town for some food and a few drinks before getting an early night. We've already planned to go back along the Great Ocean Road with my parents when they arrive next week, as we'd like to see it again when we're less tired, and we know they'll love it too!