Our first stop on our drive was at Port Fairy a small seaside fishing town, first settled by whalers and sealers. We drove in to the centre and felt as if we were stepping back in time, one main street and very old fashioned looking. First of all we took a stroll along the Moyne River which had lots of boats moored up at it's banks and plenty of whitewashed houses overlooking the rivers edge, it was really pretty. A group of school children were having a kayaking lesson on the river and there were other people strolling along the boardwalk. At the bottom of the short river walk was an ocean inlet and in the shallows we saw a stingray lurking around. We were recommended to get some fish and chips from one of the wooden marina shops, so we did and had a couple of beers to accompany it, it was delicious. The following morning we took a look at the beach, it was bright but fairly windy and only a few people were out for a walk, but there were plenty of would be surfers in the water at surf school.

Once we had set out from Port Fairy, on the road trip we stopped very briefly at Warrnambool. Where we decided that there was not anything that we wanted to see and we wanted to get moving along the coast in search of the apparently magnificent scenery. Not much further on we turned on to the scenic drive, the Great Ocean Road. The Port Campbell National Park is the most photographed stretch of the drive with lots of well maintained lookouts for views of the limestone cliffs and the formations that have been left behind by the sea. We stopped at each of the lookout posts and saw, Loch Ard Gorge, The Grotto, The Arch and London Bridge, which used to be 2 joined arches but one has fallen into the ocean. It was a very bright day, but had turned cooler after we had stopped for lunch at the small town of Port Campbell. One of the last scenic stops was the famed 12 apostles, we pulled off of the main road into the car park which was heaving with cars, buses, campers and the odd motorbike. This was the first place in Australia that we had really seen the tourist boom, it was also full of Chinese and the facilities even catered for them with a squat toilet. We took the boardwalk through the tunnel under the main road and made out way out to the excellent viewing area of the twelve apostles (now only 6 remain) it was a spectacular sight, but you could not take too long at the front of the platform as there we so many people trying to get a look. The wooden boardwalk goes over the cliff edge and takes you to a further viewing platform where we go views of the whole coastline, as we were standing there it had turned really windy and looking out to sea we could see a storm on the way. We hurried back to the van. After the 12 Apostles the road turned away from the ocean and started to wind back through the countryside and up in to the hills of the rainforest. It was a really picturesque drive which seemed to take forever and then the road suddenly descended into Apollo Bay. It was raining and nearly dark by the time we arrived but we did manage to stop and have a look at the long beach with good surf. After a good nights sleep facing the Ocean we set off to have a look around the small town which had lots of little shop and cafes, the weather was still raining and we were disappoined as we would have like to have had a proper look at the beach, instead we made our way inland sightly towards a waterfall. as soon as we were off the main street and the beach the scenery changed instantly into rainforest and we saw some lovely houses tucked away, it was a pretty and quiet drive although when we got to the falls car park ther was a sign saying that the waterfall was closed because of the btayead storms they had had (don't forget this is Australias summer)! Instead we drove on to towards Lorne a very fashionable upmarket town, with a nice beach. Here we managed to visit Erskine Falls and Teddy lookout which had good views of the coast. Further on the drive the road changes and instead of being on top of the cliff the road actually hugs the ocean and the cliffs rise above, it is a windy drive but the views ahead are spectacular, it was a shame that there were not more lookout points so that we could stop and take in the view, but there was not much space to put one and it would have been pretty dangerous. We stopped at Aireys Inlet which has a lighthouse that was famous when we were kids in an Ozzie programme called Round the Twist. Before we managed to look at the lighthouse though a guy had managed to get his car stuck in the sand at a beach car park, Wayne went to help him get the car out. That night we stopped in Anglesea.

The weather had still not brightened up the following day and as we drove into Torquay the last town on the Great Ocean Road we could not even find a surfer in the sea at the famous Back Beach and Bells Beach. We didn't even want to get out of the car, so instead we drove around and ended up in a new housing development with a golf course running through the middle. The house were very expensive and very strange all odd shapes and dark colours they looked very futuristic, not our taste at all. We drove on to Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsular, we were not having much luck with the weather and not being able to do much headed for Melbourne.