Day 11 Great Ocean Road along the Shipwreck coast

The Twelve Apostles

We left Melbourne rather early in the morning and had decided to not drive all of the Great Ocean Road, but take the inland road to Port Campbell. This way we would have more time to explore the area around The Twelve Apostles and the Shipwreck coast.

We do this way miss one part of the Great Ocean Road, but on the other hand we can look at more details along another part. The ideal way would be to have more time, of course, but now we have what we have!

The Twelve Apostles

It turned out to be a good desicion, and we had a truly fantastic day with amazing views! We started with lunch in a small café just buy the bay in Port Campbell. They had many dishes with local ingredients, and I had a super yummy brioche with caramelised banans, bacon, maple syrup and locally grown walnuts. Then we headed towards the famous stone formation The Twelve Apostles. It was easy to walk to the viewing platforms, very accessible also for prams and wheelchairs. The views were absolutely stunning, and I think this has been a day we all will remember. The coast has steep cliffs, and the twelve apostles are bigger and smaller cliffs off the coast. It is also thrilling that "next stop" across the ocean is Antarktis.

Next stop was Loch Ard Gorge. The place is named after a ship, Loch Ard, that ran aground in 1878. Only two 19-yearolds survived, a man and a woman, and the man was washed ashore in the gorge and then helped the woman and raised alarm. The most fantastic formation here is called The razorback, and it is a rather long and narrow formation with razor-like shapes along the top. Also here it is very easy to access the viewing platforms. Lennart and Christina also took stairs down to one of the beaches here, this was possible in other places but here the walk was shortest.

The Razorback

At The Razorback

More Razorback

Loch Ard Gorge

Loch Ard Gorge

Last stop on this road was The Arch. We thought that maybe we had seen the best bits now, but this was also totally stunning. The Arch is what it sounds like, a stone arch where the waves come through the arch in a fascinating way. This stop had steeper paths, but it was still not very difficult to walk down and up again.

The Arch

Me at The Arch

Pointing to the sea

We drove the last bit to Port Fairy, where we stay in Ashmont Motor Hotel. Port Fairy is a small fishing village that now is more of a holiday place.There are many hotels along the road we stay in. We walked down to the river, called the wharf, and had fish and chips in a fast food-like place by the wharf. It rained a bit when we walked back, and it is not very warm. But it doesn't matter when the rest of the day has been so spectacular!

The wharf in Port Fariy

In Port Fariy