Great Ocean Road Day 1

This is supposed to be one of the top drives in the world that you are supposed to do before you die. Well, I guess we can go happy now since we have driven the great ocean road. We went from Torquay to Warrnambool along the surf coast and up through Port Campbell National Park. The weather cooperated a little, but most of the days it rained. It was not bad, and while the photos were affected by the cloudy conditions, our memories weren't. It was truly one of the most stunningly beautiful places we have ever seen.

This is one of the beaches at Torquay (pronounced tor-key), I think it was called South Beach, but I don't really remember. It was our first official stop along the Great Ocean Road.

The wind really picked up while we were there, Mel had to hold her hair out of her face so we could get a photo.

Spencer looks like a happy camper, he was forcing this smile because we threatened him if he didn't let us get a photo of him, and it lasted for about a half second, good thing we were quick on the trigger or we would have missed it. Not too bad though...

We stopped here at Aireys Inlet to take a tour of the Split Point Light House. Bad timing, we didn't get to go inside, but we got to look all around and hike by the cliffs. Here is the gang walking from the parking area up to the Light House.

This place was beautiful, and as we approached we wondered why everyone was constantly waving hi to everyone, as we got up closer we realized they weren't waving to us they were waving off the zillions of flies, there were more flies here than in a manure farm on a hot summers day. It was insane! Here is a snapshot of Willys shoulder with a budding colony. Yeah, we bathed ourselves in bug repellent, it only helped a little.

Here it is, the Split Point Light House

Mom and the kids at the base, and yes the wind was still blowing. Thank goodness for the wind, it helped to trim down the flys.

I don't remember what this was called, it was down along the cliffs below the light house. Too bad the colors came across so bland in the photo, they were amazing. The water was perfectly clear, and the bright rock really stood out in the deep green and blue water, laced with white caps as the waves crashed on its base. It was really neat, but it only got better as we made our way up the coast as you will see in the following posts.

More lookouts hiking down around Split Point.

Looking up from down by the cliff look outs.

Maeby was not too happy about the wind, she could not keep her hair out of her face unless she was looking toward the wind.

Not too far down the road, they had this memorial gateway. It was really neat.

The playground at the park was way cool, I think Willy was aching to build something similar, it was inspiring to a guy who has kids, tools, time and ambition. Unfortunately Willy is short on the time and tools right now.

We got in to Port Campbell early evening and checked into our hotel. Our original plans were to spend any down time here at the beach. This is the bay at Port Campbell, right outside our hotel room. If we would have had some warm weather we would have spend a lot more time swimming and playing here.

This was a bit freaky, a short walk out into the bay there was this loading dock, but the lower level was grated so it was see through, and below was about 15 or 20 feet of perfectly clear water. You could see everything right down to the bottom, so cool. However, there were no side rails or anything to keep people from falling in, I was ready to strangle Willy for taking the kids down there...Ahhhhhrgh. They all made it up alive, so I let him live.