28th March 2016, Monday
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| Sandwich |
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| Nice Hot Chocolate |
Woke up @ 7.30 am today and took my time to prepare as the tour to Great Ocean Road is 11.00 am. Still left hotel early, thinking to go Queen Victoria Market for breakfast. However, it is not opened for the day...Then i walked back to somewhere near the hotel area, saw 2 cafes side by side. One was having more customers than the other, so i settled for the one having more customers. The cafe name is
Hot Poppy. I ordered a hot chocolate and a sandwich for breakfast. The food was nice but the portion was big for me. Anyway i just asked to pack up my other half of the sandwich and went back to the hotel for the tour bus to come pick-up. The bus came @ around 10.50 am and went off picking up the rest of the people at the tour office, which we waited for about 15 minutes or so.
Then we drove off and started our road trip. Our driver is our tour guide too, and he gave us a list of 5 items to choose for our lunch. In the group, there is 2 ladies from US and a guy together, a family of 4, a china couple, a old couple and one Spanish guy and 3 Japanese guys. The mum from the family of 4 was quite nagging, nagging on everything and on the son too. As it was a long long ride, we stopped by Angelsea for a short toilet break before we continued the route.
The Great Ocean Road is a 244km road built by the returned soldiers from WWI as a permanent memorial to those who died in the war and it goes along the coast of the ocean. The soldiers had built it by using just simple tools like shovels and dynamites and with their bare hands. After 3 hours or so, we reached the start of Great Ocean Road which had a memorial arch built. The driver let us off to take some photos there too. After that, we drove off again. The bus driver told us there was a big fire on Christmas Day in 2015 when we passed by a town named Lorne. The fire caused so much damage (many homes were lost) until that the Great Ocean Road had to be closed down for the town to repair. This cost the Australian Tourism Board to lose millions of dollars (as reported in the news).
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| Chicken Burger |
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| Parrot |
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| Sleeping Koala |
The bus driver let us off somewhere along the road for photo-taking on the ocean. Then we set off to have our lunch in Kennett River, in a small cafe called
Kafe Koala. We all sat down on separate tables and waited for our lunch (giant burgers....hohoho). After lunch, we were free to roam to the nearby to look for koala bears in the trees. Managed to see 2 sleeping koala bears on the trees and there were many wild parrots too. Everyone was trying to get a nice photo with the parrots and koala bears. There was a outdoor camp located there too. Later, we drove off and continued on the ocean road, which we passed by Apollo Bay and stopped at Maits Rest Rainforest. The bus driver was telling us to go ahead and tried the 30 minutes circuit walk as there were many nature to see inside.
So some of us went ahead to walk while some stayed near the bus. Of course, i went ahead on the trail.
After the trail, we continued on the road again and we finally reached the 12 Apostles (it was like around 4 plus). Once we alighted, there were a lot of people there and a long queue was formed for the toilets too. There was helicopter service too, to see the 12 Apostles from above the sky. I just went ahead to walk to the Apostles lookout and take photos (So many people...-_-"). However, the location did not show the total 12 Apostles, only can see 4 or 5 of them. Then I walked towards the bench area using a long walk trail which leads to Gibsons Steps. When i reached there, the bus driver had stopped by to drop the old couple there. He informed that he will come back and pick us up at a later time and said need to go down to beach to have a look. So i went ahead, climbing down the Gibsons Steps....very tiring to climb up and down on it.
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| Few of 12 Apostles |
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| Path to Gibons Steps |
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| Gibons Steps |
The wind were very strong and can even feel the sea water "flying" in the air. So i just stood there to feel the wind for some time. Not able to see the sunset too as it was too cloudy!! Then i took my time to climb up the steps and waited at the car park for the bus to come. While waiting, i saw the china couple trying to take a jump shot. The gal was fussing about the jump shot was not taken good enough and going to cry out. Then the guy told her to jump another time to take for a 2nd shot. And they really did to take 2nd shot...hahaa). The bus came at around 7.30 pm and the sky was getting dark. Then we were on the road back to Melbourne, at one point, the driver told us there was a bunch of kangaroos behind the bushes. So he stopped the bus and went down, think he whispered to get the kangaroos' attention. I didn't went down as i was getting tired, heard from the rest of them, they did saw the kangaroos.
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| Red Roaster as dinner |
Then the bus driver continued on the road back and it was a long journey too. The bus driver was driving very fast too. He stopped by a town which was having some fast food restaurants to let us go for a half an hour dinner. I went for Red Rooster for dinner (think i had it during my Perth trip too). After dinner, it was a continuous ride back to the individual hotels, with mine the last 2nd in the list.
I reached back the hotel @ almost 11 plus and i packed my stuffs for return flight to Singapore tomorrow...(Holidays ending...)
Hotel Stayed:
Miami Hotel Melbourne
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