Saturday saw us visiting a local market before leaving Mt Gambier and driving across the border into Victoria, our 5th and final state. We drove along the coast road through small fishing towns and villages, having a closer look at Nelson before heading into Portland. Here we drove out to the lighthouse about 18km's out of town on the point. The lighthouse was closed for the day but it provided us with some spectacular views of the coast at the lookouts and others on the road on our return to town. This was the beginning of the rugged coastal cliffs we would be viewing over the next few days. We decided to stay here overnight and not push on to Port Fairy having only driven 130km's.
Sunday :We began the day with a Strawberry farm visit which saw us buying 500gm of Strawberries, chocolate, and a bottle of Strawberry Liqueur(love using it in Trifles). We continued on to Port Fairy where we walked along the fishermans wharf viewing the boats and historic dockside homes and bought fresh bread ready for lunch. Next stop was Tower Hill Game Reserve, which is down inside another volcanic crater, where we had lunch and looked around. Typical of many places, when the settlers arrived it only took them a decade to decimate the native flora and fauna leaving the ancient crater bare. It became the first national park in Victoria and has taken the local people many decades to regenerate and reintroduce native flora and fauna using a painting from 1855 as a starting point.
We completed our day by beginning our way along The Great Ocean Road. We viewed The Bay of Islands, Bay of Martyrs, The Grotto, London Bridge and The Arch. Each of these are accessed from separate parking bays on the GOR from which there is short walks to viewing platforms. The beach can be accessed from The Bay of Martyrs only. There are other parking bays but we were too big for them.
This has been the calmest we have ever seen this coast in our 3 trips and though very beautiful and impressive in the sunlight, we believe it was more impressive on the windy wet days previously as the seas were rougher and the forces of nature more impressive.It is still one of the best coastal drives in our opinion. We are currently staying in Port Campbell for a couple of days.
Will post photos tomorrow
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