Erwin and Dorits' Endless Summer

14 apostles

Where the previous story ends, the “Great Ocean Road” begins. It’s the famous road along the Southern Ocean from Warrnambool to Torquay with some amazing natural wonders on its way. On the first 200 km on our journey we saw al lot of high steep eroded cliffs from the ocean. The most popular formation is known as “The Twelve Apostles”. Well, at the moment we counted 7, the other 5 must have gone on vacation.

At the most southern point we took a dead end road to a lighthouse, Cape Otway. This road is leading through a national park with a lot of eucalyptus trees. As this are the kind of trees where the koala hang out we spottet about 10 on our way.

koala @ Cape Otway

From then on the Great Ocean Road, as it leads  through the Great Otway National Park is much greener.  This coast line is called “the Surf Coast”, with nice little surf towns along the way. The first town we headed to was Apollo Bay. After we checked out this nice beachtown we did find a free camping site on our map of the National Park. It was named after the  waterfalls in walking distance: “Steavensons Falls”. We drove 30 km land inwards, away from the coast, partly unsealed road, which is always a adventure for it self. When we arrived at the nice peaceful grassy campsite in the forest, no one else was there. We enjoyed the beautiful nature and walked to the waterfalls the next morning as there weren’t any waves anyway.

Apollo Bay

campground, in the middle of ..

After that we got back on the road and the weather turned. The semi-good weather from the day before was getting worse.

Steavenson Falls

We had a two rainy days and drove to the next little town: Lorne. It had a nice beach to run and swim and again some free campsites nearby. We stayed here for 4 days, checking out the different campsites, only sharing them with kangeroos or some other travllers. Checking out the beaches along the coast, we noticed some surfers in the water. We went in the water and had a few waves in this place called “Fairhaven” a fews days in a row.

Almost on the end of the Great Ocean Road – were we still are, on the day of writing this blog – we were having a look at a notorius beach witch is a must-see and must-surf for every surfer passing by. Located near the very surf-minded town Torquay is Bells Beach. As we knew there would be more swell coming on monday we were on our way. Getting out was not a problem, but once in the line up big sets of waves were coming in. We survived it and very important, we surfed. Newspapers and internet were promising sunny weather and 4 to 5 feet swell. (1,5m). This is the hight of the back of the wave, witch means that the front of the wave (were you actualyly surf) can get to 3m+. After three days hanging around we are impressed of the power of the wave and will head further to Melbourne.

We also are very familiar with the quickly changing weather conditions at the South Coast, as we are, after three sunny days sitting in the rain again…

Our view over Bells Beach, camped there for a few days.