The Great Ocean Road - 23/2/3
For the next leg of my journey round Oz, I booked an 'Oz Experience' trip from Melbourne to Adelaide. It took me down past Geelong (where I went to the airshow) then onto the Great Ocean Road.
The Great Ocean road was built by soldiers returning from World War One as a means of employment and also as a memorial to their lost comrades.
There are various famous places along the road including 'Bells Beach' where Patrick Swayze disappears into the surf at the end of 'Point Break, we went to the beach used in the film 'Romper Stomper' (an early Russel Crowe with him playing a psycho funnily enough.) Most exciting of the day though was the lighthouse from 'Round the Twist.' I didn't get near enough for a photo in case crazy stuff started happening to me.
As we were going along the driver started talking about how if we see a snake not to go near it. We were apparently heading into Tiger Snake country. Not sheep snake or happy well-adjusted community snake country, no we were going into Tiger Snake country.
Further along the GOR we had a chance to take a helicopter flight around the '12 Apostles'. 'The 12 Apostles' have been caused by years of erosion blah blah rock sea etc. Vertical Take-Off is cool. We flew in a Bell 206 Jet Ranger at about 700ft for the majority of the flight. Im always amazed by how helicopters work, surely all the thrust and lift are going upwards not forwards?? Helicopters are cool.
Some of the 12 Apostles and Victoria's Norway-esqe nobbly coastline.
Our coach from the sky.
The same bay from the ground.
A sink-hole further up the coast.
We spent the night in a town called Warrnambool. I was a bit let down by my first day on the Oz Experience, before I came away I'd heard various stories about what everyone gets up to on the F**k-bus and was a bit let down to find myself in a nice christian hostel (they even had bibles in the lockers???) The most exciting thing that happened was probably when me and Jason 7 balled a couple of Russian/Australians (Alex and Vlad) at Pool and even though there was much jeering from the crowd allowed them to leave the table without the customary lap with their trousers down.
Click here for more on the Oz Experience