Great Ocean Road Road Trip!

On the Friday evening, me and Anna went to our very first ever AFL (Australian Football League) match. We went to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground – which hosts a range of sporting events, not just cricket). It was a bit confusing finding where to get our tickets from, but after sever wrong enquiries, we found where to buy general admission tickets. I liked our seats, you could sit anywhere in a large block of seats, and we managed to get seats only a few rows from the front. We were sat in with a mixture of fans from both sides, St Kilda (the saints) and Richmond (the tigers).

AFL pitch has 4 posts at either end, the 2 middle ones are taller than the 2 outside ones. If the ball goes through the middle posts, its a goal and they get 6 points, if it goes through either of the outer posts, its 1 point. The players can run with the ball, kick it, bounce it and catch it again, and generally get into fights and lots of tackles. We watched a couple of half decent punch ups on the pitch and some comedy tackles when someone jumped in the air to catch the ball and a member of the other team takes his legs out from under him so he crashes back to the floor. Lots of shouting, yelling at the ref etc etc. Its a long game, consisting of 4 quarters, each should be 25 minutes each, but with injury time, its more like 30-35 minutes, so the game didn’t finish until after 10pm. But the 4th quarter was pretty close and exciting and it finished in a draw between the two teams. It was a very fun evening, and some st Kilda supporters around us were very helpful in explaining a few of the rules to us when we were getting very confused about just what was going on.

The next day, me and Anna headed off on our road trip down some of the Great Ocean Road. This is an area of coastline between Melbourne and Adelaide thats pretty famous for its stunning coastal views from the road, with the most popular spot being ‘The Twelve Apostles’ in the middle of the road, but I’ll get to those later in the post.

So it took us an hour or so from Melbourne to get to the start of the Ocean Road. The first town was called Anglesea which made me smile. We didn’t really stop to look round, just a quick photo stop before heading on. We stopped off at a lighthouse called Split Point Lighthouse and had a nose about, photo stop and a really nice cup of tea and a scone in a nice little cafe there overlooking the lighthouse. From there we went through to Lorne. This was a fairly large township I guess. There was a tourist information place and lots of surfy-type shops and we spent a good couple of hours poking about and having some lunch.

We were aiming to stay the night further along the road in a place called Apollo Bay. The lady in the tourist information centre at Lorne said we’d have no problem finding a hostel there for the evening.

So we made our way along the road, stopping off along the way to go on a walk for a couple of Kms or so to see some wild koalas in the trees. We saw 8 or 9 of them, sitting quite high up in the branches, just munching on some leaves or having a sleep. It was really nice to see them! From there we headed on to Apollo Bay to find some accommodation. We had a bit of trouble as most of the hostels were full, but we finally managed to find a bed for the night. Once that was done, we could think about food – we opted for a delicious thai meal!

Next day we headed off again and went down the road to the cape Ottawa lightstation. This was a little complex of buildings including a lighthouse, keepers quarters and telegraph station. But it cost quite a bit to go in and see, so we gave that a miss, which was a shame as we couldn’t even see the lighthouse from outside the grounds. It was marketed as ‘the most significant lighthouse in australia’! Well, we weren’t sure how a lighthouse could get that title, so we asked the bloke behind the counter, he said it was because the ships from the northern hemisphere approached from teh Antarctic circle and aimed for this spot of coastline, so this would be the first bit of land the ships would have seen in a long time, signifying the end of their journey. Hmm, a bit of a tenuous claim to the most significant lighthouse in Australia, but there you go. But the drive there was nice, and we saw some more koalas hanging out in the tree tops. From there it was a sedate drive along the highway stopping at lots of viewpoints for photo stops and making our way towards the twelve apostles.

We stopped off to do a walk to look at some anchors on 'Wreck beach'. The coast all around the area is littered with shipwrecks and a few of the anchors are visible on the beaches. It was a nice walk along the beach to this great old anchor from many years ago. It was very dramatic with the stormy sky and the waves crashing about it. Shipwreck sort of weather!

The twelve apostles are stacks of rock out to sea. Well, there used to be 12 of them, they've fallen down over the years and there are only 6 or 7 remaining. But it's a nice stretch of coastline. The road on the whole hadn't been very busy all the time we were driving on it, but the number of cars in the 12 apostles car park was surprising! But it wasn't too bad and there were several viewing platforms and lookouts to go and see. Its a pretty picturesque place and with all the waves crashing round the rocks, it was great to see. A good place for us to finish our 2 day mini trip and head back to Melbourne for the evening. The other half of the road will have to be saved for another trip...