The Great Ocean Road

Australia is a huge place. In New Zealand it is a short drive to most of the spectacular scenery. In Australia, the cities are many hours apart and the landscape is for the most part quite bland. So we jumped on a plane from Sydney to Melbourne to save ourselves 10 hours in the car.

Melbourne is another huge city with monster skyscrapers and plenty of people to fill the streets. Unfortunately we didn’t budget a whole lot of time to explore. We did however have a chance to stop in the open air Queen Victoria Market. Opened in 1878, it’s a massive market covering multiple city blocks with vendors selling produce, fresh meats, clothes, and just about anything else you’d want. Many of the foods have Greek origins as Melbourne has a large Greek population. We picked up some freshly baked bread, enjoyed some local musicians, then took off for our long ride along the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide.



Queen Victoria Market



The 12 hour drive from Melbourne to Adelaide is largely uninteresting; except for the 151 mile Great Ocean Road stretch that brings the highway right alongside the ocean. The highlight of the Great Ocean Road are the limestone cliffs and rock formations, slowly being eroded by the crashing surf.


Dad Leaves His Mark on The Great Ocean Road






The '12 Apostles' that are now down to 9

 

Part of the magic of Australia is seeing the native wildlife. 80% of the wildlife is nocturnal, so during the day the country doesn’t seem to have a heavy wildlife population. The Koalas are one of the exceptions, and can be found hanging out in the eucalyptus tree alongside roads. The Koalas are always conserving energy, so they will often times be sleeping or slowing grabbing a few more eucalyptus leaves to eat. They are either not afraid of humans, or they don’t want to expend the energy to climb away, so you can get pretty close to them.