Great Ocean Road

Today we did the Great Ocean Road. We took a bus to Bell’s Beach. It’s a famous surfer beach. After that we ate cookies. I slept till we ate lunch at Apollo Bay, but Mom and Aunt Amanda saw wild koalas. After that we stopped at a rainforest and I went bare foot. At the end I had numb and sore feet. After that we went to the twelve apostles. Me and mom took a helicopter. Mom was really freaked out and I sat in the front seat. After that we went to look at a gorge and then London Bridge. After that we went home. We saw our first wild Echidna along the road and stopped to look at it.

Mom/Pam says:

The Great Ocean Road hugs the bottom of the Australian coast in Victoria. It reminds me a bit of the coast road from LA to San Fran. It's very windy with 1 view better than the next, but it definitely can make you a bit carsick. Melbourne is a huge city - very spread out. It's in the top 5 cities per square miles. The Great Ocean Road was built after WWII, when there was no work for the returning soldiers - so the government started this project to give them work & help build a tourist future. It is not built up at all. The weather seemed to be against us - the sky would clear up when we were driving. But as soon as we got off the bus, it would begin to rain/spit. The koalas were cool to see. Our guide was a bit of a hippy and suggested we walk the rainforest in our barefeet. I passed on that. The forest was definitely different from the 1 in the north. Greener, w/more ferns and much bigger trees. It reminded me a bit of the redwood areas in SF. Yes, the helicopter flight was terrifying. I didn't really want to do it. But, Chad has been a trooper with all the travel & tours, so I in a weak moment I told him he could do it. But, then I realized if his helicopter crashed, it would be a bit difficult explaining to Jack - it seemed safe enough for Chad, but not me. So I swallowed my fears and screams and joined him. The views were spectacular, but the rain & wind just made me want to land. Luckily, it's not even a 10 minute ride. The 12 Apostles were once known as the "Sow & piglets," but the tourist industry realized that wasn't such an attractive and changed it to the 12 Apostles even though were only 8 and now there are 7. One collasped a few years ago. The London Bridge is steeped in many legends regarding the collaspe of the 1 arch. My favorite is that there was a 3rd person on it who ran off Indiana Jones style with the arch collasping under his feet. All in all lots of spectacular scenery. We soon headed back to Melbourne via inland roads. We saw lots of bird life, rabbits & 1 echidna. The driver had to turn around to see it. And it had scurried into the brush, Amanda tracked it down despite the million poisonous things here. The other people were a bit taken aback by her boldness bushes. We had fish'n chips for dinner. Amanda & I shared barramundi - a quite delicious Australian fish. They even battered and fried Chad's hot dog. Quite funny b/c we didn't recognize it.

Weather: Windy and cool, it was little rainy and a little sunny