On our penultimate day of our Aussie tour, my niece book us on the Great Ocean Road Tour. We leave early in the morning and take the tram to the pick up point, appropriately name ‘The Rendezvous Hotel’. After waiting for some time, the bus finally arrives. It is a small bus. There are only 4 of us, me and my 2 sisters and another lady name Celine, a student.
We all popped into the mini bus. The tour company is called the Little Penguin Bus. That is why it is a small bus, duh! The driver is also the tour guide. This reminds me of the Paddy Wagon Tour in Ireland. We introduce ourselves and the tour starts. The guide explains the tour and some of the places we are going. It takes quite a while to reach our first stop.
In our first stop, there is tea, coffee and biscuits! Wow, we never expected this. There is tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and several types of biscuits. He has hot water in flasks. It is a nice break , then we continue with the journey.
We continue on our journey passing by the sea, with breath-taking view of the ocean. We stop for some photo taking session by the sea, near the town of Anglesea. We then make our way again and we pass by some houses built precariously on the slopes of the hills. Those are very big and modern houses.
Our next stop is the Memorial Arch. The Arch was built to honour the efforts of World War 1 returned soldiers who virtually carved their way through the mountains with basic tools such as picks and shovels to create one of the world’s premier coastal drives – The Great Ocean Road. Yep, this is the road that we are now travelling and enjoying the beautiful scenery.
We then make a stop at Teddy’s Lookout which is at the outskirt of Lorne. We then proceed to Kennett River to view the koalas. In the forest, the koalas are very shy and they are perch quite high up the trees. There are also colourful birds in the area. I manage to take a few shots of the koala. The shots are not very clear as the camera is pointed towards the sky.
We then move on with our trip. We stop by a place call Apollo Bay where we are told that there 2 things that we must try. One is a special pie – scallop pie, and the other is an ice-cream which is made of vegemite, which is the Aussie equivalent of marmite. So we trooped to the restaurant and ordered our scallop pies. It comes in a few varieties, some plain, some with curry.
The scallop pie comes in a square-shaped puff pastry. Inside is scallops instead of your usual fish. The verdict? …Well, it is OK. Honestly, there are better way of serving scallops, which to me, is the king of seafood.The important thing is that I have tried it.
We then walk around the area and try the vegemite ice-cream. It is something that tastes different. I would not say that it is very tasty or tastes bad. It is just different. Okay. One more tick on the bucket list.
That’s 2 ticks in one afternoon, not bad. Then we continue with the journey.
Along the way we stop at a Fern Jungle which also has very old trees. The tree ferns remind me of our trip to Cornwall where we visited the The Lost Gardens of Heligan, St Austell. The ferns are very tall and date back for years. The trees there are very tall and old. I take quite a number of photos. The photo gallery will show you all the beautiful and majestic trees. ( This is the photo gallery that I have been spending quite some time to set up. I think there was some issue with my home wi-fi, so it’s bad connection.)
We then continue with the Great Ocean Road Drive. Mind you, all these places are in the port Campbell National Park. Then we reach the 12 Apostles. These are outcrops in the sea that has been eroded over centuries. The rocks are beautiful and majestic. There are 12 of them and hence it is called the 12 Apostles. There are many viewing sites and each and every one of the viewing sites have great views. One gets a feeling that Australia is very big (which it actually is)! There are numerous tales and stories about each of the viewing place. We stop by many of them.
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*Hover the cursor on the photo to get the description of the photo.
One of the stories was about a young man from England who was ship-wrecked in one of the bays and he rescued a lady. So it was about to be a love story like the Titanic. Unfortunately the romance did not happen. So when the driver was telling us the story, me, the very eager singer, break out and sing the Titanic love song, then the driver starts to sing and so do my sisters. And of course, the driver encourage the other passenger named Celine to sing as well! So we had a good laugh!!.
The driver then takes us to see some Kangaroos. But the view was too far away and we could only see some kangaroos. They are too far away to take good photos.
We end the trip with dinner in a hotel. The dinner is good and hearty.
The driver then send us home to our pick up point and we make our way home.
On the whole, the trip is really good. we covered a distance of approximately 350 km and spent about 5.5 hours travelling. The scenery is fantastic and the Little Penguin Bus tour and service is excellent. I highly recommend it.
I hope you enjoy the story and the photos.
Please like and share with your friends and family.
Cheers,
Penang Lassie
