The Last Supper...

Since the Turnbull's were leaving for a LONG flight on Saturday, we decided to head to The Great Ocean Road and see the Twelve Apostles.  When you book a tour, they tell you that you will be gone for at least 12 hours...while we weren't gone for quite that long, it was pretty close.

Entrance to The Great Ocean Road.  There are houses on the Great Ocean
Road...we think that would be a pretty cool address.

Melbourne is about 2 hours from the start of The Great Ocean Road, so we headed out early, in hopes of beating some of the tour bus traffic and to be able to stop at Bell's Beach, where the Rip Curl Surfing Championship occurred over Easter Weekend.  Bell's Beach is a known surfer's paradise, and the waves were rolling in on Friday - not quite as big as they were at the Forrest Caves, but good looking waves, nonetheless.

There is a 35km Surf Coast Walk that goes past Bell's Beach.

Bell's Beach - site of the Rip Curl Surfing Championship
over Easter Weekend

Surfers at Bell's Beach.

WE SAW A KANGAROO.  and a big one, too!  As we were headed for Lorne, there he was, just a hopping along in the marsh area...Jeffie spotted him - he has great wildlife spotting eyes.

He's just above the center of the picture, hopping.  So cool.

We then hit The Great Ocean Road, through Lorne, stopping at Apollo Bay for lunch.  If you have any interest in coming to visit us, perhaps you'd like to run The Great Ocean Road Marathon - it goes from Lorne to Apollo Bay and is actually 27+ miles...you can stop at the 26.2 mile mark and they will transport you to Apollo Bay, should you choose :)  It is a beautiful road, lots of rolling hills, and plenty of ocean breezes!

It's hard to believe that the water is really that color.

View from a pull-off area.

After Apollo Bay, you are still on The Great Ocean Road, but you're not really on the ocean...at all - you may catch a glimpse of it in the trees, but you are pretty far from the beach.


As we were driving, we saw a sign for the Otway Lighthouse, and decided to stop and see what it was about...well, it was 13km off of the road, and cost a fortune, so we headed back to The Great Ocean Road.  BUT, the really cool thing was that on the way to the Otway Lighthouse, we passed by a group of koalas - in the wild - sleeping in trees...of course we had to get some photos!

He looks so cuddly and cute.  Minus the talons on his feet.

Koala tree - out in the wild!

After our koala adventure, we continued to the Twelve Apostles...and they did not disappoint.  The Twelve Apostles are really only Eight, but they are huge pillars of sandstone out in the ocean that have been whittled away over the years - they are beautiful.  We got there just before sunset, so the pictures don't show all of the colors, but I still think they are pretty cool.

We were excited to be out of the car and walking around...

Those lines in the bottom center of the picture are penguin tracks.  There
is a colony of penguins that live at the Twelve Apostles, and they are
relatively undisturbed because it is so hard to get down to the beach.

Hole in the rock - but don't climb out to see it up close...
see the last picture in the blog.

Bit hard to see with the sun setting, but several Apostles are here.

Away from the sunset - two more Apostles

You can see several Apostles here, or what remains of them.

Although there are only eight Apostles now, this sign shows how the
Apostles will be rebuilt, eventually.

Just in case you thought it a good idea to try to climb
one of the Apostles or climb down to the beach.

We headed home after the Eight Apostle viewing, and only beat the 12-hour bus tour by about 45 minutes!