The Grampians and Great Ocean Road

To get from Adelaide to Melbourne I did a 3 day tour via the Grampians National Park and the Great Ocean Road. The Grampians National Park is named after the Grampians in Scotland as it reminded the Scottish explorer of home. It was lovely although it was badly affected by bush fires a year ago. Unfortunately the fires were so bad that a number of the plants have not yet recovered and started re-growing. It was amazing to see how a forest recovers from fires though.

The Great Ocean Road was really good as well and we stopped off at London Bridge, the 12 Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge and numerous other coastal formations. I also did a helicopter flight over the 12 Apostles which was really good fun. We also had the chance to experience sun-set at the 12 Apostles but unfortunately it was pouring with rain and the sky was covered in clouds, however we did see some mini penguins come up the beach for their beds for the night!

We also stopped off at Bell's Beach and saw it being set up for the Rip Curl Pro Surf competition. We saw a few people out practising so that was good fun. Then we got to spend an hour shopping in Torquay which has the factory outlets for a number of surf shops.

We arrived into Melbourne on the Friday night and Stef, Adam and I were staying at the Base Hostel in St Kilda so we went out for a nice meal that night.

The trip was great fun even though the weather was not in our favour but that just meant we got to see bigger waves. I'm glad I wasn't trying to learn to surf on them as I think that could have caused some accidents!