Shoot down the Coast

Ray's first weekend here was the Australian Day long weekend so we thought we should make the most of it and do some sight seeing. Being a long weekend and having no accommodations booked we decided to shoot down the coast where we could stay at Scott's for a night (Thanks Scott) and then hopefully find something for Sunday night or if not, head back up to the Grampians.

Great Ocean Road is definitely a must see for visitors and even though we have travelled it a number of times, there were still a few places we hadn't stopped. We arrived at Anglesea in the late afternoon after stopping at Bell's beach – one of the world's top surfing beaches and Point Addis. We had a wonderful meal out and went for a walk down along the beach then crashed for the night at Scott's.

Sunday morning we met up with Aaron and Kat at Airey's inlet. We met at the lighthouse cafe and enjoyed a Devonshire tea. From there we headed down the coast and stopped at Lorne to pick up take away and headed to a picnic area for lunch. Australia is know for its fish and chip take away. Every small town has at least one of these shops. A floor space of no more then 100 sq feet and one can have a take away fish and chip shop. The tasty fair comes bundled in newspaper to soak up the delicious grease.

We stopped and took in the Otway Fly Tree Top walk. This was our third of this type but surprisingly enough they each had a unique feature. On average this one is 25 m above the ground and has a spiral tower that is reaches 47 m above the forest floor. There are only four steel canopy walks in the world, all located in Australian and we have now been to three. The only one we are missing is Illawarra Fly in New south Wales.

We stopped at the Twelve Apostles before stopping for the night in Port Campbell. Originally named "The Sow & Piglets", the Twelve Apostles are a series of off-shore limestone stacks. Wind and sea erosion continually batters them, with one of the monoliths collapsing in 2005, leaving now just 8 standing.

The next morning we back tracked a little and went to see the Loch Ard Gorge. Beautiful coastline!!! I could sit near the ocean for a long time just watching and listening to the waves. We then traveled on to London Bridge, and we carried on all the way to Port Fairy before heading north towards home. At Port Fairy, we went down to the park on the wharf at the mouth of the Moyne River. Docked at the pier was the Earthrace vessel.

In June 2008, the amazing Earthrace vessel set a new world record for a powerboat to circle the globe, and she did this with 100% renewable biodiesel fuel, and a net zero carbon footprint. The voyage was over 24,000 nautical miles, and took 60 days, 23 hours and 49 minutes, smashing the old record by over two weeks. Aiden is not convinced, he reckons it is Batman's boat!