Port Campbell to Portarlington

The drive to our next stop was only a short one in distance, but as we travelled further along the Ocean road it seemed to get longer and longer. One of our first stops was an area of coastline with the attraction known as The Twelve Apostles, which I must say was very spectacular. I have seen many pictures of the area before and I tried to take some myself, but I don’t think any pictures can do this area the justice it deserves.

Unfortunately we received some bad news at this stage of our trip, my Aunt Desley in Rockhampton had passed away. These things are always a shock and this was the second time during the trip that we’d received bad news. Lets hope that this will be all the bad news for the trip.

We got back on the road, and as we had decided to only travel about 250 kilometres today we thought we could stop and see a few sights.

There were a few more stops along this part of The Great Ocean road, one where I even walked down onto the beach amongst these huge cliffs in a small cove, where I discovered that they were even more spectacular from this angle. We then took a detour off the road to the Ottway Tree Tops Walk, which sounded spectacular. Unfortunately when we got there we were faced with a ridiculous entrance price and told the walk was over 2 kilometres and would take in excess of an hour as it was a gradual climb through the trees to reach the 60metre height of the walk. All this while pushing the kids on a stroller didn’t appeal so we continued on the drive.

We continued through the Ottway National Park, which was a very slow and winding road but very spectacular until we got to Apollo Bay which marked the beginning of another part of the drive.

For the next 100 Kilometres the road followed the coast line. This part of the coast wasn’t as well known as the shear cliffs near the Twelve Apostles, rather it consisted of beach after beach separated by hills and the road literally had been carved out in the side of the hills. At first the drive was fun and spectacular, but after a few kilometres of slow winding driving we all started to feel car sick, which apparently is part of the challenge of this drive (everyone told us this after the fact). We struggled through and made plenty of stops but it felt like it was taking us a long time to get anywhere. Eventually we made it to Anglesea and we found a motorway which lead to us through Geelong and onto our destination for the night of Portarlington, on the Bellarine Peninsula at the bottom of Port Phillip Bay near Melbourne.

In Melbourne we were staying with friends of Hennie’s (Trish’s Mum), Peter and Denise, he had travelled here as a teenager and married an Aussie. The next day they took us to for a drive around there area before having lunch at a place called Annakie Gorge and then we went onto a Fairy Park. Reagan loved this place as it had an assortment of fairy tale creatures and a huge playground.

The next day we travelled to Geelong where we caught a train to Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city. Being an Aussie I was familiar with Australia’s largest horse race, The Melbourne Cup, which is held the first Tuesday of November, which was the following day. What I didn’t realise being a Queenslander was just how popular this event was.

We travelled to the city the day before the cup and they where actually having a parade and festivities for the cup therefore the city was extremely crowded. When travelling with kids and in an unknown city this can prove hard. I would not recommend seeing the city on or around this busy time and it detracted from our visit.

The highlight of this part of our trip was our stay with Peter and Denise as it was very comfortable and they made us feel right at home. We had never met them before but were made to feel part of their family, a big thanks to them both.

The next day was our trip to the Victoria and New South Wales border.

The drive to our next stop was only a short one in distance, but as we travelled further along the Ocean road it seemed to get longer and longer. One of our first stops was an area of coastline with the attraction known as The Twelve Apostles, which I must say was very spectacular. I have seen many pictures of the area before and I tried to take some myself, but I don’t think any pictures can do this area the justice it deserves.

Unfortunately we received some bad news at this stage of our trip, my Aunt Desley in Rockhampton had passed away. These things are always a shock and this was the second time during the trip that we’d received bad news. Lets hope that this will be all the bad news for the trip.

We got back on the road, and as we had decided to only travel about 250 kilometres today we thought we could stop and see a few sights.

There were a few more stops along this part of The Great Ocean road, one where I even walked down onto the beach amongst these huge cliffs in a small cove, where I discovered that they were even more spectacular from this angle. We then took a detour off the road to the Ottway Tree Tops Walk, which sounded spectacular. Unfortunately when we got there we were faced with a ridiculous entrance price and told the walk was over 2 kilometres and would take in excess of an hour as it was a gradual climb through the trees to reach the 60metre height of the walk. All this while pushing the kids on a stroller didn’t appeal so we continued on the drive.

We continued through the Ottway National Park, which was a very slow and winding road but very spectacular until we got to Apollo Bay which marked the beginning of another part of the drive.

For the next 100 Kilometres the road followed the coast line. This part of the coast wasn’t as well known as the shear cliffs near the Twelve Apostles, rather it consisted of beach after beach separated by hills and the road literally had been carved out in the side of the hills. At first the drive was fun and spectacular, but after a few kilometres of slow winding driving we all started to feel car sick, which apparently is part of the challenge of this drive (everyone told us this after the fact). We struggled through and made plenty of stops but it felt like it was taking us a long time to get anywhere. Eventually we made it to Anglesea and we found a motorway which lead to us through Geelong and onto our destination for the night of Portarlington, on the Bellarine Peninsula at the bottom of Port Phillip Bay near Melbourne.

In Melbourne we were staying with friends of Hennie’s (Trish’s Mum), Peter and Denise, he had travelled here as a teenager and married an Aussie. The next day they took us to for a drive around there area before having lunch at a place called Annakie Gorge and then we went onto a Fairy Park. Reagan loved this place as it had an assortment of fairy tale creatures and a huge playground.

The next day we travelled to Geelong where we caught a train to Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city. Being an Aussie I was familiar with Australia’s largest horse race, The Melbourne Cup, which is held the first Tuesday of November, which was the following day. What I didn’t realise being a Queenslander was just how popular this event was.

We travelled to the city the day before the cup and they where actually having a parade and festivities for the cup therefore the city was extremely crowded. When travelling with kids and in an unknown city this can prove hard. I would not recommend seeing the city on or around this busy time and it detracted from our visit.

The highlight of this part of our trip was our stay with Peter and Denise as it was very comfortable and they made us feel right at home. We had never met them before but were made to feel part of their family, a big thanks to them both.

The next day was our trip to the Victoria and New South Wales border.