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Road Trip! Day 8 – Port Campbell – London Bridge – Flagstaff Hill – Port Fairy

LetsGoMum — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 16:30:16 +0000

Another day, another breathtaking destination!

We left my mother to rest at the hotel this morning and set off back to Gibson Step (12 minutes drive) to walk down to the Twelve Apostles beach – the staircase only takes around a minute or two to go down and is quite safe and navigable for children – and at the bottom is one of the most stunning beaches in Australia!

Here’s a quick video of what Gibson Steps beach, Twelve Apostles is like…

This is the beach on the side of the Twelve Apostles dividing promontory where there are two Apostles only – but don’t be put off by this – it’s spectacular. Windswept, majestic – half deserted (even though we went at 10am) and stunningly beautiful. The cliffs made me a little nervous – particularly with the warning signs saying keep away, cliffs unstable, and the tide not leaving us much beach clear of the cliffs!

The kids searched for shells, penguin feathers and rocks, and would have loved to go swimming, but I wouldn’t let them in more than ankle-deep – it was not safe around these massive structures! This beach gives you a ground-view aspect of the 12 Apostles that is really special. If I was time-restricted and had to choose between either the high walkway with stunning views of all Apostles, and the sandy wild beach with just two, I’d choose the beach any day – don’t miss it!

Alas, we had to hurry back for our late check out, so up the steep steps and back to Port Campbell we went.

The Gibson Steps lead down to the only 12 Apostles beach accessible at the moment

Leaving Port Campbell and driving towards Warrnambool. there is a veritable treasure box of amazing sights to see – all within a few minutes of each other.

First, we stopped at the London Bridge lookout. With the carpark only a short, level-walking distance from the stunning London Bridge rock formation. It’s an impressive sight, even with its first arch now gone, which famously collapsed in 1990 leaving two people stranded!

London Bridge

The next sight was The Arch, but I made an executive decision to skip it – I could tell the children were getting a little monument-tired of all the amazing sights at this point – although Brooke said to me later, why didn’t we stop at the Arch? Sigh!

We did stop at the Grotto. This is maybe a seven minute walk down a path then stairs to a beautiful arch with a aqua-coloured blue pool beneath – definitely worth the short walk, even though nowadays the Grotto is fenced off at waist-height. It’s a great photo opportunity, and a natural wonder. You can read all about how it developed on the information signs too – geology lesson, kids!

The Grotto

Next stop was the Bay of Matyrs. Samantha opted to stay in the car to keep writing in her travel journal, so just Brooke and I hopped out to see this one. You can actually see it from the car, but it’s worthy of a closer look – especially seeing it’s the last major sight here – and what a sight it is!

The Bay of Martyrs

The road now leaves the coast to go to Warrnambool – miles and miles of milk-cow farms line the way. We’d never seen so many cows – clearly, the dairy products around here would be as fresh as could be. We thought we saw silos coming up – but they were actually milk containers – wow – they were huge! Opposite was our lunch stop – the Cheese Factory.

The Cheese Factory was a great place to not only get lunch, but to pick up some bargain-basement beautiful Warrnambool cheese for supper from their wine and cheese shop – if only we could get such yummy cheese every day for $4! Don’t pass this place without grabbing at least one block of their scrumptious cheese!

The Cheese Factory wine and cheese shop

We arrived at the city of Warnambool, however we didn’t stop here but drove through it to Port Fairy – a very quaint riverside fishing village. Wooden period houses line the river – it’s all so peaceful! It looked so picturesque that we decided to stay here the night, and I called a few of the vacancy board numbers lining the roads. I got a real estate agent who offered us a beach-view villa. We were leaving the coast after Port Fairy, so agreed an ocean view would be great.

Our amazing Hearns Beach Villa

The Hearns Beach Villas have the best ocean view from private accommodation that I have ever seen outside of a cruise ship. The coast is so wild and free here – it’s the open Southern Ocean – straight from Antarctica , and it’s as though the waves are about to wash right up to the villa. The Shipwreck Coast is truly awe-inspiring in its power. I scouted the villa out, took one look at the view and we booked it – $350 per night, and worth every penny. We all deserve a bit of self-indulgent luxury at least once in a road trip!

The villa itself was lovely – it was huge inside, with full glass windows looking directly out to the ocean, and all quality mod cons everywhere, including washer/dryer combo (yay – more clean clothes!), Gas log heater, two flatscreens, huge Jacuzzi, etc. – but really, it’s all about that view! You can read our full review of Hearns Beach Villas here.

Flagstaff Hill sound and light show and Maritime Village

Once we had settled in, I piled the kids back into the car to drive the twenty minutes back to Warrnambool to visit Flagstaff Hill. This is an awesome tourist must-see feature of Warrnambool. – an old-time fishing village by day, and amazing laser light show by evening that re-enacts the sinking of the Loch Ard – a shipwreck that by now we were on very familiar story-terms with. You can read our detailed Flagstaff Hill review here.

Finally we drove back to the gorgeous Hearns Beach Villa, it was late, and time to collapse. The days certainly are long and exciting, but we’ve all never slept better in our lives!

Today’s route…

You can read our Road Trip! daily posts here:

Tomorrow we will be staying another night at Hearns Beach and Port Fairy…we’ll check in with you then!

Have you travelled (or want to) travel to Warrnambool, Port Fairy or along the Great Ocean Road with your family? Comment here!

The post Road Trip! Day 8 – Port Campbell – London Bridge – Flagstaff Hill – Port Fairy appeared first on Let's go Mum.

Road Trip! Day 7 – Cape Otway – 12 Apostles – Loch Ard Gorge

LetsGoMum — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 16:29:39 +0000

It was time to move on again today, so we bid a sad farewell to our beloved Cape Otway Lightstation and headed off for Port Campbell – but not without stopping in the Koala forest again – who could resist them? Certainly not us! We saw maybe six koalas in two stops before getting back on to the Great Ocean Road.

As we drove along the windy Great Ocean Road, it started to head inland and straighten out, and we could keep more of a steady pace – but the views weren’t as good as they had been, with the ocean being further over, and much of the time now out of sight. Still, there were one or two great lookouts to see.

I popped in a DVD – the story of the sinking of the Loch Ard ship that I had bought it in the Cape Otway Lightstation souvenir shop. We listened to the story of the Loch Ard, shipwrecked in 1878. What calamity as the huge ship went down, taking all on board with her apart from two amazing survival stories – a young lady and man – and we were going to see where it all happened today!

Just in case you were wondering…if you fall, you die! – a 12 Apostles sign

But first there were other sights to see. After around fifty minutes from Cape Otway we pulled into the Gibson Steps lookout – at last, here were the 12 Apostles! Or at least, two of them. We took a few pics of these enormous rock formations, and I took note that here there were a set of steps down to the beach – we might come back here tomorrow if we could find accommodation nearby.

We headed off again, and just a few hundred metres down the road pulled into the official 12 Apostles visitors centre. There’s a small kiosk here, and from here you can follow what is now a very civilised, wide thoroughfare under the road to the viewing decks and walkways high up, looking over the 12 Apostles – spectacular! Here it was swarming with international tourists – where did they all come from all of a sudden?!

Here’s a very quick look at the 12 Apostles…

We waited for our opportunity to take our pictures with the huge Apostles behind, and after walking right around to the promontory where you could also view the other two Apostles on the other side, I noticed that down at their separate beach must be where the Gibson Steps lead to.

The main 12 Apostles beach now appears to be closed to all. There seems to be several reasons, the most common that this protects the colony of penguins living there, and the other that the cliffs have just become too unstable for the descent onto the beach. Either way, that beach was deserted.

We went back to the car and moved on to the much-awaited Loch Ard Gorge – site of the sinking of the Loch Ard ship in 1878. We walked out to the sea view look outs to see the churning waves hitting the rocks – it was easy to imagine how a ship could get into awful trouble here.

The Loch Ard Gorge where the two survivors sheltered

Then we walked back and went up the path for the descent down into the Gorge itself, where the shipwrecked survivors had ended up taking refuge. At the bottom we found a beautiful sandy beach, protected on three sides – and a big snake lying on the sand. Quite alive, and almost certainly a tiger snake! We made a quiet retreat back up the stairs, but then looked down to watch tourist after tourist go way too close to the large and sleepy looking snake to snap pictures of themselves with it! Suicide selfie, anyone?! Luckily this snake didn’t move a muscle.

A silly selfie? We edited this photo to protect their identities

We walked back to the car and headed a bit further along to the graveyard where the only four bodies recoverable from the Loch Ard wreck lay buried – two of which were the mother and sister of the girl who survived. The other two, two men that had clung to life with her, for a time, before being swept away. All so tragic.

Port Campbell is very small but charming!

We left for Port Campbell, a ten minute drive to this sleepy little village set back in a protected cove. Here were several Motels, small shops and cafes, and it is here that we will stay the night at the SouthernOcean Motor Inn.

The SouthernOcean Motor Inn ($175 per night for a family of four) is your basic Motor Inn – it has everything needed to get back on the road clean, refreshed and ready to go! The shower was a bit temperamental, but there was a hairdryer, and our connecting rooms had plenty of space and were nice and clean and warm, with tea and coffee making facilities and breakfast crockery so that we could self-cater again – great! There was a small laundrette (oh bliss – clean clothes again!) and in the room, an iron.

A nice view down to the ocean from the Southernocean Inn

The view from our room was straight down to the beach, which was very nice, and off to the left of the Motel were some dirt tracks to lookouts with views of the cliffs at the entrance to the Port – the sight of waves crashing into cliffs is always a spectacular one!

Once we got settled in I took the kids for a paddle at Port Campbell beach. This is a great kids beach, as the waves aren’t too high, but high enough to thrill the kids. We had a lovely afternoon at Port Campbell beach – what a perfect way to end the day!

Port Campbell beach is great for kids

Today’s route…

You can read our Road Trip! daily posts here:

Tomorrow we will be moving on down the Great Ocean Road again…we’ll check in with you then!

Have you travelled (or want to) travel to Cape Otway, Port Campbell or along the Great Ocean Road with your family? Comment here!

The post Road Trip! Day 7 – Cape Otway – 12 Apostles – Loch Ard Gorge appeared first on Let's go Mum.