I started a 3 day tour from Melbourne to Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road and through the Grampians National Park. I never planned on going to Adelaide during my time here, but that is part of the beauty of this trip…..I don’t have many real plans and sometimes the wind blows me somewhere I wasn’t expecting.

We started our journey in Great Otway National Park, home of the Otway Black Snail. These snails are….

“Is this kid really talking about snails right now?”

“Yea, I am. Shutup and keep reading. It gets better.”

….extremely rare, carnivorous and can’t be found anywhere else in the world. They are only one of 4 types of carnivorous snails in the world and eat other snails, slugs, soft-shelled insect larvae and earthworms. That’s about as cool as a snail can get.

Our first stop in the park was Point Addis, which overlooks Bells Beach.

Bells Beach is home to the annual Rip Curl Pro, which began in 1970 and is the longest running pro surf competition in the world.

Our next stop was the Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch. The memorial is dedicated to the men who returned from war and were tasked with building the road.

Next we drove through the town of Lorne, where every January they have a Pier to Pub swim race. About 4,000 people enter and swim the 1.2 km from the end of the pier to shore and then meet up at various pubs in town. Sounds like my kind of event!

We continued on to the Mt. Defiance Lookout and to the shipwreck site of the W.B. Godfrey.

At low tide, you can still see pieces of the ship that wrecked back in 1891.

Up next was our most exciting stop of the day!!! We went to Kennett River for some wildlife spotting. The weather was crappy, so there wasn’t much wildlife around, but I saw my first wild koala and even got to see it climb before it went back to sleep!!

He was pretty tuckered out after climbing down to say hi, so he decided to take a nap, but first…….

….a big yawn for the camera!!

The only other wildlife we spotted was a kookaburra.

We left Kennett River and headed to Apollo Bay for lunch. I ate my sandwich and then headed to Dooley’s ice cream shop because our tour guide, Eric, said they had vegemite ice cream and I had to try it. It was good, but only because it tasted like salted caramel and not like vegemite.

Next we did a short rainforest walk at Mait’s Rest where we walked among the giant Mountain Ash trees, the largest flowering plant in the world. We also kept our eyes peeled for those snails I told you about, but didn’t see any.

Next we made a short stop at Castle Cove and then headed for the main attraction of the day, The Twelve Apostles. Interestingly, there are 27 and you can only see 7 of them from the lookout. You can see them all if you take the helicopter tour.

From the Apostles we went to Loch Ard Gorge and London Bridge, which coincidentally has fallen down. The span closest to the shoreline collapsed in 1990, leaving 2 people stranded on the outer span. They were rescued by helicopter a few hours later and the story made national news. The woman was happy to be interviewed, but the man wanted no part of it. Turns out the woman he was with wasn’t his wife. Ooops!!

You may have noticed that I have a special knack for doing coastal trips (at least on the mainland) on days with shitty weather. I’m hoping I can break that pattern when I eventually travel the Gold Coast and head out to The Great Barrier Reef.

Until next time….Cheers, mates!