Melbourne: Day 5 (Great Ocean Road)

Travelogue

Day 5 is pretty different from Day 4. 2 reasons why we wanted to travel during this cold winter:

  1. Because Daddy likes cold (arrghh…and after the trip, I realised that all the places we went were during winter time, apalah…next trip must be autumn or at least spring)
  2. Whale watching season @ Warnambool. They only appear during winter

That was why we drove all the way to Warnambool!!

So no more looking at rocks, but we go look for whale. As it was already the 5th Day in Melbourne, we start to get used to the weather. No more wearing 3 layers, I could stand with just 2 layers (except that when the wind blows, it chills me out).

We woke up a bit late and we drove straight to Logans Beach where we could all see whale. The night before we investigated this place to see how far it takes us from the motel. Also tested the GPS to make sure it works perfectly. Hence we didn’t have a problem driving there. It was a short drive about 10-15 mins. But when we arrived, I was actually quite puzzled. How come it’s all hill and a few houses here n there. Where’s the beach? Well, it was behind the hills…funny eh…

We saw some people leaving and some standing at the whale watching deck, waiting patiently for the whale to appear. When I looked at the beach, I was like…whoa…so far ah…how to see lah…I just couldn’t imagine how big or rather how small I can see the whale from where I stood LOL.

We didn’t take a boat (cause I will get seasick haha)…so we waited and waited…waited and waited…like everyone else. We didn’t have binos with us too, so at times we were looking through our camera (zoomed to the max hahaha). I set my camera to continuous shooting mode to make sure I can shoot continuously when the whale appears.

After waiting and waiting…for close to 45mins, I told Daddy, when is that whale ever gonna come up? At least show your tail lah…adui…Seriously, I don’t have much patience with this kinda activity. More so ever, I didn’t have anything to do apart from staring at the sea trying to look for a hint of whale.

Then few minutes later, the couple that stood next to us (with the binos), told us, look at that spot….you will see….

Whoa, quickly we view thru our camera and waited…true enough…yes we saw that whale’s tail. It was swimming at the spot, going up and down. We could see it very clear, but of course without a zoom lense, I could only get a photo of it from far and cropped it to make it look big LOL. Daddy had better photos compared to me with his PNS, cause he could zoom further (argghh…now I feel like having a zoom lense LOL).

But it was good enough. Consider ourselves lucky, we only stood there less than an hour and the whale appeared haha. It started drizzling just after we saw the whale, and again we saw the rainbow. This time round it looks as though it came from the sea :O. I love Ozzie’s rainbow. They are so huge and full, unlike ours we can only see them partially.

So we left Logans Beach and went back to the Motel. Did an early checkout and off we went for some early shopping in Town. I manage to get myself a pair of Rivers Shoes @ the Rivers Outlet which was having sales at that time. Daddy grabbed a few pants and socks for himself. Wanted to get shoes for the kids but they were out of stock. The shoes were pretty cheap, I paid AUD28 for mine.

Frankly, I prefer Warnambool than Apollo Bay, because it has more shops and the designs are rather unique. I took many shots of the various shops in this little town. We finally decide to leave this place @ 12pm and had our lunch at KFC. You see at least this town has KFC. The other towns we stopped by, didn’t even have any fastfood chain!!

So Warnambool is the sort of last stop for Great Ocean Road. If we continue we will go to Port Fairy (the very last stop). We decided not to go there, but start our back track the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne itself. We tried to be optimistic, thinking maybe we can reach Geelong today, then it’ll be good. Cause the next day, we want to cover the Zoo to visit the Australian animals.

But then again, having a photographer in a trip means we will pull over at anytime (all of a sudden!!) when she feels like taking photos. Hence our plan of no stopping from Warnambool to Geelong, has to be totally scrapped :P.

As we back track to Melbourne along Great Ocean Road, there were plenty of stops too for viewing. But I try very hard not to pull over each time I see a sign board haha…telling myself we need to get going. But finally succumbed to Bay of Martyrs. This one is like another 12 Apostles, but less walking. Less scenic, but nice also lah haha…

Then we continue driving and stopped at Otway Ranges Deer & Wildlife Park. We were trying our luck to see if we can spot some kangaroos & koalas here, then we don’t need to go to the Zoo the next day. Yes, indeed we have very close encounter with the kangaroos & koalas and other animals too. This place is worth visiting, very cheap (I think we paid less than AUD20 for both of us) & close to the animals.

Since we were already late, knowing that we won’t reach Geelong on time to have dinner, we decided to slow down and we finally end up in Lorne, where we stopped in Day 3 previously. It was so so dark by the time we arrived, though it was only like 7pm. We didn’t have many motel choices. Even checked the Backpackers Inn but we didn’t take it LOL. Then we found this Motel which was so so decent that we paid instantly and off load all our luggage. This was the only Motel which I took photos of how it looks like haha…

We had our dinner @ Ba Ba Lu Bar, short distance from the Motel. They serve Spanish food. We ordered some tapas, big enough to fill our tummy. Then Daddy finally had his dose of cigar with Wine. This place closes at 10pm, at least not 8pm LOL.

PHOTOS FROM WARNAMBOOL TO LORNE HERE.

to be continued…Surf shop & David Jones

12 thoughts on “Melbourne: Day 5 (Great Ocean Road)”

  1. Melbourne (Victoria to be precise) is indeed a wonderful place to visit. Now that exchange is lower, can go already. Renting a car is the most ideal way to travel in Victoria. Easy to drive so as long as got Melway (Victoria’s thick book of maps 😀 ) But I guess cars now I think should be equipped with GPS liao.

  2. So lucky u got to see the whale. We din sign up for the whale-watching tour when we were honeymooning in Australia coz it’s not a 100% guarantee we’ll spot them. 🙂

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