March 12 - 13

March 12 - 13: Open Seas Cruising & Melbourne 

Tuesday was a day spent at sea sailing around the southeast corner of Australia, into the Bass Strait, and then into the inlet which eventually led to Melbourne. I was so surprised when I read today's "Cruise Compass" - the daily on-ship newsletter - that Kim had put an announcement in about my retirement! If you move your cursor over the newsletter at left you can see a close-up of the announcement. They even announced it on the daily morning show. My wife......she is so sweet :)

There is very little to talk about regarding Tuesday. I took a long afternoon nap - and those that know me know that is HIGHLY unusual. Kim was going to play volleyball, but it was cancelled. She worked out and I walked three miles - braving the mid-50 temps and very brisk wind! 

Wednesday morning we had to be up and at 'em early - our meeting time was 7 am sharp with a scheduled departure at 7:30 am. We had to start as soon as the ship docked as our journey along the Great Ocean Road would take 10 1/2 hours - yes, you read that right...... TEN and ONE-HALF hours! If you follow on the map above, it took about an hour to get from the port in Melbourne, up through Geelong and down to Anglesea where the Great Ocean Road begins. It was about an hour to Lorne; then another hour and a half to Apollo Bay; and finally almost an hour and forty-five minutes to the Twelve Apostles and the Loch Arde Gorge. That took a good seven hours, including stops. And then we set off in as straight a path as possible back to Melbourne and the ship for the final three plus hours. A long day of extensive travel, but well worth it. 

I had thirty-four videos and over fifty photos once we returned to the ship - and that does NOT include the photos and videos I edited out while driving back! So, the design of today's journal is a bit different......... 

For those who want the big picture I've included with the journals just a single photo of the Great Ocean Road and the Twelve Apostles. For those who want the "full experience," there are more photos below the journal. If you bother to count them you'll see that I greatly edited the number of photos again. There simply is no way to capture the spectacular views and wonder of all the formations in a short video or journal :) 

The night before our excursion someone at our dinner table advised us that we should go for seats on the left of the bus as that would put us in prime viewing position of the ocean and cliffs. That was such good advice! We were literally about the fifth and sixth persons off the ship and grabbed our prime seats. For the next six plus hours of driving we saw the spectacular scenery pictured above. It is hard to describe in a short journal or in photos; on the one hand if you watched all the videos I had captured it would look so similar, but that was one of the coolest things.....the fantastic scenes, cliffs, crashing waves and winding rounds just never ended! Some times we were high up above the water and others we were nearly on a level plain with it. All of it was awesome. 

Our first stop, once we got going was in Lorne which was the official beginning of the Great Ocean Road. To Australians it is known as the biggest war memorial in the world. You see, upon the end of World War I when the surviving veterans returned and there was little work for them, the government put them to task in constructing the road - in memory of their fallen comrades. It was begun in 1918 and not finished until 1932. 

When we reached Apollo Bay we stopped for a half an hour to actually get onto the beach and each a sack lunch that had been arranged for us. At left you can see we took advantage of the time to get on an Australian beach, and below you can see our sack lunch - which was quite lovely (as they say in Australia).....it was a chicken sandwhich, banana bread, an apple and a bottle of water. Kim had bought a bag of chips in Anglesea so we had a few of those as well as we sat in the shade under a tree. The temperature had been about 55 when we left the ship, but by lunch time it had to be in the upper 70s - and by the time we were at our final stop it had to be mid-80s with a VERY tropical and direct hot sun bearing down on us! 

From Apollo Bay we moved northward and saw less of the ocean as we moved in and out of the Otway National Forest. The scenery shifted from ocean views to nothing but trees and to farm land and back again throughout the journey to what we felt would be the highlight of the day....... 

We reached the Twelve Apostles rock formation about six and a half hours into our adventure and honestly we both agreed that the day had flown past to that point. This was the only part of the day that I had second thoughts on my choice of clothing for the day. I figured I'd been safe with a lightweight sweater and a light long-sleeved shirt, as I could roll up the sleeves. But if I had known it was going to be SO tropically hot I would have worn a short-sleeved polo and peeled off the sweater. Kim had brought her jacket, but it stayed permanently on the bus. 

At any rate we got off the bus and headed along the boarwalk to the cliffs. As we approached the cliffs we saw this sign:

I guess these days you have to be very clear and specific in your warnings, but I found it amusing that in bold print you were warned that the result of exploring on your own off the beaten path could mean "you would fall and DIE!" The views of the Twelve Apostles were spectacular to say the least. This had all been a solid wall of limestone at one point back in prehistoric times, but the battering by the sea and weather had eventually led to these stand-alone "apostles." There actually are only eight standing today, and in fact they told us that within a few months one of them had collapsed. You can see the remaining rock rubble in the foreground of the photo above. 

We both enjoyed how you could walk out to be pretty close to the formation, and then if you wanted to continue you were taken even closer and higher to the formations. The photos below and in today's video show the dramatic and spectacular views of the rock formations. Very early in the process of planning this Australian adventure I had searched via Google for photos of Australian sites and the Twelve Apostles was one of the very first photos I had come across. Until then I did know how important these were as a national monument. About the best way to explain how cool it was is to tell you that both of us agreed that it was worth a ten hour bus ride to see them up close :) 

We had one last stop before the long return journey. Loch Arde Gorge was about five minutes up the road in the same park facility. This spot had a very interesting and sad historic tale that went with it....... 

Back in the 1850s a ship bound for the southern coast of Australia carrying English settlers arrived just off the coast of this point. They were close enough to see the coast and knew that landfall would take place the next day. In celebration of their accomplishment of safely navigating the oceans all the way from England the ship held a party. Included on board was the Carmichael family, in which there were two daughters, one of which was celebrating a birthday. Overnight a mist rolled in and the ship drived unbeknownst to the crew. By morning they were right upon the rocks off the coast and crashed. Everyone but two perished - a deckhand who swam into this gorge and the "other" Carmichael daughter. She found herself clinging to a basket with chickens and she was screaming for help when the crewmate, who had reached the beach of this gorge heard her. He swam back out and rescued her. Eventually they were found and both returned to England to live out their separate adult lives where they were married and had children. 

We are at sea all day tomorrow as we head east toward Tasmania, and then south down it's coast to Hobart.