A few Tuesday’s ago, the city of Melbourne shut down for the Melbourne Cup–a day of horseracing, big hats, fancy dress, and lots of booze.  Ruth, Kristina, and I, unfortunately did not have tickets to this spectacular event, but we decided to take advantage of the day off work and take a little road trip down the Great Ocean Road which lines part of the southern coast of Australia—approximately Melbourne to Adelaide.  Part of our motivation was also that Kristina had a job interview in a small town along the way, so we decided to rent a car, buy some snacks, and we were off for the day!

In order to expedite the process, we took the inland route down to her interview in a town called Timboon, which is near the end of the GOR (great ocean road from here on in).

Timboon really is the definition of a small rinky-dink town.  Its MAYBE 2 streets and the biggest thing there is a grocercy store and this distillery/restaurant that Kristina was applying for.  But it had a cool name and now no one can say we didn’t go off the beaten path.  After a quick stop at the distillery we were off to actually explore the GOR.  

Our first stop was London Bridge–a huge rock formation that, well, looks like a huge bridge!

Pretty darn awe-inspiring if you ask me–even on a windy, slightly overcast day!

That would be me getting molested by the wind.  Fun times.

Then we headed up the road to ‘the arch’.  Well if you ask me, there isn’t too much of a difference between a ‘bridge’ and an ‘arch’ but here ya go:

I guess I’d feel much safer walking across the bridge, since its double the size of the arch, but again, beautiful all the same.

Further still we hit the ‘razorback’.  Aptly named if you ask me.  It looks like the land was just cut into by a razor.

And then the razors few neighboring friends:

And its position relative to the actual shoreline.

Unfortunately this isn’t my first choice for swimming/snorkeling/diving/surfing/etc, but it sure was nice to look at.

And then the sight that the GOR is most well known for: The 12 Apostles. (although I could only ever count about 10…)

No, this is not the 12 guys yet.  We’re just starting to walk down the path.  This was the most elaborately signed and organized attraction.  The other ones were on the side of the road with a few look out points.  This had a visitor’s center, its own big parking lot, a special path…the works.  

There’s at least four, looking south.  Unless those little guys in the foreground count, which I sure hope not.

Wait…here’s a few more…maybe 6? 7?  I think we’re still looking south.  There were a few looking north from where we were standing, but I guess they weren’t special enough to photograph.  Hmm.

And just in case you underestimated how frickin windy it was…here you go.  Wind-tunnel central.

So in conclusion, maybe not the best day to go down the GOR, but hey….neither sun nor cloud can disguise pure beauty.