Today we had the 2nd hottest October day on record. The hottest was a late October day in 1914, which was apparently 36.9 degrees. Today we had a mere 36.6! It was very much predicted, so Michael took the afternoon off and we went to cool down on the terrace in St Kilda of the famous Esplanade Hotel (Espe). On TV they were warning people to drink plenty of fluids, so we got a few jugs of VB just to be sure.

We stopped a Port Campbell for a snack, and then headed a few kms down the coast to London Bridge, the name given to the rock formation below. In the past people could walk right out to the isolated rock in the photo, as there used to be 2 arches.

On January the 14th 1990, the arch connecting this to the mainland collapsed due to years of errosion, leaving stranded a couple who had gone for a romantic walk to the cliffs edge. The story I’ve been told, but have not been able to verify, is that one of the TV channels in Melbourne sent a helicopter to film the couple whilst they waited for rescue by the coastguard. Unfortunately for the man, his wife was at home watching him and his mistress getting rescued live on TV…

The Bay of Islands I know is a popular holiday area in New Zealand, in Northland about 5 hours north of Auckland. I was sceptical of the Australian Bay of Islands living up to that, but it really is spectacular. The light was fading by the time we reached there, but the views were stunning.

We then continued down the coast to Port Fairy, where we had planned to eat at a pub which came recommended to us. The Caledonia Hotel is the oldest pub in Victoria, and looked very nice. Unfortunately we hadn’t booked, and this being a Saturday evening it was extremely busy. It was a really shame, as this was the only place in Port Fairy which was likely to let us in dressed as we were in our beach gear.

We ended up driving back to Warrnambool for dinner, before our 3 hour drive back to Melbourne. A very tiring day for me, and I didn’t even do any of the driving… Thanks Amanda!

Heading west from the 12 Apostles, you almost immediately arrive at Loch Ard Gorge. Of the 55 people on board the Loch Ard on that fateful day in 1788, only 2 survived. Both were teenagers, Tom Pearce and Eva Carmichael. Tom was washed up in the gorge, and heard the screams of Eva who was clinging to some wreckage out to sea. He then braved the seas once more in a rescue that took several hours. Even on a calm sunny day such as the one we had whilst we were there, it is difficult to imagine anyone surviving in the enormous swells and current around this part of the coast.

Just a few hundred metres further to the west, you come to Thunder Cave, quite aptly named due to the roar of the ocean as the swells fill this funnel shaped cave. Just outside the entrance to the cave, there are piles of limestone rock on the sea bed, about 15m below the surface. This rock is thought to have once formed and arch over the entrance to the cave, but which could eventually no longer support its own weight as the sea erroded much of its base. These piles of rock now produce a huge increase in the swell as it passes over, make the the noise of the rushing water in this cave deafening.

Quite close to Thunder Cave is the Blowhole. The Blowhole is though to be how Thunder Cave once started out. It’s fortunate they’ve roped it off, as from the top of the cliff you wouldn’t notice it until you sarted falling into it. Well, perhaps you would hear the roaring of the ocean and see some of the spray. Several of the bodies from the ill fated Loch Ard, were washed up in the blowhole. What doesn’t seem to be documented, is how they managed to fish the bodies out. This was 1878, so I can only imagine they sent people down on rope ladders or such like.

There was a great forecast, so Amanda suggested a road trip. We left at 9am and stopped in Colac for breakfast. “Colac, more than you imagine” - proclaimed the banners in the town. As I hadn’t imagined anything (except that its name sounded like the name of a type of medicine), Colac definately lived up to its slogan.

After Colac we proceeded through the Otway National Park down to the coast just east of Apollo Bay. This area was one of those devastated by the so called Ash Wednesday bushfires in 1983. At Apollo Bay we stopped of to stretch our legs, and the continued to drive down the Great Ocean Road. The first stop is the most famous of all the sights on the Great Ocean Road, the 12 Apostles. The stacks of rock jutting out into the sea are created by the currents in the southern ocean, which eat away at the limestone rock faces to form jutting headlands. The constant wave motion eventually creates a cave and then a tunnel, so that the headland is connected to the mainland by a natural bridge (see reference to London Bridge in another entry). Eventually the bridge will collapse, leaving the stacks of rock seen in the photo below;

Eventually the stack will collapse under the pounding of the waves, as last happened in July 2005. The photo below shows the stack which collapsed last year in the foreground. There are in fact only 8 of these stacks at this moment. Over time however, the cliff will continue to erode and new stacks may be formed.

This stretch of the southern coast of Australia, is also called the shipwreck coast. Many sailing ships from Europe bringing supplies, convicts and immigrants to the new Australian colony in Victoria, came to grief here, just 200km from the safety of Port Phillip Bay. In fact, one of the most dramatic stretches of coast is Loch Ard Gorge, which is named after an iron hulled clipper, the Loch Ard, which came to grief here in 1878 - on the last night of its voyage from the UK! All in all, 80 ships sank in this 100km stretch of coast in 40 years, due to the many barely hidden reefs, the frequent fog, and the extreme swells of the southern ocean.

Went out with the camera at moonrise, just an hour or so before the sunset to try to get some decent photos of the full moon. It’s not at all as easy as I’d imagined, and unfortunately I didn’t get the dramatic shot I’d hoped I would, but this is the clearest of them.

This was food van parked outside the stadium for last Saturday’s Grand Final - Can’t believe they’re allowed to advertise fries, coke, kebabs, burgers and hot dogs as “Healthy Bites”

As apparently the tradition in Melbourne, the AFL Grand Final day involves people getting together for barbecues and generally having parties at each other’s houses. So if Andy and Kelly ever read this, thanks for your hospitality! It started off as a trip to their place in Brunswick East by tram, and also by way of the bottle shop to stock up on a slab of VB and some ice. There were only around half a dozen people there when we arrived, but within an hour there must have been closer to 50 as kick off time loomed. The games was a close affair, one of the closest ever. In a sport which regularly finished with teams scoring over 100 points, it was quite amazing that the big final of the year finished Perth’s West Coast Eagles 85, Sydney Swans 84. For most melburnians there was no preference as to who won as long as it was a good close game. So most around us were happy. The match finished at around 5pm. the next 12 or so hours are a blur, but luckily Michael took his camera to help us piece it all together a few days later - he provided me with the photos which I’ve uploaded to http://www.garethjl.com/gallery. It took a fair while to get over that day, which is why I’ve taken so long to get this entry of the blog done