The Great Ocean Road

The first time I came to Melbourne in 2002/2003, I had the chance to drive the Great Ocean Road over a weekend.

It was a spectacular drive. So when my lab tech and I had a car for one weekend in December, we spent one day driving the Great Ocean Road.

It was along this road that I officially started my "Taken While Driving" collection of photos on Flickr.



The first part of the road runs right along the coast and the Otway National park, you can see the road cut into the side of the mountains in this picture:



The visions of the blue ocean and sky and the green mountains and fields is gorgeous, even on a cloudy day.

Then, the road moves inland for several kilometers and the coast shifts from green and hilly to the limestone coast, my personal favorite. This part of the coast is where the famous 12 Apostles are found. Before the Apostles are the Gibson Steps, which I think is 10 times more beautiful than the Apostles, because you can go down onto the beach and really feel the scale of the cliffs and hear the power of the sea beating against the rocks, slowly eroding them away and carving a new coastline.



Plus my favorite warning sign is posted on the steps as you go down to the beach.



Oh no!!! Whirlpools!!!

I was rather keen to see the 12 Apostles again because I had learned that one of them had collapsed in 2005. I was infinitely curious to see what the coast looked like now:



See that pile of rubble? That used to be an Apostle. Click here to see what the Apostle used to look like. Aparently at around 9am one morning, the rock just decided to succumb to the ravages of time and collapse into the sea. I read that several tourists got the event on film, but I have not been able to find any footage on the internet. Imagine being there watching that rock just fall into the sea! It took millions of years to shape that rock and the surrounding coastline, and only seconds for it to fall apart, and it will likely be thousands and thousands of years before another one of the rocks collapse. What a powerful experience!