First Australia Vacation Day 4

One of the first things we realized the day before was that we weren't prepared for it to be cold. Our hope was that the coldness of the previous day was an aberration and it would be warm and lovely for our sightseeing. Well, it wasn't. It got down to 10 Celsius in the late afternoon (50 Fahrenheit) and since we were used to the lovely summer up north, that seemed especially cold. Our little hiking forays to check out all the cool places were brisk walks - literally. It was quite windy and we found the weather to be either threatening rain or or having a little sun break in between the threats.

We saw some fabulous coastal formations and cliffs. As you can see, it's pretty special scenery. We especially enjoyed the Grotto and the Loch Ard shipwreck area. The ocean has long since erased the remnants of the Loch Ard wreck, but the story remains. The whole stretch we drove was dubbed the "shipwreck coast" because so many ships have met their end along there.

One of the highlights was the Twelve Apostles formations. Unfortunately they've lost a few apostles over the years, so it's now a bit misnamed, but the ones left are doing their best to look especially good.

We also went to the Tree Top Walk which was cool, but in our opinion was quite overpriced ($22 AUD each). I saw a new bird there - the Eastern Yellow Robin - and managed to immortalize it in the camera.

We next headed to Cape Otway where we would be spending the night at the lighthouse manager's accommodations. As we drove down the road to the lighthouse, we had heard there were koalas so we were keeping an eye out for koala bums (and the rest of their bodies, too!). It wasn't long before we saw one, then another, and we just kept seeing them. We stopped and got lots of pictures of these cute (sort of) little furry guys. After forever scanning the trees near our house for koalas with no success, we felt like we'd hit the jackpot. We also spied our first fox in Australia.

Staying at the lighthouse was an interesting experience. It truly was a step back in time as there was no cell phone coverage, internet, television, or telephones. We were - gasp! - cut off from the world. I think if I were to live there for any length of time I'd need an awful lot of books. But for a one night stint, it can and does keep its charm.

I posted the full set of scenic coastline, tree top walk, koala, fox, and lighthouse pictures here (Pictures). As you can see by one of them, the wind blew my hair into a frightful 'do.