I have always wanted to drive along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. That part of the country is absolutely stunning! So, during a visit to Melbourne, my friend Brooke and I spontaneously decided to go on a mini road trip! The weather was beautiful, company was great – what more could we ask for? Well, it was the Australia Day long weekend – so ALL the accommodation was completely booked out! Stress levels were on the rise but we both really still wanted to go! So instead of making our cortisol levels sky rocket, we packed the tent and sleeping bags and hoped for the best, so we set out on an adventure…

Our first stop was Bells Beach – where the Ripcurl Pro Surf tournament is held. The view was simply amazing! There were a lot of local surfers, it was nice to see some surfing action whilst we were there. The surf was insane – MASSIVE waves, seeing this made me understand why the best of the best come here to compete….

We then had lunch at Apollo Bay – which was absolutely stunning! This town seemed more touristy, nevertheless, it was still beautiful. There was a main promenade with the beach on one side and shops and cafes on the other. The beach looked really nice and flat. We scored the front yard of a caravan park to put our tent up – sorted =)

We continued along to Lorne – which has a really long jetty that local folk fish from. We walked along the jetty and when we reached the end we were utterly surprised to see SEALS! And there were TWO of them! They were so cute – rolling around in the water. There was a group of local kids jumping off the jetty and climbing back up via the ladder. There was one particular girl who couldn’t bring herself to do it. After many failed attempts, she succumbed to peer pressure and actually jumped off! On our walk back, a small boy was screaming with delight. As I looked over, I noticed that he was happy because of the little fish he had caught. At the end of the jetty there is a nice fish and chip shop – so if you do want to grab a bite to eat, this place looked ok…

Our mission was to get to Cape Otway Lighthouse before it closed. However, en route we saw cars parked on the side of the road and people walking around, pointing up. Let me set the scene: we were in the middle of the bush, in the middle of nowhere. Hence greatly surprised to see random scattered cars parked along the way with people pointing up. Then the penny dropped! Our friends had tipped us off about the wild koalas on the way to Cape Otway – REAL WILD KOALAS! So we parked on the side of the road and also began to hunt for koalas – it was like a game of bingo, as soon as you spotted one you would call out to your friend! As an Australian, I’d never seen a koala out in the wild, so you could imagine my delight when I spotted my first one – I was ECSTATIC!! They were so cute, just chilling in the eucalyptus trees…

We made it to the lighthouse and managed to climb up. The tour guide was very informative and enthusiastic about this particular lighthouse. If memory serves me correct, he mentioned that this was Australia’s oldest lighthouse! All I kept on singing was “have you ever, ever felt like this?” – if you grew up in Australia you will know that this was the opening song from the TV series Round The Twist (the family lived in a lighthouse!). Around the lighthouse grounds were colonial accessories – from houses to anchors…

Our next mission was to get to the 12 Apostles so we could make a timelapse of the sunset and also score some awesome shots…