The Great Ocean Road

So another early start as I was picked up at 6.45am for my 'Groovy Grape' tour. there were 20 of us on the tour plus our guide called Richard. We soon headed off towards the border between South Australia and Victoria and a place called 'Bordertown'. We only stopped here cos Richard had been given the tour the night before when another guide had to go to hospital so he had to buy us some food! Fortunately while he hit the supermarket we got to look at the strange inhabitants of Bordertown, namely white albino kangaroos and black swans. Soon we crossed the border properly and headed to Mount Aracles where we could have a good look at the region and got surprised by a voice from above that turned out to be a poor bloke who had to sit in a tower looking for fires. Since there are currently a lot of them doing damage in Victoria this was probably a wise precaution. We spoke to him for a while and then went onto McKenzie Falls.
We got there just after an ambulance, police car and 2 emergency rescue trucks arrived. Not being sure what was going on, we followed them down the path to the bottom of the falls where rather disappointing there was only a German tourist who had hurt his ankle and not the daring cliff side rescue we'd been hoping for! Luckily he didn't stop us taking some photos as the falls were pretty impressive. it did take about 10 mins longer to get back up behind the stretcher. We then headed out to another decent lookout, had a good BBQ and went to bed. The next day we climbed upto Mount William and had another good look at the scenery and headed for the start of The Great Ocean Road. It used to start in Apollo Bay, but now it starts a lot further west in Warrnambool. It was a bit too cold to swim so we just paddled and then started along the coast. All the beaches are fantastic and there are great rock formations where lots of ships have sunk. One of the most famous formations is The Twelve Apostles. There aren't twelve and another fell down last year, but there are still really impressive particularly at sunset when we were there and if you have had a couple of beers. On the way to our hostel our guide put on a local aussie tune which has some hand movements to it. We started singing along and then realised that we were driving round and round the same roundabout for the whole of the song. Another car then decided to follow us round the roundabout for a minute or so also waving there hands in the air - it was very funny and we must have looked like a bunch of nutters to anyone who walked past.
The next day everyone was slightly worse for wear and we headed east towards Melbourne. On the way there was a koala at theh side of the road who was nowhere near where he should be. Richard the guide tried to pick him up with a blanket to take him to Kennet River nearby where a load of koalas are but it made so much noise that he gave up. Fortunately when we got to Kennet River we found the guy who looks after the koalas and he said he would try and sort it out. There were a few koalas there but they'd eaten loads of the eucalyptus trees and so a lot had had to go somewhere else.
Soon we were near the lighthouse where "Round The Twist" was filmed. This only has meaning to people about my age or a bit younger, but it was fun all the same.We took a quick trip to Bells Beach near Torquay which was where the 1st pro surfing competition was and then onto Torquay where Rip Curl and Quiksilver were launched. Unfortunately we soon were in Melbourne where I had one night before heading on an early bus to Canberra.