Of all the things we planned for Holly's visit, this activity might have been the one we were looking forward to the most. And we couldn't have gotten luckier with the weather, traffic, or really anything else about the day!

The Great Ocean Road goes along the southern coastline of Australia. It starts an hour and a half south of Melbourne and continues on for about 150 miles to the west. We only did a small portion of it - from Angelsea to Apollo Bay - and that took most of the day with all the stops we made. And even with this little distance, we saw a huge variety of things!

Our first stop was right outside of Angelsea, where we were just so happy to see the ocean!

Aireys Inlet and Split Point Lighthouse

The next big stop was at Aireys Inlet, where we took a short bushwalk up to the lighthouse we'd been glimpsing from the road. There were several overlooks at the top of the hill, and it was gorgeous in every direction.

Here's a little look around.

And here's us!

As amazing as the views in every direction were, the hands-down highlight was getting to see some migrating whales from the overlook! The placard at the the point said to watch for them in wintertime, and so we did. They were quite far out, but it was still thrilling to see their water spouts and splashes every few minutes!

A bonus pulloff

There were all kinds of pulloffs along the road so the slower cars could allow the faster ones to pass. And we were definitely being a slow car, so we pulled into these a lot. Some of them ended up having amazing views - like this one.

The geologist in Holly got really excited about some of these rocks.

And even I have to admit, they were pretty cool.

Cape Patton Lookout

Our last stop before continuing on through Apollo Bay was Cape Patton Lookout. It was nice and high, so we got great views of the coastline we'd passed and the coastline to come.

Maites Rest with my matey

The farthest point in our drive was Maites Rest in Cape Otway National Park. The road climbs a bit after leaving Apollo Bay, and you all of a sudden find yourself in rainforest. So we stopped at Maites Rest and had a short walk through the forest.
It was amazing how much damper, darker, and colder it had gotten with just a slight change in elevation and with going inland a bit. And it was weird to feel so cold in such a tropical-looking area. We had to put our cold weather gear (ie, hoods) on.

Sheep and Apollo Bay

Our last stop of the drive was to check out an overlook of Apollo Bay. I'd spotted it on our climb to Maites Rest, so we pulled in on our way back.

It was amazing to see such different geographies in the space of 5 minutes!
There were lots of sheep grazing on the hillside, which Holly was a fan of.

Sheep make us smile

Lorne

The view of Lorne from the beach

We ended our day's journey in Lorne, a seaside town between Angelsea and Apollo Bay. When we drove through it earlier in the day, we'd gotten pretty excited about spending some time there; there were some cute little shops and cafes, people walking through the beachside park with their families, the sun was beaming down, etc. The town hadn't really changed when we arrived back cold, hungry, and tired, except for the fact that all the tourists had seemingly disappeared and all the shops were shut. It was a bit weird, and it took us an hour to find a place open for dinner, which makes no sense in a town you can see both ends of from one spot.
However, we didn't have to wait for a table! We also had the beachfront walk between the ocean and the town pretty much to ourselves!

Our lodging for the night was quirky in all the charming ways you'd expect: the proprietor continually grabbed at fruit flies while he told us all about the town, and he personally showed us to our room - which was, generously, 50 degrees that he said would "warm right up". (It didn't.) One unexpected bonus was the giant cockatoo that liked to hang out our balcony. He flew right up onto the rail while we were checking out the view, and probably took great amusement in watching us shriek and simultaneously try to squeeze through the door back to safety.

It was a fabulous day! I took hundreds more pictures, but I can't imagine forgetting a day like this.