Great Ocean Road and Phillip Island

Bye Bye Cains!

The weather here is heavenly! Almost no humidity and much, much cooler temps. I felt myself coming alive again! We landed in Melbourne, picked up our rental mini van, and hit the Great Ocean Road. It’s such a scenic drive. Also, it’s such a tight and curvy road. (The sign made us so hyped for the Open!!)

New Ocean unlocked at Bells Beach. It seems as if there is some debate whether this is the Indian Ocean or Southern Ocean, but either way, it’s new to us!

By far our favorite stop of the day was the Koala Nature Walk. We had the luckiest Koala spot in the history of ever. This little gal woke up, climbed right down out of the treetops and posed perfectly for our pics. She then did her business, climbed back up the tree and had a delicious eucalyptus leaf dinner. I never wanted to leave her! (I have no idea if it was really a her, but I’m going with it). It was a trip highlight for sure. I mean, COME ON. How cute is she???

We continued on our way and came across a little pack of Kangaroos. It was so fun to get that close to them! There were also many, many beautiful birds that Halle could rattle off. Needless to say, this place earns 5 stars from us!

Our AirBnB was only a few min away, but first we caught a spectacular sunset.

This might be our weirdest accommodations yet. It’s an old church. Rusty and I slept in the main big room and they kids had tiny prison cells off the main room. But, you couldn’t beat the view! We made tacos for dinner in the tiny kitchen.

Rusty and I woke up early to take a beach walk. We were SWARMED by flies. They were harmless, but really killed the vibe. This beach had some of the prettiest seashells I’ve ever come across.

We packed up and decided to try our luck at another waterfall. We felt pretty confident this one would be leech free.

Erskine Falls were lovely. And it was fun to discover a little trail next to the river that went on for miles. We took it just a little ways down until we hit a second little waterfall. All the ferns here were really lovely.

We wanted one more beach day and we picked Torquay. It wasn’t an awesome choice. The water was totally flat, and the sand was all packed down. Blake had found a football yesterday and he brought it along. The boys had a good time playing football in the water and Halle and I went and found us all some delicious fish tacos.

Today was a lot of driving. After the beach we drove to the Queenscliff ferry. We squished our van aboard and went to the top deck to enjoy the cool air and the beautiful view. We laughed at the fact that on this trip we’ve taken about every mode of transportation available. Plane, uber, subway, tram, city train, passenger ferry, rental car, boat, sky tram, electric mountain train, and car ferry.

Two more hours of driving put us on Phillip Island with just enough time to snag some pizza for dinner and make it to the penguin parade. Oh, with a quick stop to check out some WALLABIES just hanging out near the road.

We got so lucky with seats in the sand and on the front row at the Penguin Parade. Halle took Josh up on his Christmas present souvenir offer and scored her very own little penguin stuffie. These little penguins stole our heart as they made their way from the ocean back to their burrows. There are 40,000 penguins in the area and we saw 1500 make their beach landing. It is nesting season so we also got to see several fuzzy little penguin chicks. We also saw a couple of Bandicoots—which almost went extinct a few years ago. No pics allowed as the penguins exit the water, so they give you access to some photos you can post and use. That was nice. Can you even with that little waddle??