Anniversary on the Great Ocean Road

On our anniversary, number 42 -- 30 July 2019 -- we drove the Great Ocean Road. More accurately, we were driven. With 43 other passengers and our driver, James, we bumped and swayed an expressed our amazement and delight at the sights and stories (from James) of the Australian coastline.

From Melbourne to Port Campbell, then inland to the A1, and back to Melbourne (some 550 km or so in about 12 hours). A good overview and introduction to life in Victoria.

Some impressions.


The Ocean. Waves rolling in from the south, so that surfers are often seen there. We saw none.

Koalas. Almost immobile, so that when one person found a koala sitting in the crook of a gum tree, reaching out and taking some eucalyptus leaves, then munching them before going back to sleep, the rest of us could find it too. Not bears, we were told -- they lack the koala-fications.



The coast. Rugged. Cliffs broken by occasional bays and beaches, with the road cut out by hand through the difficult countryside.

The relentless surf has shaped soft rocks into a razorback, into the 12 apostles (or eight apostles and two sisters), into wonderful shapes pleasing to the eye and dangerous for ships. James kept up a stream of stories, one shipwreck after another, especially from the days of sailing vessels before the advent of steam.










Tourists -- like us. I would like to find one of the places we stopped at to sit and watch patiently when the crowds are gone. The surf and foam are patient. They keep their rhythm, an endless sound and sight of water and wind and rock. We are impatient, on a mission to see the next sight. I would like to mimic the patience of the ocean and sit in Port Campbell watching and listening. Life beyond the stream of tourists breathes in the surf and wind left behind when the last bus is gone.

Villages dotted along the coast, shaped by place and by tourism. Anglesea and Lorne shaped irrevocably, Port Campbell touched more lightly -- living dual lives: their own and ours. Port Campbell is the smallest and quietest at the end of the line for our bus.

Back to Melbourne on the A1, a slice of Victoria that deserves its own exploration, passed through too quickly in the darkness as we watch the story of "Oddball", a dog in Warrnambul who saved the little penguins there from extinction by fox. (A true story.) Written down here in an attempt to remember and keep alive in the pathways of my heart and mind.

P.S.: This was indeed our 42nd anniversary, a unique and good celebration. I wish I could give Lois such a day whenever she wanted it. Too small a gift in return for all that she has given me.