And then we got a great surprise along the road. Koalas! Three of them, grazing in a grove of eucalyptus trees, completely unfazed by the growing group of gawking Australians below. One was quite near the ground. We could almost reach up and touch him. Most of the spectators were, in fact, Australian, proving that wild koalas aren't a common sight even for natives. This was the first time Heather had seen them in two trips down under. We were just lucky.

We continued to drive through the eucalyptus rainforest, and the day started to darken. We realized we had no prayer of making it to the Grampians Mountains that night. In fact, we'd be lucky to make it to The Twelve Apostles, which is the highlight of the Great Ocean Road. So, we got out our guidebooks and determined that there was a campsite in Port Campbell, near the Apostles. We put the pedal to the metal and satisfied ourselves with a running commentary of pictures out the window of the moving vehicle.

We got to Port Campbell at almost dusk and had some stressful moments trying to find the camp site, which was not actually part of the national park. They did, to our relief, have some open single-tent sites. We staked out ours, jumped back in the car, and went tearing to the Twelve Apostles turnoff to see if we could get a glimpse of the formation while it was still light.

We fell in love. We saw one of the most beautiful and photogenic rock formations in the world under some of the best conditions imaginable. Below is a collection of Susan and Heather's pictures as the sun set. I couldn't bring myself to leave very many out.

We really wished we had an entire day to spend around Port Cambell, but as it was we were a half day behind schedule. We returned to the little town and had a nice dinner at an oceanside restaurant. The service was glacial, but the trevali (fish) was good.

The campsite, while pretty, turned out to be close to some sort of hydro plant that made a racket at random parts of the night. Heather got cold and slept the second half of the night in the car. So, we could have gotten a better night's sleep.

Day 5:

We rose at at about 7:30am and relished the camp site showers, then walked into town to get breakfast. Turns out we were early -- the whole town is shut down until 9AM. We had egg sandwiches at a little cafe with glacial service... hmm, starting to see a trend here. Then we packed up camp and headed out toward the Grampians National Park, stopping at the overlook for the London Bridge formation. Wow, again... but nothing can replace The Twelve Apostles in our hearts. We drove past the turnoff for The Bay of Islands, but had to pass because we were out of time. It would be so nice to spend a week in this area. There are also some great SCUBA sites.

On the way to the Grampians, we passed a neat gourmet cheese outlet, and we couldn't help stopping. We picked up some interesting cheeses for lunch, along with a new Australian wine to try and some red gum honey. Our guide at the botanic gardens had recommended this as his favorite. We liked it. It's less sweet that some honeys, and the flavor is pretty distinctive.

Then on, into the mountains. We stopped at the visitor's center outside the park. We didn't get much information, but we DID find a couple of maps that helped us make a great time of our whirlwind trip through the park. We made it into the park itself just after noon, which basically gave us a half day to get the most we could. We stopped for lunch outside the park information center and aboriginal museum, then toured the museum. This museum had a much smaller collection of artifacts, but the exhibits were much more informative.

Then, north. We didn't have much, time, so we wanted to visit some of the Aboriginal art sites featured in the Grampians while there was still light.

"In the Grampians National Park, the public can visit rockshelters where Aboriginal people camped and painted images of their life and law on the sandstone walls. About 60 known sites have been located throughout the ranges, although only a number are publicised for visiting." [Wimmera Attractions]

We stopped at a couple of sights on the way to our camping destination. The overlooks were impressive.