Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Easter sightseeing

Easter break was pretty cold and weather was far from perfect but we still enjoyed the few days off. Ziggy made some progress in getting his models airworthy. We've also done a bit of socializing and a day trip down the Great Ocean Road.

some good wine

relaxed live music

nice afternoon in a winery

people enjoying the atmosphere

Great Ocean Road

driving down the coast

One of the biggest Australian tourist attractions is located along the Great Ocean Road.
The Twelve Apostles is a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of the Port Campbell National Park. The apostles were formed by erosion. The Southern Ocean gradually eroded the soft limestone to form caves in the cliffs which then became arches and gradually collapsed leaving rock stacks up to 50 meters high.

typical pic every tourist just has to have

Lone Apostle

the shore looking east


The formation is called Twleve Apostles although it only had 9 stacks to start with. Now there are only 8 left after a collapse of a 50 meters high stack back in 2005. The rate of erosion of the pillars is about 2 cm a year and it is expected that some of the now existing headlines will eventually become a limestone stacks in the future so tourists can keep coming.


There is a very nicely built tourist center and great walkways to outlooks. We were really surprised how many tourists of Asian origin were there. I would even risk a statement that over 90% of all tourists were Asian origin. Although it was extremely windy and really cold the joint offering helicopter rides was in business without a break. They had some 4-5 helis that were in the air all the time.


We continued our ride down the Great Ocean Road via Warrnambool to Port Fairy. Unfortunately we lost the sense of time. The plan was to have lunch at Warrnambool but we got there exactly in time when all the restaurants already closed after lunch to reopen for dinner at 6 pm so we ended up at McDonald's in Hamilton ...

Maritime Village in Warrnambool

Maritime Village

Saturday morning we are flying to Warracknabeal for a fun flying weekend over there. It looks like it's gonna be nice and warm.