Day 6 - Twelve Apostles (and more), Triplet Falls & Beauchamp Falls

We hadn't done sunset at Twelve Apostles because we were afraid that it would be too busy, so we planned on going at sunrise. First off, that meant a crazy early wake up call, but we planned on just rolling out of bed, doing pictures, and then showering and checking out of the hotel after. Initially, it seemed like it was going to be a bust getting good pictures, with a very cloudy and moody sky.

It seemed that the clouds might be breaking, so Ariel and I planned on heading back to the parking lot to grab Lisa & Julia in case we might be able to get better pictures - which we did!

We headed back to the hotel, grabbed all our stuff, and then stopped briefly at the visitor center to try to map out our day. SURE that we had figured out how to get there, we headed out for another day of sightseeing. Unfortunately (we would later find out) GPS isn't the most reliable, and instead of taking us to the Bay of Martyrs, we ended up on a crazy Jeep road that actually led us to a paragliding launch site? Uh, ok, at least it was pretty and we didn't drive off a cliff?

Then, we were trying to figure out how we ended up NOT on the Great Ocean Road anymore, since that is where everything is. As luck would have it, due to the craziness of getting lost, we managed to see our one koala in the wild! Little guy ran across the road and I was able to get some pictures out the window - NO, we did not approach him.

We then set out for the famous sights - starting with Bay of Islands:

And then we stopped at the Bay of Martyrs - also very cool looking!

We found a hidden gem in "Worm Bay" when we got out to walk around and take pictures. We ended up being the only people on this beach, and we got a bunch of cool pictures here too.

One of the most anticipated views as The Grotto. There weren't a ton of people so we were able to get quite a few pictures. Considering it had been raining on and off all morning, we actually had really great ones turn out!

Then onto London Bridge...

The kids were a bit tired of getting out of the car, but Lisa and I got out to look at The Arch. We later told the girls that they missed out on seeing mermaids, haha.

Realizing that we were in a pretty rural area, we stopped in one of the tiny towns to put gas in the car. I haven't seen a gas pump this old in YEARS. Many, many years.

We were still optimistic that we might be able to find the Redwoods, but weirdly, googling a location didn't seem to be helping us out. We finally gave up and decided we would just check out more waterfalls on our way back to Melbourne.

Once again, the signs did not disappoint. Our first stop was Triplet Falls.

We had talked about seeing a handful more waterfalls, but there was a bit more hiking than we realized, and after doing our second one, Beauchamp Falls, we decided we had probably seen enough waterfalls.

The last thing we had planned prior to getting to Melbourne was stopping at a brewery and getting food. The drive to the brewery was NUTS - and another example of GPS really not working well in rural Australia! We ended up on a ton of dirt roads that barely even would pass as "roads" in most placed in the US. Finally, we found the brewery, it actually had WiFi and a good beer selection.

Unfortunately, the brewery didn't have food, however. We walked across the street to the general store and picked up some chips and sandwiches to eat in the car while we continued driving.

We had picked a hotel only minutes from the airport, and it was pretty easy to find. We later got food from the adjoining restaurant, although none of us were really impressed with it.