Today was a day of seeing the countryside and beaches of the southern coast of Australia, the scenic towns of Lorne (pronounced "Lawn" for us Americans). The day ended with a visit to the awesome rock formations known as the 12 Apostles. All this is on the "Southern Ocean" which is just as major an ocean as the Pacific or Indian. It stretches from Australia to Antarctica which is the next land mass south of here. I didn't even know that there was a "Southern Ocean."  Hard to believe we're here.  

Those who travelled were Bill and Rae Eddington, Sean, Cathy and Chelsea Hill and Bev and me . We rode in two cars and traded passengers at various stops.

The landscape was quite varied from area to area. At times I felt like I was on the northern side of Maui with the rock and seascapes. There was also marshland that reminded me of Wisconsin and Minnesota scenery. It also looked like the California coast. It was all so beautiful to watch and experience and we are thankful to our hosts for choosing this kind of activity because it's what Bev and I enjoy most doing.

As we drove through Melbourne on the motorway to the sea we met the Great Ocean Road which is like the Pacific Coast Highway in California. Beaches abounded with surfers and there were quite good waves were lots of people in the water. Today is Labour Day (spelled it right again!) and the roadways are at capacity.

After a few hours of driving we reached the scenic tourist town of Lorne. This had been a Festival site in times gone past . Here we had lunch at the Lorne Hotel.

I was going to pay for lunch, but found that Australia in recent months requires a PIN number for credit card transactions and did away with signatures. In the US we typically don't have PIN numbers and I could not use a typical credit card and had to find a cash machine down the road to get some money. Finally got that straightened out.    

We continued down the coast until past Princetown and Port Campbell where the 12 Apostle formation is found. There are a few National Parks you pass.

They are large rock formations created by the the pounding surf that works away at the rocky cliffs leaving singular rock structures. There were 12 at one time; now half that number has completely been washed away. Lots of tourists....mostly from Japan, China, India and Europe. I heard very few American accents.

Finally, the three hour drive back to Melbourne where we enjoyed lively conversation in the car.

This has been a great experience and hopefully you'll enjoy seeing some of the photos with this post.

Tomorrow Stephen Clark comes to pick us up and take us to the airport where we fly on to Sydney and visit with Bruce Dean, Doug Gray and the brethren in that area.