Great Ocean Road

My mom and dad are visiting for a few weeks and we decided to take them on a drive along the Great Ocean Road. We started by taking the ferry across the bay to Geelong. It was a rainy Saturday morning and we pretty much had the ferry to ourselves. Unfortunately the rain stayed with us most of way, but we braved the weather and were rewarded with some beautiful views. We explored the pretty beaches in the morning and stopped in Lorne for lunch. After lunch Phil took his bike and road (in the rain) for several hours. We picked him up past Apollo Bay after we explored the Otways. Then it was on to Port Campbell for the first night. By then the wind had really picked up, so we only braved the Twelve Apostles for a few minutes before heading to the shelter of our warm room.
The next morning we went to see the apostles again, hoping it would be warmer and less windy. No dice. It was still pretty though. We continued along the road to see some arches and beautiful coves and then headed North once we hit Warrnambul. We continued on towards the Grampians, and after lunch Phil road his bike through the park while my dad tried to get us lost in the car. It's not unusual for my dad to try taking a side road that most people wouldn't take. It's not even weird for us to end up on dirt roads with questionable paving. But what made this drive unique (besides the parade of antique cars that kept driving by) was being stopped by not one, not two, but three gates across various roads we needed to be on. Apparently there were some floods in the area earlier in the year that wiped out several parts of the road. We ended up having to back track so much that Phil literally beat us to our hotel hours later on his bike. It was a pretty drive, but would have been more enjoyable if we had some warning that these roads were closed.
The following day we headed back to Melbourne via Ballarat. We tried to stop at a quilt shop another store owner had told us about, but when we pulled up in front all we could see were several fire trucks and smoke billowing out the windows. Turns out the place was burning down right before our eyes - no fabric for us :( That made for an interesting end to our road trip.

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