The Twelve (approximately) Apostles are a major tourist attraction drawing thousands of visitors from around the world. The government has spent a lot of money building a large carpark for cars, vans and buses on the inland side of the road. It has constructed a sealed, smooth path that goes under the road to new viewing platforms that cater for a large number of tourists. There are even wheelchairs available for hire, but my mother did the 1km return walk with her walker.
I am grateful that so much care has been put into making this an accessible experience.
Each column of rock in the ocean is an 'apostle'. There never were 12 Apostles - there were fewer. But who cares about numerical accuracy? Not the names of these rock formations it seems. I wonder if they were someone religious seizing a chance to remind people of a Bible story?
One thing that I have noticed along the Great Ocean Road is that often there is no explanation of why some feature got its name. Or maybe that would just prompt an awkward conversation?
See that dark brown thing projecting out over the tip of the rock on the left of the photo? That is actually a very large, cantilevered viewing platform that can hold a lot of people. We walked out there.
Be prepared for a lot of wind when stepping outside your vehicle on the Great Ocean Road. Today was a blustery westerly wind. I was very glad for the hood of my jacket.
Have a look at this Tiger Snake cruising next to the path walked by hundreds of people while we were there.
The small blue bird in the tree in this photo is a [edit] Superb Fairy Wren. It is hard to photograph because it jumps around very quickly.
In the low, thick bush next to the path were a lot of birds. We only saw a couple, but we could hear beautiful chirping and twittering all along the walk.
[Re edit: thank you to @ecoscore for telling me I had identified the bird incorrectly!]
Yvonne Perkins
Whiskers 🇦🇺