Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Waterfalls in Melbourne!

While in Melbourne I wanted to take Ethan to some waterfalls given the lack of water and decidedly unspectacular waterfalls over west! The first visit was a chance stop where we saw a sign to a waterfall as we were driving the great ocean road. I did a quick google search and it said that the waterfall was a 10 min walk from the road. Given google usually estimates time for a slower than normal walker we all set out with enthusiasm... especially Ethan (he loves any sort of "adventure").

10 minutes in and we were still going up and down, 20 mins in and we weren't there yet.... I had visions of us all lost and on the news fore our inappropriate clothing and footwear as well. But we eventually made it and this is what we found!
On one of our last holiday days we visited a second waterfall... this one, unbeknownst to any of us was down what felt like 1000 steps (in reality it was probably 400 steps!). But it was worth it. It was a lot like NZ bush and I was really pleased to make the trip (although climbing 400 stairs while 30+ weeks pregnant wasn't the easiest thing I have done... and Jason had a passenger on his shoulders for much of the climb as well).
It was incredible how like NZ the scenery was. 
Ethan and his Gran went on a long adventure walk as well!
I couldn't resist the obligatory selfie while at the waterfall!
There are so many waterfalls to visit along the great ocean road and we only saw two of them. It's hard to know the "best" ones to visit but we took a chance with two that we saw street signs for! 

Friday, October 10, 2014

The Twelve Apostles

One of the must do's of our trip to Victoria at the start of September was the 12 Apostles - a collection of huge limestone rock features along the Great Ocean Road. I think there are only 8 apostles left now as the others have eroded from the weather and waves leading to collapse - however it is still a great sight and I am really very pleased that we made it down there.

It was a very long driving day (around 11 hours in total) and I was wondering who would crack first - me or Ethan... as it happened we both made it through the day well!

Our first stop was above this beach... there were some very steep stairs down to the beach, however we didn't have enough time to get down there and back as we were hoping to get some nice photos of the actual apostles as the sun set.
 The tourist site for the actual apostles was VERY busy with lots of tour buses and private cars. It was much busier than I thought that it would be. Also, while the sun was setting it wasn't the best place for great photos. So after a new photos here we decided to head down the coast a little bit more to the next location.
 It was here that the sun was behind us and we got some lovely light and colour off the rocks. It would have been nice to be here maybe 30 mins earlier to stake out the right spots for photos, but we were basically the only ones here and it was MUCH more peaceful than the main tourist spot!
 There were some amazing rock formations, with lots of detail! Again, I didn't have the right photographic equipment to do it all justice, but it was still an amazing place to visit!
I Love this photo of my boys with the moon in the background, probably a favourite of the whole holiday!
 We were hoping the sky may have "pinkened" up as the sun set, but that wasn't to happen! I imagine to get amazing sunset shots you need to visit every night for a month to get the right light!
 All in all a great day and a great place to visit.