The Great Ocean Road,

at just 200km long, took us a full day to travel as there was so much to see. Built in the twenties and early thirties by servicemen returning from the first world war, every turn found another amazing view. It is the largest war memorial in the world, and certainly the most interesting.

Many hundreds of ships were wrecked along this coast. Having sailed from Britain for perhaps 75 days Melbourne was to have been their first landfall, and if they had been unable to take star or sun sights near the end because of inclement weather they had to rely on dead reckoning, which, because of tides, currents and the vagaries of the wind may not have been very accurate. They likened it to 'threading the eye of the needle, finding the entrance to the Bass Strait, the passage between King Island to the north of Tasmania, and the mainland.One such ship was the Loch Ard, whose demise I described yesterday, travelling along the road we were able to see the rocks where she met her end. As I described yesterday, only two survivors made it ashore, and we saw the beach they washed up on, and the cave in which they spent their first day and night before being discovered by searchers.

Every turn brought new delights, the Twelve Apostles, although having now been whittled down to six, are amazing. Limestone pillars worn away by the tides and seas, they stand proud along a section of coast bounded bt massive cliffs. The sea was fairly calm when we were there, but it is easily possible to imagine huge waves pounding the shoreline and the Apostles themselves.

Further along the road took us through miles of virgin primeval forest, the trees almost reaching and closing overhead. Many huge gum trees can be seen along this part of the road, some of which has been cut deeply into the rock, and in other places built up. Bear in mind that every foot of this road has been built by hand with pick, shovel and barrow by the thousands of 'diggers', a tremendous feat in those days when the only way to reach them was by sea before their road was built.

Our day ended at Torquay, a smaller version of it's English namesake, where we found it impossible to get accommodation- it was pure luck that we called into a campsite where we were given a cabin which had just been cancelled. We nearly had to sleep rough.........