The Spring Weekender - down the coast Pt 1

As Melbourne's winter has been so incredibly cold and any invitation to escape it, even if just for a moment, is always welcomed. When B & D said we could all use a relatives beach house for the weekend we jumped at the chance. To manage to time it at the start of Spring was pure luck.We were staying at Wye River, a little hamlet hide way on the Great Ocean Road. The Great Ocean Road was built as a memorial for those fallen soldiers of WWI. It is an ocean side road from Torquay all the way to Warrnambool on the south west coastline of Victoria. Its one of my favorite roads in all of Australia - twisting and turning around the coastline with ocean views virtually the entire way. It is around 280 kilometres long so its a long slow relaxing drive.

I love signs like this - apparently many tourists have almost driven off the many cliffs to their deaths or head on collisions on the road - hence the above sign was born.

This the view from the house - straight to the ocean - quite amazing and very peaceful.
B & Andy in the frame - there a few towns on the road built after WWII as beach side getaways for Melbournians. Once you'll find only cheap cement cottages - now are slowly being demolished for million dollar homes...like the below.Our accommodation was not as salubrious or Architectural digest as this one - however still cosy for the weekend - the log fire was essential for the cool nights on the coast.
The view from the beach - you can see the houses are dotted between the tree tops - again very pretty. Below is very lovely Wye River Beach - it was a little cool but the sun was out and that made up for the wind !

Although we spend most of our time in Wye, we did drive to the equally pretty Apollo Bay for breakfast on Sunday.
Main Street- apparently in Summer you can't move, let alone find somewhere cheap to stay.

Apollo Bay has these rolling hills that surround it - it feels almost like Ireland (without the accent or the cold - mostly). Below is the harbour, again very picturesque.

As I havent been on this part of the coast for over 5 years, I completely forgot the nature and landscape and how both don't mind the interaction with the visting city folk.

To be continued...