Koalas, Lighthouses, and Ferries...Oh My!

Koala scratching itself

Today we continued our trip east along The Great Ocean Road.  On our way to one of the oldest lighthouses in Australia, Otway Light, we saw a whole bunch of koalas!  One of the koalas was awake.  It is uncommon for a koala to be awake, so we felt really luck.  What is even more uncommon is to see an alert koala move around and scratch himself!  I was lucky enough to see one scratch itself.  I also saw it EAT!!!  That is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  What is amazing is that koala use their hind legs to scratch almost everywhere on their body, even the back of their NECK!!!  That is some pretty intense skills.  Try scratching your back with your foot.  We got some nice pictures of it, but I think this one is the best.  

After taking lots of photos of the koala, we headed to the lighthouse.  Built of locally quarries stone by 70 men over ten months in 1838, Otway Light was used to keep ships from getting too close to the rocky parts off of the southern coast of Victoria.  Over 150 shipwrecks occurred in the space between Otway and Kings Island, north of Tasmania. (Sailors used to call this 90km passage The Eye of the Needle.  It was treacherous!  Before the lighthouse was built, about 16 ships crashes right in front of this point of land.  

The lighthouse still stands today.  What is amazing is that the actual lightbulb is only 6" long, and the filament is only 2" long.  An automated light system lust in front of the lighthouse is what warns ships today.  The old lighthouse is now just for tourists.  The view from the top was amazing, and I loved the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks that long ago ships crashed against.

Today, we also took a ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento across the Port Phillip bay, a part of the Bass Straight just south of Melbourne.  The view from the top level was beautiful, especially since we could see the sunset.  We went on the ferry so we could bypass all the Melbourne traffic and drive to another camp that my dad wanted to check out.  The camp is called  Manyung.  We will stay overnight here, before we continue our journey northeast along the coast.  So far, Australia has been a great adventure!