After spending six days exploring the outback with Adventure Tours, we have one free day in Adelaide before beginning the second part of our tour to Melbourne.  We decide to leave the city and its surrounds behind in search of Australia's finest beverage -wine.  Barossa Valley, only a short drive from Adelaide, is one of the country’s most famous wine regions, producing wine easily on a par with French offerings,  so we jump on one of  the day tours heading there.  You could easily drive yourself, but that would severely limit your wine tasting capabilities.

En route to Barossa we stop at the Whispering Wall, a huge curved structure that surrounds a  reservoir.   If you stand at one end, someone else at the other,  and speak,  you can each other as clearly as if you were side by side.

We visit first  Langmeil, a smaller winery than most, but it still boasts some of the original vines planted there in the late 1800’s. Over the course of the day, we visit three distinctively different wineries. - at each, we sample the best of the reds and whites produced in the area. 

My favourite winery by far is Wolf Blass - well known in Australia for a superior product,  it lives up to its  image.  The visitor’s center is immaculate, complete with classy souvenirs for sale including hats, polo shirts and pen sets.  We’re taken into a huge room where the wine is aging in barrels made from either American or French oak, each of which can cost from $900 to $1300.  After tasting Chardonnay and Riesling in the white wine section, we sample some reds - Pinot Noir and Shiraz.  It’s hard to decide, but we leave with a few bottles of Riesling; the slightly sweet crisp white wine just seems to hit the spot perfectly. 

The Grampians

One thing I love about Adventure Tours is the variety of people you meet on the trips.  Our bus is full for the tour from Adelaide to Melbourne, and you couldn’t assemble a more diverse group if you tried;  people travelling alone, people travelling in groups, and people travelling with their partners, like myself.  Some are just out of school, others are closer to retirement age.  And there are so many different accents and skin colors that I couldn’t begin to describe them if I tried.  This is half of what I love about travelling.

Before we get to the Great Ocean Road, we have a day of exploring the Grampians.  Making up the end of the Great Dividing Range, the Grampians are full of spectacular scenery and unique wildlife.  Just before we cross the border from South Australia into Victoria, our tour guide for the next three days, Jen, pulls us over to show us something I never even knew existed.  We walk down a tiny path for a look at something that seems like it belongs in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or some other imaginative children’s movie. I’m staring at a pink lake. A perfectly pink lake! It has a white sand beach and is surrounded by trees like most normal lakes, but this lake is the color of cotton candy. And it does look good enough to eat. But the lake is only pink when the sun is shining; its color is caused by an algae growing in the water that turns pink when the sun shines on it.
 

In the afternoon we start exploring the Grampians. A short walk at Hollow Mountain leads us to some simple Aboriginal cave paintings, but their thunder is stolen by one of the local inhabitants.  An echidna is burrowing in the ground near some rocks. When it hears us coming, it freezes.  Jen motions for us to be silent and we all wait patiently for the echidna to decide it’s safe to move again. After a few minutes, it pokes its beak like nose out its hiding place.  Its thick brown spines slowly return to their neutral position and the echidna resumes its search for food.  It seems to have forgotten we’re there, and we’re treated to a wildlife encounter that I’ll never forget.  The echidna walks along the uneven ground at a snail’s pace, sticking its long nose in every opening it can find.  It comes so close to me that I could reach out and pet its coat of spines, but I refrain - for my own good.  Eventually, it waddles off and we all put our cameras away.

Our next stop is one of the Grampians’ most famous locations – McKenzie Falls.  This gorgeous waterfall is set at the bottom of a steep hill, and on the way down we see a kookaburra.  It sits in the tree above our heads, looking at us, but refuses to laugh its famous laugh.  Our first view of the falls is from above, and all I can see is white water rushing over steep black rocks.  About halfway down I have a new perspective on the falls.  Looking straight up at them, it almost seems as if the water is pouring down from the sky.  The shimmering water rushes down the black rock face of the cliff, getting caught in a series of stair like formations on its way down. To either side, the rock lightens in color and small plants have made their home here.  The waterfall is small, but what it lacks in height, it makes up for in beauty. 

On our way to our overnight stop, we detour to The Balconies.  We have incredible views of the valley and mountains here, and the outcropping of rocks makes it obvious where the area’s name comes from.  We spend that night in Hall’s Gap, the tiny town that services the Grampians.  The little town is nestled in the foothills of the mountains, and the treetops are white with cockatoos. Kangaroos roam the fields just out of the town centre and crimson rosellas, spectacularly red and green, dart in and out of the branches.  It’s a cozy little town where you feel at one with nature. 

First thing next morning we’re up and at it again.  A two hour climb takes us to the Pinnacle.  Along the way, we’re treated to more of the Grampians’ breathtaking scenery.  Huge boulders form seats to rest upon, and every once in a while we come to a clearing that allows us to see the mountains in the distance.  Jen points out the dark brown water in the streams which everyone has been staring at with disgust.  “It’s not dirty,” she tells us. “The tea trees in the area stain the water.”  It does look an awful lot like a cup of strong tea, now that she mentions it.

Before we reach the summit, we scramble up a formation known as Silent Street.  It’s like a small, narrow canyon, meandering upwards.  In some places, the walls of the canyon are so close that I can reach out and touch both sides at once.  After we finally make our way out, we’re rewarded with the most spectacular views of the Grampians that we have seen yet.

A lake shimmers in the distance and the flat ground spreading out below us is riddled with towns and fields.  We’re standing on a platform on a precipice overlooking the valley.  Sheer cliffs drop off right below us and I lose my stomach when I look down.  I feel like I’m on top of the world.  After climbing down, we pay a visit to the cultural centre where we watch “Aboriginal Dreamtime”, an award winning film about the formation of the Grampians.

The Great Ocean Road

And now for the part of the trip that I’ve been waiting for – as much as I love the Grampians, I have heard so many wonderful things about the Great Ocean Road, billed as one of the world’s most stunning coastal drives,  that I can’t wait to set my eyes on it.  We drive for a few hours until we finally see the ocean. We spend the rest of the day driving along the Great Ocean Road, pulling over what seems like every five minutes to view the masterpieces set along the coastline.
 

Our first stop is the Bay of Islands.  Small, rugged upright islands are dotted amongst the turquoise blue water here.  The islands are formed from light brown rock, and the white waves crashing into them only seems to intensify the color of the water. Our next photo stop is the Arch.  A huge semicircle of rock lays several hundred meters off shore, forming, well, a perfect arch.  A gap exists between the arch and the sheer cliff faces that line the beach here.  At one point, the arch was connected to the mainland. 

Our last stop is the famous Twelve Apostles, just in time for sunset.  Here, the beach stretches on for miles in either direction, backed by huge limestone cliffs.  Just out from shore, several huge stacks of rock, some nearly as tall as the cliffs, stand proud in the water. Originally, there were seventeen Apostles, but erosion has caused several of them to crumble into mounds of rock.  Depending on where you stand, you can usually see seven of the Apostles.  But numbers really don’t matter here; as the setting sun turns the Apostles pink, and the waves lap at the shore, I’m looking at one of the most breathtaking sights on Earth.  It’s easy to see why they were given such a reverential name.

The next morning we explore the area surrounding the Twelve Apostles in greater depth.  We climb down Gibson Steps to Gibson Beach and from here we have a different perspective looking up at the dramatic limestone cliffs. 

A visit to Loch Ard Gorge is next, and the rainy day perfectly suits the story we’re told about the gorge and its cave.  In 1878, the Loch Ard, a ship that had travelled all the way from England, wrecked just off the coast here.  Only two people survived, Eva Carmichael and Tom Pearce.  They both made it to the safety of the gorge where they huddled in the damp cave overnight. - Article Continued Below -