Melbourne to Adelaide via GOR - Day 3

Even though Great Ocean Road Tourist Park is just a short walk away from the beach, I decided to explore the river bank instead. Not aiming for sunrise, but hoping for wildlife spotting.

The pelicans were dominating the river

The bridge that we passed by the night before

After a short stroll at the river bank, I went back to our mobilehome, had a simple, and continued our journey.

Our first itinerary was to drive along Old Peterborough Road slowly. Extremely slowly. According to the tourist park owner, he always see wild kangaroos along this road. Unfortunately, he last spotted them 2 weeks ago. It meant we have a very dim chance. However, we had to do it anyway. We were already 6th day in Australia and we yet to see a single kangaroo, not even a dead body! We MUST spot a wild kangaroo before we leave this beautiful country so driving along Old Peterborough Road was our top priority to start the day.

Well, we were not lucky enough to spot a kangaroo, but we did meet a handsome horse :)

After Old Peterborough Road, we visited the Bay of Islands Coastal Park before we headed to Allansford Cheese World to sample some local produces.

Farm decorated with hays

When we planned for Allansford Cheese World, I was hoping for a short guided tour at the cheese factory. Apparently there was no such tours. They only offered free cheese tasting session. It was an interesting experience though. We had chance to taste the cheese at different ages, including one-week-old, half-year-old, one-year-old and the vintage cheese. The one-week-old was soft and creamy, while the vintage cheese had sharp flavour. They also served cheese with various flavours, including chilli cheese! We had great time shopping at Allansford Cheese World, as they sell many types of local produces including olive oil, honey, chocolates, cookies etc, and cheese, of course.

After Cheese World, while on our way to Warrnambool, we detoured to Logan Beach to try our luck on whale watching. We drove through a lot of farms before getting to Logan Beach and to our delight, we met a few super cute llamas on our way! (I LOOOVEEE llamas ever since The Emperor's New Groove!)

Though Logans Beach is famous with whale watching (there's a whale viewing platform, making it one of the region's best observation points for these mammals), but I think the beach itself worth the visit too! It was quiet, only a few visitors waiting patiently for the whales, and a surfer polishing his skill. We had good time there enjoying the sun and the breeze at the platform.

Logans Beach

After Logans Beach, we had a brief stop at Warrnambool Woolworths for groceries shopping (our original plan was to stop here for lunch but none of us was hungry then) and went straight to Tower Hill. Before the trip, I read from Tripadvisor that a lot of tourists had close encounters with wallabies, koalas and emus in the Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve picnic area. We were so desperate for kangaroos, we didn't mind taking photos of wallabies instead (not many Malaysians know the differences anyway, right? :p ) Anyway, initially we couldn't find the wildlife reserve as we planned, and ended up drove along the Tower Hill Scenic Drive (no complain of course, superb view!)

Tower Hill volcanic lake and the Great Ocean afar

View from the Tower Hill Scenic Drive

We didn't give up, looking hard, and finally found the entrance of Tower Hill State Game Reserve (I'm still confused on the actual name of this reserve. Most of the websites call it Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve, but the sign at the entrance says Tower Hill State Game Reserve)
Tips: Coming from Warrnambool, don't follow the Tower Hill sign just yet. Drive along Princess Highway and you will see a sign of Tower Hill State Game Reserve on your right

Emus somehow reminded me of dinosaurs from Jurassic Park

We parked our mobilehome, prepared simple sandwiches, and had fun watching the emus wandering in the park while having our lunch. No luck for wallabies or kangaroos or any other wildlife though.

After visiting this place, I do think it is under-rated. It is a place that worth spending at least half a day enjoying the nature. There were a lot of trekking paths but we got no time for that.


After lunch, we continued our journey to Mount Gambier. We also stopped at a small town to get our diesel for the first time.

Codrington Wind Farm

Just about an hour before Mount Gambier, when we drove through the long stretch of forest reserve (Sorry. Too many of them, can't recall the names), we saw a few kangaroos in the wild by the roadside. We got excited, stopped our car, and off they hopped into the forest.....

These 2 still hoped that the kangaroos will come out from the forest to greet them

The lonely mobilehome along Princess Highway

After wild kangaroos spotting, we drove to Mount Gambier happily. By the time we reached Mount Gambier, it was getting dark. We decided to make a brief stop at the Umperston Sinkhole before we call it a day. 

They turned this sinkhole to a very nice garden

To our surprise, we met a family of possums here. A cute little girl was trying her very best to feed them her bread. They were shy and timid, but they love bread! That's how we managed to take so many photos of them. 

We reached Blue Lake Holiday Park after 6pm. The office was closed. There's a phone placed at the entrance which visitors could use after hours. We called, the staff gave us a password to access to the park, and we helped ourselves with everything else. We just had to pay at the office before we leave.
This holiday park costs AUD47.70 (after 10% discount for Apollo Rental).



Please refer to my post about "Melbourne to Adelaide via GOR on a Mobilehome for 5 Days 4 Nights" for the driving route