Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Twelve Apostles At Sunset [+Video] & Port Campbell

I suggest you reading these first (if you have not):

Melbourne Day 1: Federation Square, Hosier Lane & Flinders Street Station
Melbourne Day 2: Queen Victoria Market, Royal Arcade & Block Arcade
Melbourne Day 3: Victoria Hall & Queen Victoria Market Again (Part 1)
Melbourne Day 3: St. Kilda Beach, Luna Park & Acland Street (Part 2)
Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Car Rental, West Gate Freeway & Point Addis
Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Anglesea, Aireys Inlet’s Split Point Lighthouse & Lorne
Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Stunning Great Ocean Views, Apollo Bay, Almost Cape Otway Lightstation & Wild Animals!
Great Ocean Road Day Self-Drive 4: Pee Story, Port Campbell National Park & Trouble Finding Twelve Apostles

So okay, we knew we had made a mistake once we saw ‘Port Campbell’ sign because that’s the town after Twelve Apostle. Very quickly we U-turned. We guessed the ‘Port Campbell National Park’ or ‘Port Campbell Visitor Center’ (couldn’t remember which one because everything was a blur haha) sign we saw earlier is the place because there are no other buildings or signs pointing to Twelve Apostles.

Tsk tsk because I do not want to repeat the same ‘temple sick’ scenario at Siem Reap… in this case ‘apostles sick’ scenario, I didn’t find out any information about Twelve Apostles. Now served us right. LOL

Even when we turned into the car park, we are still in a blur. We asked tourist whether this is the place to view Twelve Apostles. Even though they said yes, we still ask another group just to confirm it. That was how clueless we were. Kekeke

We reached Twelve Apostles car park at 6.06pm.

The long 5 minutes walk to Twelve Apostles.
Can you see the bridge railing in the middle of this photo? That’s the Great Ocean Road and this walkway is an underpass. Now we get it. That’s how we can go to the other side of the road… to the open ocean… to Twelve Apostles!!!

BEHOLD…

The mighty Twelve Apostles!!!
Located at the off shore of Port Campbell National Park, this famous limestone rock stacks has been alluring tourist all over the world including yours truly.

Mighty & yet so peaceful.
The encounter with Twelve Apostles was surreal.
Couldn’t believe I was right there a month plus ago. 🙂

According to early history the formations is called Sow and Piglets. The Sow being Mutton Bird Island and the Piglets were the smaller rock stacks. The stacks was renamed to Apostles for tourism purpose and later on The Twelve Apostles as we all know today.

Can you count how many Apostles? I can see 6 here.
They’re not complete here. You need to walk to the furthest viewing platform to get a shot of the 8 Apostles remain today.

Let’s count…
There are actually 9 Apostles in total.
As of 3rd July 2005, no. 2 collapsed leaving only 8 behind.
Now you must be asking, where is no. 9? Well, it’s hidden. It’s beside no. 8 which I guess only a helicopter ride will show you the overall picture.

Now you must also be asking where are the 3 other Apostles (so that it will add up to 12)?
It was said to be hidden as well (between Lord Ard Gorge & the visible Twelve Apostles)

In reality it depends how you count it. There are actually more than 12 stacks along the coast. Over the years erosion from force, wind and rain have carved and destroyed the stacks. It’s a WIP thingy. You get what I mean?

A closer look at the stacks.
Another wonder of the world I must say.

A lovely sunset at the Bass Straits.

Ahh thank you NATURE for the lovely sunset and clouds.
It painted Twelve Apostles well.
Taken by sis using TZ-7.

At one of the viewing platform.

We’re lucky that September is the month before tourist season.
Less crowd makes us happy.
Taken by sis using TZ-7.

Here’s a video of the Twelve Apostles in HD. Enjoy ya.

It’s something isn’t it?

Gog and Magog located to the east. (at the left side of the viewing platform)
They are not considered to be part of the Twelve Apostles.

Here’s a video of Gog and Magog in HD. Just love the sea man!

Pathway, viewing platforms & lookout.
Lower left picture: The furthest viewing platform aka lookout where you can view the 7 stacks. Although this furthest platform stop here, the rock actually extend outward but it has collapsed (this is based on what I’ve seen and compared with Google Earth).

Oh did I tell you that it was cold and breezy out there?
We had to control our pee for the longest time as we do not want to miss the golden opportunity.
Taken by sis using TZ-7.

Goodbye for now. Another ‘must-do thingy’ is ticked off my list! Wohoooooooooooooo!!!
Taken by sis using TZ-7.

Overall we spent a good 35 minutes at Twelve Apostles.
I’m thankful we made it and blessed to have a very beautiful sunset to go with.

The time is 6.40pm. The sun has set and everyone is leaving.
Now it’s time to head to our accommodation for the night at Port Campbell.
The road is dark and our only guide is the reflectors.

Once we reached Port Campbell, we noticed that the town is really quiet, felt like deserted. Once we reached Port Campbell Hostel we were told to get our dinner first as the restaurants and shops closes very early. With our luggage still in the car we head out searching for dinner.

We had our meals at Craypot Bistro (click link to read my review) at 7.30pm and it was really delicious.

12th September 2010…. we have traveled 10 hours in total from the morning we took our rented car at Hertz, drove the Great Ocean Road with more stops than we planned for, viewing the beautiful Twelve Apostles at sunset and finally ended up at Port Campbell for the night. Wohoooo! Happy but tired. I actually thought we can reach Twelve Apostles in 6 hours time. Hahahahahaha

So that’s it for now… to be continued day 5 adventure!
And I’ll talk more about Port Campbell Hostel then.

Cheerio for now.