Warrnabool

We thought that we would take the opportunity while we're down here to venture the Great Ocean Road by starting off on the inland route from Melbourne to Warrnabool and stay over night there and then head back along the coast line.

We enjoyed the inland drive with getting back out into the country side and seeing a lot of farming land and old towns and stone walls on farms and just enjoying the drive. It's a lot longer than you actually think but once we got to Warrnabool and went from Motel to Motel trying to find a suitable room we checked into the Old Tudor Best Western right in town. It was a nice motel and we were given a really good rate on a 2 bedroom spa room.

There is a council maintained adventure park just down the road from the information centre that had an awesome flying fox set up for little and big kids as well as a maze, swings, play grounds, ponds, bridges, picnic tables and BBQs. It is the best park that we've been to so far and I think it would be hard for us to find anything that would better it, especially considering that it's all free for the public.

Warrnabool itself was a lovely town with everything that you need and it was very neat and tidy. While we were there Andrew wanted to go to Tower Hill - an extinct volcano that is now a nature reserve. Aparently it was the first national park listed in Victoria.

It was pretty amazing to be able to drive down into the volcano just passed the rim and right through the middle. We stopped just before the information centre to take a walk up to a lookout and it was more like a 400 m steep climb, but worth the view and the fresh air and the sound of the birds in the morning. An interesting experience thats for sure.

We did see a few animals - emus, kangaroos, rock wallaby, and a lot of birds. We could hear a frog that sounded quite interesting and the craters help the noise travel, so it must be good for the frogs confidence!