The great Ocean Road (3) and on to the Blue Mountains

Our flight on Wednesday was due to leave Melbourne Avalon ay 2.40 in the afternoon but a day before the flight we found that that both the time and the flight number had changed and we were leaving an hour later. This had both pros and cons: we had an extra hour to finish the GOR but we were arriving at Sydney airport later.

The last two stops we had planned were the Bay of Islands and the Bay or Martyrs - back to shipwrecks.

The Bay of Islands car park was 100m from our hotel and was the site of 3 shipwrecks, The Newfield in 1889, The Schomberg in 1855 on it's maiden voyage and The Young Australian in 1877.

It's easy to see why they came to grief in this bay.







We moved on a short distance to the Bay of Martyrs where there were more walks than we could manage in the time available, but we spent a happy hour walking on the cliffs above the sea.











The new Holland honeyeater lives in this area. We had seen one on the GOR at the Split Point lighthouse



We found our own little (almost) island with plenty of stones and shells to interest John.



Soon it was time to head for the airport, so we moved away from the coast and travelled through scenery that reminded us of the UK




Our flight was trouble free, but we were leaving Sydney airport in the rush hour, so we were bumper to tail for a long time and our journey took about an hour longer than we expected mostly in heavy rain and roadworks.




We arrived at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains just after 8pm and in time to get cheese fondue in the Swiss Cottage restaurant about 2 minutes walk from our hotel.

Pat and John on tour