The road trip in the Great Ocean Road doesn’t just end like this. After having fish and chips for my lunch at Apollo Bay, we continued our journey to the six plus six Apostles, they call it the Twelve Apostles.

The sun was too bright at the east that it turned everything else into dark color.

The Twelve Apostles are giant limestone stacks that rise majestically from the Southern Ocean, by the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. It has become a popular tourist attraction in Victoria.

The cows are everywhere. As long as there is green field, there is cow.

After an hour drive from Apollo Bay, we arrived at the Twelve Apostles Marine National Park which is located about 90km away from Apollo Bay. The bus driver stopped the bus in a spacious open car park and then dropped us off. There was an information center and a small cafeteria next to the car park. As usual, most tourists rushed to the toilet at each pit stop despite the long queue. I quickly headed towards the lookout point before the place swamped with the toilet crowd.

The west of the ocean was just perfect for photography

The view was great but it wasn’t that spectacular that you would spend an hour here to admire its beauty.  Nonetheless, I love BLUE, since the sky was so blue and the color of the ocean matched perfectly with the sky, I would still agree that  it is a great attraction.

Different angle of the 12 Apostles – can spot the 12 limestone?

There’s nothing wrong with your eyesight. Not all twelve ‘apostles’ can be seen from this lookout; some are hidden behind headlands or obscured by other rock stacks.

Last century the formations were called the ‘Sow and Piglets’. Muttonbird Island near Loch Ard Gorge was the ‘Sow’ and the smaller rock stacks the ‘Piglets’. Perhaps ‘Twelve Apostles’ was thought to be a more dignified name.

The rock stacks are the temporary remnants of a retreating limestone coastline, under constant attack by the sea. Cliff faces are being eroded at the rate of about two centimetres each year. I repeat again, 2 cm each year! What a long process…

I have drawn some ugly diagrams to show you the process that turns the headlands into ‘apostles’. I hope the diagrams are not too difficult to fathom :-p

Wave action erodes the cliff face, leaving harder rock as headlands.

Waves eat away the rock at sea level, forming caves on each side of the headland. The caves eventually meet up, forming an arch.

The arch collapses, leaving a rock ‘stack’.

Further undercutting by waves, and opening up of vertical cracks in the rock by rain and saltwater, gradually reduce the stack to a low platform or reef.

This is at the step 3 process, where the rock stack was formed.

So now a Million Dollar Question: How long does it take for the apostles in the picture above to form?

Clue: Cliff faces are being eroded at the rate of about two centimetres each year.

It gonna take bloody long time to create the rock stack. In order to speed up the process, I decided to give it a hand.

Push! Baby push hard!

A new apostles is formed! Now that the Twelve Apostles has been renamed to Thirteen Apostles with the nickname Shelyn’s Thirteenth!

This is the step 2 process where the cave was formed

One thing about visiting popular tourism place is that you always have to act fast. When you see a long line at the toilet, it’s time for you to hold your pee and run to the attraction spot to snap some nice  photos before the photos being filled by unknown tourists. We managed to get the clear spot to take some good photos and I even had ample time to position myself to push the cliff.

Right after we done our photo shooting, the lookout point was suddenly swamped with crowd. One of the tourists requested me to take a photo of her but it was so crowded that I wanted to wait for the crowd to clear. Apparently the lady felt bad to make me wait so she told me to just go ahead to snap the photo with plenty of unknown people at the backdrop.

From the left, our tour leader, my sister, me and my mum

Did you see what my tour leader was wearing? Just a piece of thin shirt and a piece of thin undershirt! Yeah, he showed me his undershirt to convince me that it was thin. And you know what was the temperature there? It was 11 Degree Celsius! And you know how strong the breeze was at the seaside? It was freaking strong that my hat was nearly blown away! He definitely stood out in the crowd being the only one that wore the least. I wonder what did his mum feed him to make him this strong. Oh, by the way, I was wearing long john.

Still not amazed  by the view? How about a bird’s eye view from the air?

Remember to bargain the rate. We managed to haggle the price down from AD100 per pax to AD50 per pax!

Some random photo

Let’s have the final overview of the place!

The Cliff

The Twelve (some are hidden) Apostles

And finally, the newly created Shelyn’s Thirteenth Apostles

Throughout the world there is growing recognition of the vital contribution parks make to a healthy environment, to the health of individual and to a healthy society. We as a human, the only intellectual on earth, are responsible for managing these marvelous parks and reserves.

Let’s protect the natural and cultural values of the parks in our countries and in any other countries.