Great Ocean Walk to Remember

On the day after Christmas, after some more boogie boarding in the ocean, we went for a longer hike in the other direction on the Great Ocean Walk. It starts with walking the length of Johanna Beach. A light rain and some wind came through, so this part of the walk wasn't exactly our favorite. But there were tons of pretty little purple shells, so that was kind of neat.

It started to clear up as we reached the path at the end, and we got some nice views of the beach from the other side as we went higher.

The landscape soon turned from beach into rainforest. If you see Zack in the corner of the picture above, it gives you some sort of idea of the size of these trees. It was unbelievably green and beautiful with huge ferns and other plants. The coolest part was the amount of butterflies swarming around us as we walked. It was kind of surreal having up to ten at a time just flying around your head; I've never experienced that except in enclosed butterfly gardens.

We walked until we reached an outcropping where we could see the other side of the cove and get the view seen above. In the water, Zack spotted this animal which was doing flips. At various points we could see two fins. We can't figure out if it was a turtle or a dolphin. This picture looks more like a dolphin, but it stayed in one spot and played like a turtle. What do you think?

We headed back to our campsite as the sun was starting to set. There was a kangaroo in the woods, but I wasn't quick enough to get a picture. Overall, it was a gorgeous hike, and I imagine it's one of the prettiest ones on the Great Ocean Walk.

Zack did spot these three kangaroos in a field near the campground after dinner, so here's a shot of them hopping away after we scared them!

This was our last night at Johanna Beach, because we headed out the next morning to do some surfing at another beach. We enjoyed one last beautiful sunset, and we'll always remember the place where we spent our first Australian Christmas!