Roadtrip Adventures

---

When we got to the garage, the men there were very friendly. Unfortunately, the car had to stay there overnight, so they offered to give us a ride to our accommodation. The owner's father was helping today and he called his wife to take us there, it was adorable.

The owner's of the B&B were lovely too. They immediately offered to give us a ride back tomorrow and even though checkout was at 10, we could stay as long as we liked since we were stuck here.

After a stroll through the local shopping mall - if was raining so there wasn't much else to do - we got a call saying that our car was ready to go! By 13:00 we were out of Geelong, back on the road. And the price wasn't as bad as we had feared: the owner hadn't included any labour costs, we only had to pay for the parts and the products that he gave us, because he felt so bad for us. We were so happy that this debacle didn't cost us more!

We stopped at Bells Beach, Kennet River and Apollo Bay and got some nice pictures. It felt good to be back on the road and we only have to skip one stop on our last day because of the delay. When I drove the second part of the day, I really had to get used to driving on the left. In fact, I had to get used to driving in general since the last time I drove was 3 months ago (half an hour on Fraser Island - so actually it was 4 months ago). Nevertheless, I got us to the campsite safely despite some rooky mistakes. We slept on a Koala campsite!

The next morning, after a nice hot 3 minute shower because they had a limited water supply, we searched the campsite for koalas. We found 2 of them, so cute! We also saw some wallabies there. In fact, one of the wallabies crossed the road right in front of our car.. luckily Samantha was driving slow enough to stop in time. Today we saw the Gibson Steps, 12 Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge, Port Campbell, the Grotto, Bay of Martyrs and Logan's Beach Whale Watching Platform. It was all gorgeous despite the clouds, the pictures don't really do it justice. We didn't see whales at the last stop unfortunately, since it's still a bit early for that.

Our second campsite was a free one, and when we arrived there was only one other car. Those people came back while we were cooking, an older couple named Denise and Christopher, and they immediately invited us to join them at their campfire. They were adorable, told us many stories and they gave their card to Samantha since they lived in the area that she would work in for 3 months. The next morning, they even cooked us breakfast (eggs and bacon on toast) and gave us a cup of tea.

On our way to the Grampians, we stopped at Port Fairy and Portland, since this was recommended by Denise and Christopher. They were cute little towns, and in Portland we could finally buy another blanket since it had been so cold at night in our car. We sleep with several layers of clothes on, each a folded queen sized fleece blanket so that it's two layers as well, and now we share another queen sized fleece blanket. This was finally warm enough.

Tomorrow we will head into the Grampians!

---