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Published: February 16th 2007
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750 Rebel
Leaving Melbourne on the first leg of our trip We excitedly walked to the wicked camper depot in Melbourne to pick up our campervan and head off on our 7 day road trip to Adelaide along The Great Ocean Road. We realised it was a bit hit and miss what the campervan would like as we had a seen a selection of them while in Australia but we filled in the forms and the lady took us out to our Campervan, an orange and blue camper called 750 Rebels. We have later found out that 750 rebels is a group of hiphop artists from Bribane and Carins. I fell in love with our camper and after collecting all of our stuff together Gaz was to drive the first leg of our trip down to Geelong. It only took an hour or so to get down there and we stopped off for a fish and chip lunch and a walk along the beach front. The area had quite a lot of character to it with bollards along the promenade in the shape of different characters. I took over after Geelong and after a hasty start and a few beeped horns we ended up in Torquay, a surfers paradise, where we spent
The 2 rebels
Enjoying our first oz bbq the first night in our campervan.
You can't stand up in our campervan and it is very basic but it does have a table which turns down into a bed, a sink and the all important eskie! We took a trip to the supermarket where we stocked up on beer and wine for our week ahead and after pulling up in the very expensive caravan park we set up our bed for the night, had a few drinks and took an early night in our new portable home. Great i thought, i can do this for a week!
After talking to various people we discovered that there is far more to do before The Great Ocean Road than after so we backtracked the morning after and took the ferry from Sorento to the Mornington Penisula, south of Melbourne. We spent the day driving there and then drove around the Peninsula for an hour or so looking for a beach before deciding that the beach we started was the best and heading back there. We took a dip in the sea at Dromana Beach surrounded by jelly fish. I would normally have felt pretty scared surrounded by them but
The Great Ocean Road
We had to drive passed this sign 3 times to get this photo there were a number of kids catching them all in their buckets and killing them, i figured they couldn't be tHat bad. The drive to the Mornington Peninsula was really nice and we took our first windy road to the top of a mountain. It was pretty cool and there were some great views at the top. The campervan overheated but we weren't stuck for long and carried on our journey back to the caravan park. It was sweltering today and we had our first ozzie bbq and a few drinks, staying up late as at 12midnight it was still 32degrees.
We headed off early the next morning back to Torquay where we stopped off at Bells Beach, one of the greatest surf spots. It was pretty miserable that day and Bells Beach didn't have an impressive wave in sight, Gaz was pretty pleased we got to go there though as its in the film Point Break. We headed from there to Airleys Inlet, a quiet little place where we stopped at the 'Round the Twist' Lighthouse, and took a walk around the hills. The lighthouse was really nice but unfortunately we couldn't look round inside without a booking.
'Round the twist' was a childrens program and was always a little spooky and weird which was why we were a little spooked out when a tennis ball came flying towards us from the sky while we were there.
We spent the next day or so driving the Great Ocean Road which had some awesome views. It was all really bendy which made driving it quite fun in the campervan. We stopped at all the usual highlights on the Great Ocean Road such as the 12 Apostles and the London Bridge, which looked really nice but there were crazy flies attacking left, right and centre. I have to say though that one of my greatest highlights of the week was coming across the Warnambool Cheese Factory where we could try different flavoured cheese such as mustard and mixed herb. We decided on buying some mature cheddar though, which to our delight came in packaging marked Great Ocean Road Mature Cheddar. Great, a souvenir i can eat!
After completing the Great Ocean Road we headed to the Grampians National Park, an area that is feeled with mountains and aboriginional culture. There was a great bush fire in the area
Great Ocean Road Cheese
Pleased with our souvenir that we can eat! in 2006 which burnt for months and destroyed a huge amounted of the area. Since the fire the area has been recovering well and there is a lot of regeneration in the area. A lot of the animals, birds and insects are returning now and as the aborigional people have said for years the fire helps the bush and is not a bad thing for the areas that are effected by it. We pulled up at the Aborigional centre and booked into a tour of some of the rock art for the following morning and discovered we could have a boomerang throwing lesson the next afternoon. We headed on a little further and about 20minues later we pulled into a holiday park in Lake Fyans. It was hardly a lake, more like a pond, due to the drought. Fortunately for the lake and definately not for us the worse storm i have ever seen or heard came over and as we sat in our damp campervan in the dark with the lightning as our ownly source of light and the rain pouring down so hard that we couldn't open the windows, we watched the storm slowly get nearer as the
Round the Twist Lighthouse
Recognise this lighthouse? thunder got louder and the lightning brighter i was pretty damn scared and being stuck in a sweaty cramped caravan was not my idea of a great time. At least we had the campervan, Gaz reasurred me that we were in the safest place, i wasn't so sure as we were right by a spot that had previously had a huge bush fire.
Unfortunately our activities for the following day were cancelled we headed up another mountain in our campervan which was amazing. I am glad Gaz drove as we headed up a windy road right on the edge of the cliff until we came to the top where we were amongst the clouds. It was pretty spooky up there and we soon headed back down to the flat bush where we spotted a number of wallabys and kangaroos.
Over the last 2 days we drove straight to Adelaide spending our last night in the campervan in a place called Bordertown, a tiny town and very quiet with an odd feel about the place. The following morning exhausted from our hectic week we finished off the road trip in Adelaide and were pleased to give the campervan back and check-in to the hostel. I really enjoyed having the campervan but a week was long enough at a time, it worked out to be pretty expensive as well but worth the money as we got to see so many cool things and stop off where we wanted to and for as long as we wanted rather than being rushed on a tour. It was great fun and one of the best parts of my time in Australia.
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