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Published: March 18th 2009
Heli Flight
The Robinson R44 would take you to see the 12 Apostles by airDAY 130
Waking up to a cold but fairly dry morning, it had periodically rained throughout the night but there was a good strong wind, I was glad of that as the trailer tent could be dried off a little. We had decided to be up early and off, as we had about 145K’s to go on the way we wanted to see the 12 Apostles, London Bridge and all the other things on the Great Ocean Road that were on offer.
I got out of bed at around 7.00am and put the kettle on, we were still alive from drinking the untreated tap water that we boiled for tea last night. The flame came out of the burner, blue with a crown of orange, then went out, sh*t!! We are out of gas and I am gagging for a cup of tea. We never check the bottle, as its pad locked on to the trailer, still as annoyed as I am, we will only have to wait a couple of hours before we can get it refilled, we can find a hot drink and possibly breakfast on the way.
Caroline gets out of bed we jump to
Plaque
The 12 Apostles, well most of them anyway. it, and start putting the trailer away, its all done by 8.20 am and we are ready to rock, teeth brushed, hair flattened down, and a squirt of deodorant.
We say “Good morning” to Denise and Jade who are just emerging from their tent, they have asked us to look at some free camp sites on Kangaroo Island where they are heading, so we have written them down, unfortunately there is only one free campsite on Kangaroo Island, everything else has a fee attached albeit maybe a nominal fee.
Were moving, great as soon as we can get to our destination we can put the tent up and let it dry out even more. After a short drive up to Lavers Hill we find a little bistro with an excellent lookout, the truck is parked and our breakfast order is placed, ok so we treated ourselves to Bacon and Eggs, yummy. A strange sort of joint the proprietor is a bit weird, but hey its only breakfast.
Tummies full and back on the road again, we find stunning views, I really didn’t think about what it was going to be like on the Great Ocean Road. Every
Underpass
The underpass to you from the car park to the site few kilometres those signs for the 12 Apostles are drip-fed to us yet when we see the sign 300 meters to the turn in, it’s not quite what we were expecting.
The 12 Apostles, the most photographed attraction in Australia, are huge limestone monoliths that have been formed by the sea and the wind, a couple have already fallen down as they have been eroded away, and the rest will eventually follow, but the good news is that new ones are in the making, so possibly in the next 10,000 years there will be more to look at. Of course there may be no road to drive down as the Great Ocean Road as we know it will be gone.
The car park arrows direct us to park the truck and trailer in a certain place, Australia does make it easy for parking, there is always loads of it, and most often than not have long bays for people like us towing Caravans, trailers and not to mention those with the large Motorhomes.
Getting out we find it’s sort of warm and windy, grabbing our camera’s and locking the truck we walk over to the helicopter landing spot
Information
On how the 12 Apostles can to be, how they are being erroded and re formed. where they have 3 choppers waiting to relieve you of a fortune in dollars so they can fly you over the Apostles, London Bridge and other areas of the Great Ocean Road. We watch a couple get in, we take some pictures as the little Robinson R44 gently lifts off and whisks them away.
We walk through the underpass that takes us under the Great Ocean Road and up to the lookout; these limestone giants have been here for so many years have been constantly battered by the elements. They are quite spectacular, and well worth a visit.
You cannot see all of the Apostles from one place but there are several viewing points along the G.O.R, we do a couple of the tracks and give them the attention they deserve.
As we are pulling out of the car park we see a Wicked Camper, now let me explain first. Wicked are a company who rent out these camper vans to back packers, some for as little as $36.00 bucks a day. I have looked up the company on the Internet and it said:
Wicked Campers, the quirky Australian campervan rental company deals with providing backpacker
Visitors Centre
Full of Nothing transport for backpacking Australia or backpacking New Zealand.
They do a deal if you turn up to their rental depots naked; you get the first day absolutely free!!
These campers vans are all painted differently, we have seen loads its quite a big company, the one we saw today in the Apostles car park, was:
S*x is like snow, you never know how deep it’s going to be or how long it will last Further along the road, we see London Bridge, this structure was attached to the land but in 1990, the first bridge section fell in to the sea, so people can no longer walk on to it. You may have heard that people had to be rescued by helicopter as they were standing on the peninsula when it collapsed. Thankfully no one was standing on it when it collapsed. You can see where people used to be able to walk along the tracks out to some of the points, however you are now directed to stick to the paths that have been built accordingly and remain behind the barrier.
We walk back to the visitors centre, as they have toilets, it’s a
Scenery
Some of the Apostles beautiful building, but full of nothing, definitely a waste of good space, but maybe they have longer term plans for the building, impressive welcome nonetheless.
Back on the road the days weather is brighter, and the further North West we go we are hoping the hotter it will get.
We arrive in Warrnambool at around 2.45, we had been told it’s a big town, and it is, the sign says a population of 32,000 people. We need provisions, the usual bread, milk, butter etc., the tent stands a chance of getting dried, further more we need a shower, the last shower we both had was on Saturday morning in Tasmania and its now Tuesday morning, we have had a couple of strip washes but they are in cold water, and I haven’t shaved for 5 days, and I hate whiskers (7 out of 10 owners say their cats love it).
The Discovery campsite here is just by the beach, Ocean Beach, we have site 56, we pull in and park, unhitch the trailer and remake our bed for the night.
The weather is slowly getting warmer but it is still windy, in fact it has been
Cliff face
Lime Stone cliff face, being slowely eaten away commented that this is Windy Warrnambool, they aren’t kidding. We have got all our gear out set the table up inside the trailer and plug in all our electronic items that again need charging such as Laptop, Power Gorilla, My I-pod, Caroline’s I-pod, my camera, Caroline’s Camera, Mobile Phone, do you see now how much we all rely on the availability of power for our modern needs? You can never really get away without no matter how hard you try. A lot of caravans and motorhomes out here are kitted out with solar panels, big ones that make use of the natural resource.
We both go and get a shower, it was heaven, followed by a wet shave on my account, I had the water as hot as I could stand it was excellent.
Free camping is great, but there are drawbacks, decent toilets and hot water. If you are planning your trip you and are cost conscious, you need to mix it between free camping and site camping, 2-1. Well that’s the ratio Caroline and myself are happy with. It was just that we had an overnight sailing that messed this ratio up not to mention the
weather and of course there has been so much to see on the way.
We jump in the truck and drive towards the town, we need food and gas, Safeway’s is first, its part of Woolworth’s, we get to stock up with the stuff we need. Then on to the BP station where they recharge our gas cylinder.
I really fancy pizza tonight, its something we don’t have that often, so we drive around town looking for anything that does Pizza but nothing, we can’t believe it, no pizza.
We get back to the tent with a cunning plan, we power the laptop up and look on line for a Domino’s Pizza in Warrnambool, then we call them up. “Do you deliver? Oh yea! Brilliant, can we have…” they say they will be 25 minutes and will deliver to the camp site reception.
Caroline wanders up to reception and intercepts the Domino’s guy, and brings them back; I am typing the blog, when she comes in through the tent flap. Not a lot of talking was going on.
We sat around for the rest of the evening uploading the blog in the camp kitchen, the
Ship Wreck
Of the Loch Ard TV is on, and finally we get turfed out when the Hosts come in to lock it up, it is only 9.30.
We snuggle down in to bed all nice and warm, and that’s the end of our busy day.
Animal Score to Date in the wild.
Wombat 42+1 baby
Tassie Devil 3
Eastern Quoll 2
Eastern Grey Kangaroo’s Lost Count
Wallabies Lost count.
Pademelons Lost Count
Echidna’s 5
Platypus 1
Possums Lost Count.
Fairy Penguins 6
Koala 16
Wedged Tailed Eagles 6
Eastern Brown Snake 1
White Lipped Snake 1
Legless Lizard 1
Dingo 1 (we actually saw this at Rainbow Beach when we had just left the ferry after getting back from Fraser Island on blog date 8th December, we cannot believe that we did not add it into the blog)
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Jan & Ted
non-member comment
12 Apostles
Hi Andy & Caroline, Great photos! These scenes bring back a lot of memories for us from when we lived in Melbourne years ago and used to drive the GOR on weekends, etc. You will get some of the wildest weather in Australia along this strip of the coast but, even so, still well worth the drive, whatever the weather - fine, sunny, wet, cold or "blow-your-head-off" windy. The GOR has many moods and, the scenery just as spectacular, whatever the weather! Easy to see why this is known as the Shipwreck Coast. In the old days, many a sailing boat came to grief on the treacherous reefs and rocky coastlines that abound along here. Warrnambool is a decent-sized town and, Flagstaff Hill, well worth a visit. Re the Wicked campervans - aren't they great? and, all individual. We love reading the different sayings and phrases on each one. Very amusing! Cheers. Love, Jan & Ted xxx