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Published: November 1st 2006
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Tuesday 24th October Laura - Well what a day we had in store today. First stop, Pinoak Court, aka Ramsey Street!!! Paul was in his element driving through the city centre in order to get to the famous little cul de sac. He could barely contain his excitement.
We pulled into the tiny little road (it really is very tiny comapred to what it looks like on TV) and earwigged in on a tour that was taking place. It looks quite different to what it does on screen but it was amusing to be standing on Susan Kenedy's doorstep. The residents must just LOVE the tourists. We took many hilarious photos, and spoke to the friendly security guard, before I dragged Paul away.
After that we drove on towards The Great Ocean Road, singing the Neighbours theme tune on the way (we really are SO cool). The great ocean road is basically a stunning drive that runs along the South coast. It was built by the veterans of WWI in commemoration of those that died during the war. We only managed to make the start of the road today, passing through the beachside towns of Torquay and Bell's
beach. They are quite pretty little surfing towns. I almost caused a crash as we were pulling out of Bells' beach. I started screaming because a spider was about to dangle itself onto my face. Paul couldn't see the need in causing such a fuss, but I was very scared!
Spider catastrophe over we drove to a pretty lookout then on to the tiny town of Anglesea. We made our way straight to the golf course because we'd read that you can spot kangaroos on the green. So we expected to spot maybe one or two hiding in the bushes but there were literally hundreds! It was amazing, and very funny.
Unfortunately there are no BP trucker stops along the Great Ocean Road so we had to resort for a campsite for the night. As we are quite used to having free parking for the night we were quite reluctant to hand over the 30 dollars fee. So I used my skills of haggling and sweet smile and got it down to 20! Paul was proud.
Wednesday 25th October Paul - Rainy weather greeted us this morning but fortunately it all cleared up within
an hour to allow us more stunning views on the Great Ocean Road. First stop was Aireys Inlet where a lighthouse was perched. This deserves a mention as Laura started singing "Round The Twist" on the way up and can you guess what? Yep, it's the place where "Round The Twist" was filmed! Brilliant!
Once the amazement had settled down we drove onto Lorne and Erskine falls. Along the way Laura managed to spot an enchidna and in her excitement managed to twist her ankle. How we laughed! Well, I laughed and Laura gave me a filthy look. But the enchidna was fun to see in the wild. The falls were pretty spectacular but not quite as nice as Teddy's Lookout which offered fantastic views of the coast and road winding it's way around the cliffs. It was that windy up there that Laura was holding her coat above her head and getting blown away by the wind! How immature... me NEXT!!!!
The next part of the day was probably the best! We'd seen about two koalas in the wild so far... after driving up Kennett River we'd seen about a hundred! It was fantastic. We saw one
run across the ground and climb up a tree right next to us and heard one grunting it's mating call right in front of us too (it sounds like a demented pig). Laura loved all the cute mother and baby koala's and it was a great hour. Sadly we had to leave but little did we know what tonight had in store for us.
First, though, was Mariners Lookout, probably not inspired by the Mighty Mariners of Grimsby Town Football Club. The view was fantastic, as per usual, of the crashing waves of the coastline below.
Finally we drove onto Cape Otway National Park and our campsite for the night, set under trees where loads of koalas were living. Honestly, it was the best campsite ever. In the middle of the night we watched a koala run right beside our van and up a tree in front of us and sit there at our eye level for ages. It was brilliant.
Thursday 26th October Laura - Mr K (the koala) was still in the tree above our van when we woke up, so we had breakfast with the koalas! We had a short walk around
the camp site and spotted a few more koalas perched asleep in trees, including a very cute mother and joey. We had to drag ourselves away. Not to worry though, because on the drive out of the campsite we saw a koala jump from a tree stump into a bush before hopping up a tree, and we saw another mother and joey looking very cute. I don't know how the novelty of seeing koalas in the wild could ever wear off!
I won't go into detail about every place we stopped on the Great Ocean Road today, because there were many and I'd end up writing the word 'spectacular' far too many times! Basically we saw an amazing beach at 'The Gibson steps', and enjoyed the fantastic views over 'The 12 Apostles', 'The Loch and Gorge', 'Thundercave and Blow Hole', 'Razorback', 'The Arch', 'London Bridge', and 'The Grotto'.
At all of these places there are random rock formations, made of limestone, dotted in the sea that have been eroded over time. Some of them are just craggy stumps, some form arches, and others are caves. They are all really cool, and as the sea is very choppy here
(it's not called the 'Shipwreck coast' for nothing!) so the waves are very powerful and crash into the rocks, forming huge splashes of water. It's really cool to watch, and we really enjoyed it. We had a really good day!
We pulled into Peterborough for the night (a tiny town) and watched the sun setting over the sea from a clifftop golf course, before parking up for the night in a camp site. Paul saw a huge huntsmen spider in the 'lounge' area, so I ran away to bed!
Paul - You'd have loved the golf course here Dad, it was brilliant. Par 3's over steep cliffs and the whole course was basically on the cliffs edge.
Friday 27th October Paul - The last full day of driving with BB King - sob! We'd miss his charms and freedom but first we had the last small stretch of the Great Ocean Road to drive. A few lookouts later and we were done. It didn't even say 'bye' or 'Welcome to the end of The Great Ocean Road' or EVEN 'Thanks for coming, drive safetly'. What a let down...
We drove back to Melbourne via
the Princes Highway, stopping brieftly to view Red Rock lookout (an extinct volcano) but it was so windy we moved on swiftly.
As we approached Melbourne I was happily driving along, listening to Johnny Cash when Laura let out a noise which can only be described as a cat being strangled mixed with her sister's singing. Startled (who wouldn't be) I turned to Laura. Guess what!!!! CAN YOU GUESS WHAT! I certainly couldn't.
She only went and saw MAX FROM NEIGHBOURS! Holy shit! That's amazing.
Who the hell is Max from Neighbours? Don't worry about it, I don't know either. Apparently this was the BEST thing that could have happened. Good old Max.
After this revelation we went on the internet for half an hour before retiring to our camp site (the BP garage) for our final night in BB King. We did manage to convince everyone in the Truckies lounge that we should watch '50 First Dates' (what was funny is they thought it was hilarious - a loud of truckies laughing along to a rom com) before going to sleep.
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Mrs Mangel
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Sounds like those koalas have taken quite a liking to you two - mating calls, peering at you from trees etc etc. It's a good job you've moved on else there might have been a very nasty, and deviant accident...Max from Neighbours is the strangely sexy father of Boyd (his also strangely sexy son - though he went off the rails for a while when he got addicted to steroids and that wasn't so attractive. And he's not a patch on Billy Kennedy). His sister is nasty old Izzy, whose single is now out here too apparently, though I haven't heard it. Anyway, Max is rather attractive for an older man with golden fuzzy hair, so Laura very rightly got excited. Imagine the commotion if she had seen Dr Karl...