Life in a campervan

---

I managed to distinguish myself when checking out by attempting to get into one of the other dorms which I had mistaken for the storage room, much to the amusement of the other guests at reception who could clearly see the door marked "Storage" a few yards to my right.

Calypso gave us a lift to their campervan depot in an eastern suburb of Melbourne, where we finalised the paperwork and had our first look at what would be our home for the next week. It's a Toyota Hiace, with a high top and over 300,000km on the clock. There's just about enough room to stand upright inside though you probably wouldn't want to be pogoing. The kitchen section comprises a couple of gas rings, a sink with a tap providing a dribble of cold water, and various cupboards. Two parallel benches constitute the living room, with a wooden board that can either be screwed onto a metal pole to provide a table, or slotted in between the benches to create the lower bed. Further wooden boards can be rested on mountings just above the side windows to form the upper bed. All cutlery, crockery, and "manchester" (a bizarre generic term used in Australia to mean household linens) were provided.

I took the first driving stint, which gave me a few flutters (and quite possibly Leif too) as I hadn't driven for a year, the vehicle was wider than anything I'd driven before, and there was no visibility over your right shoulder so you really had to trust your wing mirror. However the initial part of our journey - down the eastern side of Port Phillip Bay to Portsea - was pretty much just one road, so it was an easy drive. With the sun beaming on us for the first time, the trip was off to a good start, even more so when Leif hooked up his iPod to the stereo and it turned out that he had an Alphaville song I hadn't heard before.

The first night was spent in a car park near Ocean Beach, a deserted stretch of sand with an interesting rock formation at one end. We dined on the beach, using a rock as the dining table, and drank some beer under a waxing moon with the tide lazily washing the sand. Just being in such a secluded spot, without the need to return to civilization for a bed for the night, felt enormously liberating. The Milky Way was clearly visible, but I couldn't recognise a single constellation in this southern sky.

Back in the campervan we played some poker, which definitely would have benefited from a couple more people, then I tried to show Leif how to solve a Rubik's cube. I couldn't remember the moves for the bottom layer but fortunately at that point I broke the cube irretrievably so was able to conceal my ignorance.

When it came time to turn in, I plumped for the top bed. It's fine from a width point of view but the height could be better - I can't even lie down with my knees bent. Once I was in the sleeping bag and feeling fairly warm, I looked forward to completing my first ever night in a campervan.

It proved to be fairly comfortable, with the only real drawback being if a toilet visit was needed during the night - what with wriggling into my clothes in the confined space, clambering down from the bed, struggling into my hiking boots, and exiting the campervan, before doing the reverse once business had been attended to, the process was time-consuming, not without effort, and guaranteed to wake up Leif.

Breakfast consisted of an apple and yoghurt for me, nicotine and caffeine for Leif, after which we converted the bedroom back into a lounge and went on our merry way. We caught the ferry from Sorrento to Queenscliff, during which time we surreptitiously recharged our various electrical appliances at an unused power point, having discovered that the power points in the campervan did not run off the battery (they'd only work if the campervan was connected up to the mains at a proper campsite). In fact this proved to be our main criterion for determining which cafes/restaurants to go in along the way - anywhere without an available power point was immediately pooh-poohed.

Once on the west side of the bay, it was a short drive to Torquay, the official start of the Great Ocean Road. The road was built between the wars, mainly by returned servicemen, and hugs the coast for most of its nearly 300km. With its narrowness and numerous twists and turns, it's difficult for a driver to both drive and sightsee without coming to grief, so we swapped driving duties on alternate days (reducing this to half-days once we were in the meat of the journey).

That first day on the Great Ocean Road took in Jan Juc and Bell's Beach, two renowned surfing beaches that were noteworthy even to our untrained eyes for their large waves. At Bell's, I was complimented on my English by an Australian woman who mistakenly thought Leif and I were both German (though, frankly, Leif pronounces many words with a much better English accent than I do). Bell's was sufficiently pleasant that we decided to pitch camp(ervan) there.

Day 2 gave us more of the brisk and generally dull weather that was to dog the whole trip. I think the sea and the coastline looked more scary as a result, with waves really pounding the rocks to produce clouds of spray, with a menacing sky as a backdrop.

We trundled through Anglesea where we had our first Australian Moment. There, on the golf course, were three kangaroos - two nibbling at the fairway and one having a nap in the short rough. A few cockatoos were screeching loudly as they circled above. Not a scene commonly associated with St. Andrew's. It was so strange to see cockatoos in the wild - I've seen them in cages and in a zoo, but to see them flying free, especially in countryside not dissimilar to that in England, was a revelation. We took ceremonial photos then headed on our way, buoyed by the first evidence that we most definitely were in Australia.

While driving out of Anglesea we passed some (literally) wooden pedestrians, whose purpose was to keep people's speed down.

Near Split Bay lighthouse, we spotted a rosella (brightly coloured parrot-type thing), which looked even more incongruous than the cockatoos had. Further animal treats awaited us at the Blanket Bay turn-off on the way to Cape Otway. Renowned as a high-density koala bear zone, it lived up to its billing as we saw several of the furry little chaps munching away high up in the eucalyptus trees.

Energised by our kangaroo/cockatoo/rosella/koala quadruple-header, we decided to plough on to the Twelve Apostles to try to catch the sunset. The Twelve Apostles are the most famous image of the Great Ocean Road, a set of limestone pillars - suspiciously undozenlike in quantity - that were originally connected to the mainland, but time and tide have eroded their connecting arches away. They now stand in a fearsome surf, providing excellent photo opportunities for all who come this way. In fact, this whole stretch is called the Shipwreck Coast because of the dozens of vessels that have foundered in its waters.

We missed the sunset, but the violence of the ocean in the twilight was still something to behold. Leif showed me how to make best use of my camera in these low light circumstances so, after the tourist hordes were long gone, we were both to be found at the viewing point experimenting with long exposure shots.

Dinner produced an eerie moment. Hidden away at the back of the Visitor Centre parking lot, in the middle of nowhere with no-one else around, with the wind strong outside, a light rain falling, and an enveloping darkness beyond the small pool of light cast by the campervan, we were surprised to hear an irregular tapping coming from outside. After suggesting and rejecting a few possible reasons for this we headed out and, in the glare of the flashlight, discovered that the key had been left in the rear door, and its oversized fob was hitting the bodywork when the wind caught it just so. This released a bit of nervous tension, and we returned to the cliffs to drink beer, tell ghost stories, take photos, and marvel at the fury of the incoming sea, lit by a serene moon. A shooting star gave us one more natural wonder to add to the collection.

Unfortunately I'd blotted my copybook earlier in the day by cavalierly barrelling into a service station to refuel, and carelessly clipping a small pillar, leaving a slight dent and some scuffed paintwork on the door. Given the age, mileage, and previous level of dilapidation of the vehicle, it would be a tad irritating to be lumbered with the cost of repairing it, so I suspect we will engage in a conspiracy of silence.

Sunrise at the Twelve Apostles was a truly miserable affair. Heavy rain had replaced the previous day's occasional drizzle, and clouds masked the eastern horizon. I attempted approximately two photos before the conditions prevailed and I headed back to the campervan, already soaked through. The Visitor Centre proved to have 24 hour rest-rooms that were large and clean, so I was able to have my best wash of the trip so far. Previous washes had involved simply putting water on my face and hair. This one involved a proper shampoo, torso and armpit cleansing, and even a brief groin rinse. Together with a shave and a change of clothes, I almost felt clean.

Leif also got drenched, though he had more stamina than I did and stayed out in the rain for half an hour. For the next 48 hours, the campervan was decked with wet clothes with varying amounts of drippage.

Next stop on the Great Ocean Road was Loch Ard Gorge, named after the point where the eponymous ship hit a reef in 1878 and was wrecked with the loss of 51 lives. The only two survivors were swept into the gorge, which has a small beach to which you are now able to descend via a wooden staircase from the clifftop. It was another impressive example of rocks and water creating an awesome confluence.

Further along the coast was London Bridge, whose name became something of a misnomer in 1990 when its outer span collapsed, leaving two people stranded on the far pillar. Though they were rescued, the media attention this garnered must have been most unwelcome as they were on an extra-marital tryst at the time. I would be tempted to say this incident left two marriages on the rocks, but I'll resist that temptation. Nearby was the Blowhole, which proved to be nothing of the sort and was simply another arch.

That evening, we realised we were still over 500km from Adelaide. This situation had arisen because our Great Ocean Road map had simply shown an arrow to Adelaide pointing off the edge, and we had assumed this meant it was lurking a mere couple of inches away. Viewing a map of South Australia soon shattered that illusion. As a result, we started to log some more serious mileage.

Portland was chosen as the venue for our one and only Saturday night out on the Great Ocean Road, as it was the largest town in range. The fact that it only had four pubs was perhaps an indication of the low population density in this part of the world. We unerringly picked out the one fishermen's pub, which we later learned was the regular recipient of police and ambulance visits. I thought that things were really going to go downhill when, as we attempted to have a game of pool, a drunken, weatherbeaten, Compo lookalike appeared and announced that it was his table so he would decide who played on it, but he turned out to be exceptionally friendly, even letting us borrow his cue rather than use the banana-shaped public ones. He also deliberately missed quite a few shots, in order to keep the games close. He worked as a fish packer at the docks, and was the one who broke the news to us that we'd picked the roughest pub in town. We saw no trouble at all, and were pleased to have had some decent local interaction.

Pushing further on, we visited some caves near Nelson then reached the border with South Australia. Stern warning signs informed us that in order to keep various pests and pestilences out of South Australia, we would have to abandon any fresh fruit and vegetables we had, in the quarantine bins provided. Spot checks and the threat of fines would enforce this. Naturally, we'd bought a load of fruit and vegetables the day before, so we rustled up a large salad to get rid of some of it (this was especially galling as we'd both set our hearts on a hot meal), and Leif had his required annual vitamin C intake in one orange-scoffing binge.

Needless to say, we weren't subjected to a spot check.

We stopped at Mount Gambier to view Crater Lake before continuing our push north. We encountered such strong winds and rain that we could only do 60km/h to give the wipers a fighting chance. Camp was struck some 150km from Adelaide, down a dusty track that offered a seemingly bare horizon in all directions.

The final haul into Adelaide was in superbly sunny weather. The city has apparently 1 million inhabitants, but it didn't seem crowded with either people or cars. We agreed on a small hostel, where each dorm has its own TV and bathroom but the common room is TV-less, then showered (it felt so good that perhaps cleanliness really is next to godliness) and did some laundry. Returning the campervan was the last duty of the day. We voluntarily mentioned a stone chip in the windscreen that we'd picked up, but kept mum on the subject of the side dent, and were told that the campervan's condition was fine.

The end of the road trip was celebrated initially in an extremely expensive Belgian beer bar (though they played a great selection of Euro music), and then in a sports bar where we played some frames of increasingly dismal pool. I think that going by campervan was the right choice for the journey, and I'd have to say this has been a great start to my Oz experience. Leif will be heading up to Alice Springs in a couple of days' time, but hopefully I'll encounter like-minded souls over the next few weeks.

---

Comments

[Scudovanner]

Not so bizarre really
"manchester" (a bizarre generic term used in Australia to mean household linens) - Perhaps only as bizarre as the generic terms in anyone else's country! I myself found it a bit odd to hear linen goods referred to as 'manchester' when I immigrated to Australia - from Manchester, England. But it turns out the use of the city's name reflects a recognition of Manchester, England, as a historic centre for the production of cotton goods in its many 19th century mills. Hope you enjoyed your trip!