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Published: August 9th 2007
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Us
...in our five star accomodation The Great Ocean Road is a gorgeous piece of coastline which I would put on a par with the West Coast of the South Island in NZ. The sort of place where you load Bic Runga or Damien Rice, onto the iPod, and listen to the music as you observe the scenery passing by while thinking and discussing deep philosophical thoughts! I am lucky, in times like this, that Damien prefers to be the driver - I can be the observer (and DJ!).
One of the many beauties of Pearl (our 1995 Ford Falcon stationwagon), is that she doubles as an accommodation block. Depending on your choice of public carpark, truck stop or camping ground, you can wake up to million dollar views!
We have fitted roo-shoos onto the car. They look like a type of dog whistle, and in fact probably are just that. You fit them on the front of your car and the idea is that the wind rushes through them producing an ultrasonic sound, undetected by humans but scary to kangaroos, emus and other fauna. You see a fair bit of road kill along the way and hopefully the roo-shoos mean that your grill plate
Pearl
Daybreak in a Lorne carpark won’t be the next up for replacement at the repair shop! Either that or they are a fantastic money making gadget by some entrepreneurial Aussies. Like gumboots for turkeys (ref Fred Dagg Country Calender NZ - early 80s!). Touch wood, we haven’t hit a roo yet but did have a close encounter at the weekend.
We spent a night in Adelaide before heading towards the Nullarbor (no trees) Plain.
I had heard Damien’s stories of the drive from Adelaide to Kalgoorlie a few times over the years and what I imagined was complete desert, with no sign of shrubbery across the entire plain. However while it is sparse, there is plant life and animal life.
Prior to leaving, Andrea McKay, who we stayed with in Geelong, had a friend for dinner who had walked the Nullarbor on his own! It took him, 4 camels and 2 dogs, 3 months. I was a little nervous about the crossing after hearing stories of packs of wild dogs that could savage you should you wander too far from your car, and how we should sleep in places outside of the towns for fear of the locals!
I imagined mad
axe-wielding locals that you shouldn’t look sideways at for fear that they may tamper with your car causing you to break down 10km out of town with nowhere to run. It didn’t help that while in Adelaide we watched Kurt Russell and Sally Field in that film where they breakdown in the sticks and she is kipnapped by some mad axe-wielding truckies.
As it happens the Nullabor was very easy. We started the game of waving to the cars traveling in the opposite direction adopting the term “gooched” (which Damien had learnt from my brother Glen), when we waved but the opposite car gave no acknowledgement! I was more gooched than Damien. It must be that Irish charm radiating off him when passing at 110km/hr.
We came to realise that the sophisticated traveler had developed the ‘two finger raise wave’ off the steering wheel. More of a ‘G’day mate’, than a ‘full hand raise wave’ which is more like ‘Dear God, another car, I can’t believe it, how’s it going? Nice to see ya!’ Truckies don’t wave to cars by the way!
At the Head of the Bight, we were fortunate enough to have arrived at the
same time as the first six Southern Right Whales (first week of June) migrating from Antartica to Australia for the winter months. Hundreds of them arrive to spend the months in the bight birthing and mating then moving on.
We watched out to sea for an hour or so and saw approx four playing in the distance - practically specks in the ocean. As we were leaving we noticed what we had thought was a rocky outcrop close to the shore to the west suddenly move closer to the viewing platform. Two whales did a ‘fly-by’. As we were leaving a couple of families had arrived with their kids and I wondered if it was the high pitch sounds of the kids that made them curious. It was really quite a moving experience seeing them cruise on by and I really felt they were checking us out.
After four days or so, we had finally crossed the Nullarbor, a ‘tick on the list of things to do in my lifetime’.
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Conman
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Great Ocean Read
Hi dudes there in Oz. Keep it up, great stuff.Steph, Bill Bryson is lookin over his shoulder. Twill begreat seein you in jan. Good news, due date brought forw to 20th Jan. I'll see if i can bring it on earlier...got a few tips how to. ahem ;) Keep safe and well. Love yis