Great Ocean road

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We finally landed a van and decided to take a road trip up The Great Ocean Road, a winding coastal road stretching from just southwest of Melbourne via a string of small fishing villages; Torquay, Angelsea- our first night in van, we slept next to a stunning beach bay which we had pretty much to ourselves and couldn't believe our luck to be sipping a cold stubby watching a gorgeous sunset, me in my short shorts and flip-flops got munched alive by sand fleas - Lorne, Apollo bay, Cape Otway’s Blanket bay - we wound our way through a national park forest to the beach bush camp, a magical twisted low eucalyptus jungle like a fairy tale with low hanging kolas munching happily - Arnaud has decided to take up fishing, luckily we met some old dudes who were doing the 100km coastal walk, they showed us how to string a rod and cast, Arnaud looked so sweet and happy until he caught his first catch, a massive Kelp, and then got the rig stuck in a rock and had to abort - Port Campbell - Gibson steps down to the famous Twelve Apostles which are corroded cliff formations- Port Fairy - again no luck with the fishing, the crabs ate half a kilo of bait and after great expectations of chucking a snapper on the barby, we headed to the chippy with our tails between our legs.

Next day we head to The Grampian mountain range. After navigating our way through swarms of locust which were splattering their pussy brains all over our windscreen, conveniently our wipers temporally died. We camped in a bush camp surrounded by rocks, a stony stream, scrawny trees and bush surrounded by looming mountains. This place had vibes; I could imagine river ghosts and cave dwelling witches. We hiked down to the waterfall whose aboriginal name was ‘Black fish floating’ with our rod (which attracted strange looks and comments) but decided against fishing for dead black river dwellers, it was probably a bad idea.

My bite count at this point was exceeding 65.

We were trying to decide which route to take to the east coast in search of some sunshine. Some Enthusiastic locals who blatantly misjudged the age and capacity of our lovely bus convinced us it would be no worries to take the 'alpine pass’ through The Snowy Mountains. Well the old girl struggled but after a couple of hours driving up and down twisting and turning without managing to take her out of second gear, we couldn’t believe we actually made it. There are no photos of this beautiful region, we were far to fear stricken of bustin’ our engine and having to be towed and so were elated when the road finally levelled out in to the beautiful rolling hills of an immense wine region, sparkling lakes twisting into sailing ports, blue oceans meeting luscious mountains jungle. The scenery here has it all.
Welcome to the east coast!

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Comments

[Paul O'Dude]

Keep on trucking
Nice......lovely to see a couple of Flat Whites enjoying themselves and pushing the limits of automotive technology. The photos are great....especially the beaches and the looooong straight roads. So keep on publishing. I am still chilling out at Sourdough (ok, numbing out may be a better phrase as it is so cold). You got out of frozen Britain just in time. Keep posting, but only when absolutely necessary. And the 2 gear van.....did it die; did you push it off a mountain pass? And what about the Roadkill Grill with all those kangaroos around? Hope you had a Cool Yule and a Happy Christmas. OD

[kathy wyatt]

Looks like you're having fun
XX Have a lovely christmas...wherever you are

[john browning]

Great Ocean Road. Great !
We had this wonderful experience earlier this year. Hope you visited Tim Melor's Kite House in Port Fairy. John

[feefee]

ooohhhh
ello emmeline and arnaud. you look like your having a lovely time from your photos. sounds like you need to work on the fishing, its easy just go swimming and grab one. Cold stubbies on the beach too. Have you tried coopers pale ale yet and tooheys where you get trivia questions under the bottle cap. ahhh i miss it. xxx