Day 15: On the Road again (Great Ocean Road)

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Woke up in a nice room and took a second to remember that I was in actual house not in a crowded room with a bunch of bunk beds. I slept ok but I was so used to the presence of other people in the room when I sleep that it was weird to sleep in my own room. Megan's house is in the country and I had some time before I started on the road again so we went out for a walk. It was a nice day and we saw a kangaroo with a joey in her pouch. I wish I had brought my camera but I managed to get a picture using my smartphone. I complimented Megan on having such a nice house and living in the country. If I can't get a lakehouse someday I would settle on a house with a couple acres of land. Besides the kangaroo we saw birds and 2 miniature horses that were owned by one of her neighbors.

Getting back to her house Megan made breakfast for me and I must say the eggs she made were delicious. It was considerably better than the eggs I have eating at breakfast in Australia. I reminded myself to send Megan a nice gift from my travels. I also got the opportunity to meet Megan's parents who were also lovely people. I still had to get a picture with Megan so I wanted to do something different with her. With her permission I picked her up and we snapped a picture with my camera. Megan's mother (who was amused) took the pictures and they kept coming up blurry. I didn't realize until later in the day this was because I had the telescopic lense on it which gives blurry picture when you are within 15 - 20 feet. Oh well next time I am in Ballarat I will get a new picture. Ok I had a great time in Ballarat but it was time for me to go. After thanking Megan for her hospitality I was on the road again. A side note on my way out I almost hit a Wallabee on the road.

I was now facing the most challenging drive of my trip The Great Ocean Road. My research of the route told me it was a beautiful drive and if you want to see the Australian coast it was the way to go. Getting there from Ballarat to the start of the route took almost 3 hours and I will say it is a challenging drive by itself. There are a number of areas where it is only a single lane road requiring me to go off road to avoid being clobbered a truck coming from the other direction. Other parts were mountainous with crazy hair pin turns that I had to take at a slow speed. I was petrified through a lot of this drive and if I had a choice I would have taken the long route to Geelong and than onto the Great Ocean Road. The mountain routes have great views but it is not for the faint of heart. Finally I made it to Apollo Bay and started the Great Ocean Road. At almost every curve in the road you will see beautiful views and lovely beaches. I could have stopped every 1 km and gotten a beautiful picture but had to ration my time. The only view I wanted to see for sure was the 12 Apostles which are 10 Rocks standing out on the ocean. The roads are well maintained and not too dangerous driving so everyone should try this route someday. My only gripe with this route would have to be cost of gas which was $1.80/liter which is almost 40 cents more per liter than in Melbourne. It has to due with lack of competition because there are not a lot of gas stations available.

There were so many beautiful pictures I wanted to take but it would take me days to drive through it if I stopped that much. I wish I had gotten an app for my smartphone to take pictures as I drive. Next road trip I will do that before leave. By the afternoon I was approaching the 12 Apostles and I realized now I should have gotten there earlier because there was a crazy number of cars. Once I pulled into the parking lot it took me just a few minutes to realize I would not get a parking spot. It still took me 30 minutes to get out of the parking lot. I went down the road to the Lion's head stop which still gives you a view of the 12 apostles. So if you find too many cars in one spot than just drive down the road and you will find another stop. After walking around for awhile and taking some very nice pictures it was time to head out.

I would be spending the night at another Aussie friend's house, Debbie. Who was another fun lady from the tour. On top of being a beautiful supermodel, she was a very down to earth person with a wicked sense of humour and a smile that I still remember 😊. She was also the only mother on our tour and I had brought gifts for her 2 kids Bella and Mia. I had considered what to get Debbie and her kids as a gift and I figured it out just before I left on my tour. Debbie had told me her kids liked to collect coins. So I went through my own coin collection and got all the coins I had gotten from my travels so far and than as I traveled through Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia I added currency from those places. For their beautiful mother I had gotten a pink silk change purse in Cambodia. Sadly her kids her were not with her that weekend so I could not meet them but Debbie did tell me they loved my gift and Debbie liked her silk purse as well.

Debbie lives in a city called Portland which is more or less at the end of the Great Ocean Road and close to the South Australia border. It is not a large city probably about 9000 people and is a port city. Debbie took me on a tour of Portland and I did enjoy being at the docks where the fishermen were bringing in their catch. I saw Manta Rays and seals come in to eat the fishermen's castoffs. I had not eaten anything except for M&Ms since the morning so we stopped at restaurant and got some pizza which we ate at her house while we discussed what we could do that evening. I had not been out much in Australia so I told her a night out would be good. Debbie called her friend Lauren and we took a taxi to a nearby bar/restaurant. I continued my love affair with Aussie seafood by ordering more of it for dinner. It was delicious meal and the scotch and coke was a nice addition as well. There was a bar attached to the restaurant so we went there and sat down to drink a bit and listen to a band play. It was a small town so people kept coming in that Debbie and Laurent knew. We also spoke to one guy named Jonathan who was fairly intoxicated already. He apparently worked with horses but I couldn't remember where he was from. He was also quite persistent with Debbie and Lauren and I always find this to be a bad idea because most women that I ask don't like guys hit on both them and their friends. Anyway after awhile we went to a different bar which was a lot more crowded. I will say it also had a nicer band there as well. We spent the next few hours buying each other drinks and I had a real nice time as evidence by the picture in this blog. We saw a few more people that Lauren and Debbie knew including one of Lauren's ex (Blah). It was past 1AM by the time we called it a night. This is where things started to get weird. Jonathan who we had ditched earlier in the evening reappeared at our side and for some reason got in our taxi. He was really drunk at this point and swearing. To keep him from finding out where Debbie and Lauren lived we parked around the corner and left him with the taxi driver to find a way home. I felt bad for the taxi driver trying to sort out where Jonathan lived but I guess the taxi driver would have experience dealing with drunks.

It had been another long day but I had a great time with Debbie. She is another great person from our tour that I wanted to do a catchup with once I was in Australia. She is an English/Psychology teacher for high school students which demonstrates her strength because that is a hard group of students to teach. I liked everyone on our bus tour but Debbie was one of my favourites and I was grateful for her for letting crash on her sofa bed for the night. Ok it was time to call it a night and I had no difficulty sleeping after such an eventful day/night. Tomorrow back to Melbourne and more catchups.

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Photos

At the Bar with Debbie
Debbie and me at one of the bars in Portland