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Published: February 18th 2007
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On Saturday (3rd Feb, I know I'm still catching up!), I met up with my Dad & wendy & the big blue beastie hire car in Geelong 40mins on the train West of Melbourne were we began the drive along the first part of the Great Ocean Road. We were hoping to stop for the night in a town called Lorne (no Lorne sliced sausage anywhere though, bit disappointed) which turned out to be the hottest destination that weekend for everyone so there was no free accommodation anywhere so we moved onwards on a hunt for somewhere to stay...anywhere to stay!
We ended up another 30k or so along the road (some fantastic ocean & cliff views on the way) in a place called Apollo Bay which wasn't as exciting or as exotic as it's name sounds. But they did have a cabin available for us to stay in which was actually pretty nice if a bit past it but I did get a double bed all to myself so was well worth it as far as I was concerned. Especially since I cooked everyone dinner & then swiftly passed out on my big double bed for the rest of
the night ( I'd been awake for about 36hours by this point as I'd been on a Greyhound bus all night so I think I lasted pretty well! I think they're lucky I didn't give them food poisoning I was that tired!)
The next day we continued driving along the Great Ocean Road, we drove past an Echidna at the side of the road on the way (it's a spiny marsupial anteater, kind of like a hedgehog but its spines are bigger & have blonde tips), to a lovely little beachside town called Port Campbell where we stayed in a cabin for the next 3 days. We had a view of a river & lots of birds called Pukeko's that came up for a feed every day, they looked & walked a little like dinosaurs but I liked them! Port Campbell was a really pretty little seaside place with a nice beach but loads of Aussie flys swarming around you everywhere you went, no idea why Aussie flys do that but they are a pain in the ass!
We chilled out for the next few days as the weather took a little turn for the worse, after getting
used to 28 - 34 C heat & sunshine every day for the last month or so it suddenly turned cloudy & grey & actually cold (ok probably not cold by Scottish Winter standards but I've become a bit of a cold weather wimp since I got to Oz, if it drops below about 15-20C I'm freezing! Don't know how I'm going to survive when I get home!) We think it's my dads fault for complaining about the weather being too hot so it's gone the other way & gone cold!
Our first night in Port Campbell we went back along the road a little bit to the Twelve Apostles, which are giant stacks standing in the sea that used to be attached to the mainland but have been worn away by the sea & the wind, to watch the sunset over the ocean, we had a fantastic view even if we did have to share it with 30 or 40 other people. The sunset makes the sea stacks & the cliffs go some amazing colours.
The following day we took a drive to Port Fairy as I thought it had a great name so I was expecting
a pretty little town but I was pretty disappointed, no offence to Port Fairy but it didn't live up to it's name. There wasn't much there at all so we had breakfast & left. That night we went to look for Fairy Penguins, the smallest penguins in the world at only about 8inches high, as we'd been told that they come in all along the coast at dusk to nest in the sanddunes & cliffs. We thougt we'd be clever & go to a quiet beach where we could get right down to the sand rather than the 12 Apostles where everyone else would be & you can't get down onto the beach. Unfortunately no fairy peguins turned up at that beach so we went along to the next one & again no little penguins. We gave up & went back to the cabin as by this point it was too dark to see anything anyway.
On our last day in Port Campbell we went along to one of the beaches for a wander along the sand & to take some photos. Amazingly we had a beautiful beach all to ourselves for about an hour. That night we went
Port Campbell
there were a few surfers just further out from the beach trying to catch some waves back to the 12 Apostles & had a chilly wait for Fairy Penguins again (we asked at the tourist info & they said to go there!) & at last they arrived at the waters edge about twenty or thirty of them at dusk just as it was almost getting too dark to see. They waited until there was a small group of them & then they made their way up the beach together all waddling away. I couldn't believe how small they were, they were quite hard to see as we were about 60metres away from them at the lookout but it was worth the patient wait. We also got to witness a really spectacular sunset over the 12 Apostles while we waited even if it was cold enough that I had 2 hoodies on!
The next day we went back along the Great Ocean Road to Lorne where we did get a cabin this time but after our lovely little place in Port Campbell we weren't too impressed, I was sleeping in the middle of 3 bunks opposite the bathroom in the hall....luxurious. We did however have a new friendly & determined neighbourly duck which I nicknamed pancake
(after the chinese pancakes you can get with duck in them!) who would actually peck on our door to get in for food.
On our first day in Lorne we went into the Great Otway National Park & went on a short walk down to the Erskine Falls...trickle more like it. As with every waterfall we've been to see in Australia it had hardly any water in it due to the drought so it wasn't exactly breathtaking but nice nonetheless & I did see my first snake sign beside the path but I still didn't see any snakes. Not put off by the lack of water in the Erskine Falls we headed along the road a bit & did the 2km walk to the Corra Lyn Cascades which once again weren't exactly full off water but it was a really nice walk to them through the forest & we found a nice spot to have lunch at right in front of the "cascades". As we got back to the carpark I heard a shuffling coming from under a wooden platform at the side of the path & it was another Echidna snuffling around looking for ants.
The next
day the weather still wasn't very sunny & hot so I did a bit of shopping & then we went to Kennett River to go on the Koala walk, which is just a dirt road through a wooded area thats known to have koalas in it. I spotted our first Koala before we'd even parked the car & gotten out & there was another one in a tree in someones backgarden! These were the first koalas my dad & Wendy had seen in the wild. We wandered up the road & we must have seen between 10 and 20 koalas hanging around in the trees mostly sleeping but the odd one woke up long enough to have a scratch & then went back to sleep.
We stopped off to go to another waterfall on the way back to Lorne but this one had absolutely no water running down it at all, not even a trickle just a few damp patches on the rock! You'd think we would learn to stop going to see waterfalls at the end of the Australian summer but no.
Our last stop on the Great Ocean Road before we went to Melbourne was Torquay
which is the surfing capital of Australia & they hold a Rip Curl Surfing competition every year (not when we were there though). We watched the surfers for a bit & had a wander around before we went to our huge cottage/cabin just outside town where I could have happily lived it was so big, a big improvement on the place in Lorne. We had macaroni & cheese for tea (my favourite, so will need to last me until I get home & my mum can cook it for me!) & then all tried to re-organise our rucksacks before giving up the big blue beastie hire car the next morning in Geelong where we then got the train into Melbourne. I tell you I've somehow got a lot more stuff than I came with, I wonder if it's got something to do with all the shops I've been visiting.
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