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Published: December 28th 2016
Last blog of our little Oceania adventure. As usual, these blogs are a little late. So I guess it's time for us to wish you a Merry Christmas, a little late...and a Happy New Year 2017! May the New Year bring you all your wishes...and even more suprises that you did not wished for!
Last week-end of November...we are flying from Auckland to Melbourne, than our next flight is back to home in Bangkok. Imagine, Tiffany is home soon, it has been a full school year already...and she made it pretty well!
But for now, we have 3 great days in Victoria, Australia, driving one of the most iconic road ever, I name the Great Ocean Road. We may have landed in Melbourne, but we never made it to the CBD. We landed late in Melbourne after a late afternoon fun flight on Emirates. So the easy solution was to stay by the airport for the night. Next morning, we rent another cheap car and we are on the road again. Driving the Ocean Great road should take six hours, we took a good 10 hours to reach Warrnambool. We could have actually taken two
days to drive it. This place is just out of this world, full magical drive!
We stopped many times on the way. The highlight is by far the Twelve Apostles. You've seen the pictures before. We loved it so much, that we did it on the way down at 5pm...and on the way up again, this time at 8am! Just magical!
On top of this, we stopped for a fast lunch at Lorne, but also stopped for few lighthouses and other gorgeous view points. We never made it to the visit of the Otway Lighthouse. Slightly on the run, slightly expensive place to stop just to see the building on the rush! But we had our priorities, and we did few stops to spot few koalas. There is no cuddling of koalas here. We just stopped by the road with others, to spot the gentle animal, high, very high in the trees!
I wish I had a convertible to drive such a road. Thinking that Highway 1 will be on the program in 2017...hopefully in a nice toy! We stopped also to enjoy few places as London Bridge. There are no
words for such a magical ride!
We spend two nights in Warrnambool, the biggest town west of Geelong. Not a lot to write about this little place. They have a pretty fun golf course....if it's good enough to welcome the Victoria PGA tournament, trust me it's good enough for me too. We slept at the local Ibis Style. The people from Accor must have been drunk by the time they arrived here to give such a place an Accor accreditation. It's basically an old motel, with old furniture...and management who have no idea what are the basic standards of Accor....whatever!
Next to Warrnambool, we spent a full morning at the Tower Hill reserve. The place is an old crater with few lakes. We spotted emus. Actually, we also encountered them on a very narrow path...fun experience! We spotted a single koala, but no wallaby that morning. Good for us, zero spotting of snakes that morning for us! We took a good three hour walk in the reserve that morning. The all Great Ocean Road animal experience made me think one more time! I prefer a wild encounter, even if it is a distant one,
compare to anything that would be staged in a limited enclosure!
So, here we were, soon back at Melbourne airport. I hope you enjoyed the last few blogs! Next, no blog! We are enjoying our last few weeks in Bangkok with a little stop in Saigon. This blog is actually written from our second home in Thailand, with a blog to come, early next year!
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
The Great Ocean Road
What was once the Twelve Apostles is receding more and more. I can tell by your pics Peter. How many are left? But still a magic part of the Australian coast. We spent two weeks at Port Campbell and two weeks in Otway National Park one year. Every morning and evening I was praying for the perfect shot. The water was freezing and the sun so hot...amazing contrasts and I'm glad you got there.