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As our plans to meet up with a friend from Hamilton in Warnambool did not pan out, we decided to abandon our 2 day stop over there and instead stay in Port Campbell. This proved a good move.
This is obviously forest and dairy country as this is largely all we saw for the entire drive, with the exception of some stunning coastline in the areas we drove close to it and some majestic old historical buildings in Portland and Warnambool.
We braved a Woolies carpark in Warnambool stopping for a few supplies such as fresh coriander, ground cumin, milk, onions, garlic and fennel. You know … the things you just can’t do without. Negotiating the carpark was a little tricky with a caravan, but fortunately it was mid-morning and the place wasn’t too busy. Parking across 5 parks is a bit rude, but unavoidable!
We pulled into many lookout spots and were pleased to find adequate parking catering for long vehicles. We were amused by the signs reminding tourists that we drive on the left in Australia.
With the threat of big winds in the next few hours, we opted to leave the last
and most spectacular sites for the next day when we could visit at leisure without this big white thing following us everywhere.
Port Campbell was very wet under foot and the caravan park challenging to say the least. Big puddles, sloping and steep sites, rain and wind. We are obviously out of practice, remembering our levelers after we had tried twice to get the thing level enough so that the ensuite door wouldn’t slide open too fast and the food sliding in the fry pan only ran a little to one side.
It was a very wet and blustery night! All patrons agreed on this.
Next morning it was still windy but the rain had largely stopped. First we headed west again to where we had come from visiting London Bridge, Bay of Islands and other inconsequential locations that the tourist buses seem to bypass. On the other end, after driving inland and visiting a couple of cheese factories and lunching and tasting at an artisan whiskey distillery, we ventured east of Port Campbell to all the well-known locations such as Loch Ard Gorge, Gibson’s Steps and the 12 Apostles.
The 2 sides
of town were like chalk and cheese, yet the coastline features just as spectacular. This side was very much geared to large numbers of people, tourist buses by the 10’s and people. They were everywhere and this is the off season.
Many of these were day trippers from Melbourne. The number of tourists taking risks to get ‘that specky shot was astounding. The beach drops off very steeply in some places and every now and then a ‘bigger’ wave comes in extra far and extra fast. We saw quite a few people who would have gone home with wet shoes and clothing up to their knees. Silly people!
There are few words that can describe the awesomeness of this coastline. It is truly spectacular and worthy of its notoriety as a ‘must’ do drive.
Tomorrow we head to Apollo Bay and once again the weather is looking threatening. Lots of rain, but if we are lucky, we will be all set up before this happens.
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Necessary signs
Some of us needed those drive on the left reminder signs ... Made us smile and we never did venture onto the wrong side of the rode. Great pics ... Great memories for us as we took the same trip last time we were home.