The Great Ocean Road

Torquay 22nd – 24th March

Unbeknown to us Torquay is the surfing capital of the world, with both Ripcurl and Quicksilver being established in this small town, the wet suit (and boardies) were even invented here. (And we could see why, the water was freezing!) We found ourselves a campsite and just chilled for a couple of days, watched a couple of surfers catching waves, did a bit of shopping (needed some thongs (flip-flops) as somehow I managed to loose one, yes just the one, still a mystery.) We also bumped into the girls who brought our station wagon back in December (what a small world) luckily they informed us the wagon had taken them to Perth as planned and they had sold it on. How freaky to bump into them in this small town.

On our way out of Torquay we headed over to bells beach where the Rip Curl World Surfing Championships are held at Easter. We watched a few surfers catching waves, they make it look so easy. Torquay is also the start of the Great Ocean Road and this was our next adventure.

The Great Ocean Road

From The Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road 24th – 28th March

We have always wanted to do this drive and to see the fascinating sandstone landmarks that litter the south eastern Australian coast. It is world renowned and we so wanted some good weather for our few days spent here. So in rolled the clouds as we left Torquay!!
We were headed for Wye River as we knew there was a free camp there. We took our time and wondered around Airey’s Inlet before hitting hit the main sign for the Great Ocean Road. We didn’t realise that this road was built by World War I veterans - 3000 of them - as a government initiative for employment after the war. The road is now the longest war memorial in the world! They even built it with just pick, shovels and local materials.
After taking a few staged pictures of Carl driving OJ under the sign we continued on to our intended camp spot of Wye River. This took us through the town of Lorne, apparently a playground for the rich and famous. Whilst in Lorne we took a drive out to the allegedly impressive Erskine Falls. This turned into a bit of a damp squib as there had obviously not been much rain recently and the falls were just a trickle. We were clearly spoiled in Tasmania and didn’t even bother to get the camera out let along complete the walk down to the foot of the falls.

Wye River Koala

From The Great Ocean Road

Continuing on, our next stop was to be the Wye River camp area. Now this may sound straight forward, however the camp ground was not sign posted from the Great Ocean Road and we did at least 4 U-turns before we stumbled upon the correct track to camp.
When we arrived there was one other person. We set up the tent and Heidi noticed a Koala high in the tree next to us. As she pulled out the camera the nice chap from the other camp kindly came down and informed us that there were 2 Koalas here and that they had been fighting on the morning. He described a viscous battle which left one of the bears swinging by his claws from the thin top branches for half an hour! The guy also pointed out a much lower and closer Koala for us to photograph. During the night we heard lots of grunting and hilarious sounds from the Koalas, this had us in stitches at 2am lead in bed.

The Great Ocean Road - Coastline

From The Great Ocean Road

Next morning we planned to get up and on our way, however the weather had other ideas and continued to rain through the morning. We decided to stick around for the weather to clear and headed back to Lorne to see if we could get some internet access. We managed to park outside a hotel and log on to their wireless connection (obviously having to pay) we spent most of the day updating ourselves and doing some much needed internet stuff. About 3pm the weather cleared and we headed on our way, glad that we had waited as the sun just made the scenery stunning with the turquoise waters and the green of the Otways. As we drove on the forrest turned to rolling green hills as we entered Apollo Bay. We stopped for fish and chips looking out to the hills as the sun was going down in the afternoon, giving them a rather romantic feel to the place and then headed on to Parkers Hill (another free camp on the Great Ocean walk track.) We spent the night with a bunch of school aged girls doing the walk, we hoped we had run into a school group and not Australia’s brat camp! It was funny listening to the girls chatter and took us back to our school camp days.

Parkers Hill - Sunrise

From The Great Ocean Road

After a beautiful sunrise another grey morning followed, so we took our time and hoped it would brighten up in the afternoon, which it did. We headed down to Cape Otway and then on to Gables overlooking the southern ocean seeing another snake but at a much safer distance this time.
Here the coast started to become more rugged. We decided to head down to ‘Wrecks Beach’ where a couple of anchors were still left from shipwrecks many years ago. After 366 steps down we hit the beach and the wild southern ocean. We had a nice walk along the deserted beach just the 2 of us, looking up at the sandstone cliffs towering above us.
On we drove to Princetown and the stretch of famous sandstone landmarks. It was getting late in the afternoon so we decided to stay at Princetown and head out to the 12 apostles as the sun was setting.

The 12 Apostles - Sunset

From The Great Ocean Road

After taking what seemed like 1,000 pictures Carl waited for Heidi to pick up something from the car. When she finally came back she blurted out that she had made a mistake that was going to cost a lot of money. She continued to explain that our car door had been blown by the wind and had slammed into the car next to us leaving a nice white paint mark down their door. She said that she did the right thing and waited for the owners to get back and owned up to her little mishap. The owners turned out to be renters of this ‘hire’ car – it suddenly got a whole lot worse!! They were very sympathetic and said that they would do all that they could to get the paint off before they dropped off the car and flew out on Sunday – We now await the outcome with baited breath!
As you have all probably heard the 12 Apostles are worth seeing. We thought they were stunning, our pictures do not do them justice. When you first lay eyes on these giants standing in the ocean you are truly amazed. You feel like you are looking at a movie screen. There are truly a wonder and you really need to see them with your own eyes to appreciate them.

Gibson Steps

From The Great Ocean Road

The next morning we carried on our way with a lovely beach walk down Gibson steps, I (Heidi) had to go for a paddle in the Southern Ocean and was surprised that the water wasn’t that cold. We returned to the 12 apostles for some day shots and took in the famous sandstone monuments of ‘The arch’, ‘London Bridge’ and ‘The Grotto’ ending up in Portland where we stayed for the next couple of days.

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Melbourne Again

Melbourne - 21st March

Melbourne Flinders Street Station at night

From Melbourne

After a long 9 hours on the boat which we managed to pass the time by eating, playing cards, trying to sleep in the on board cinema, we arrived in Melbourne. We had pre booked a hotel for tonight as we were catching up with Gary & Mel who were in Melbourne for a few days. We programmed nuvi with the address of the hotel and followed the route until we came across a right hand turn we needed to take and a big sign saying no right hand turn, so inevitably we got lost! After a little detour we arrived at the hotel, with a quick change we were out on our way to the pub. We had such an enjoyable evening, it was great to catch up with Gary, Mel and Alison and see some familiar faces. Thanks again guys for catching up with us.
The next morning was not so pleasant for me (Heidi) as I was feeling a little hung over and couldn’t even manage breakfast as Carl wondered off downstairs for his breaky.

After checking out, we headed around Port Phillip Bay to Torquay. Leaving Melbourne was a bit of a mission as we tried to navigate the city centre, but every road we went down was closed or had a detour in the wrong direction, eventually after getting the paper map out (thanks Heidi) we detoured ourselves from east to west and out of the city.

Melbourne

Melbourne - 23rd – 28th Feb

Melbourne Skyline at Night

From Melbourne

Wangaratta to Melbourne is 250+kms, we woke up with no idea where we would stay as usual. We thought that we would stay in an inexpensive self contained apartment close to Melbourne city. Camping was going to take a break for now!! WOTIF came to the rescue and we found a nice apartment in St Kilda Road about 4kms from the CBD. There is one snag with staying close to Melbourne – Hotels appear to charge for parking! It ain’t cheap either at $15 a day, so beware.
Heidi drove 2 hours from Wangaratta to just outside Melbourne down the Hume Hwy. We drove through some areas that had clearly had fires go through them. There were many black fields, trees and even signposts. It made you start to realise the scale of these fires.

Burnt Road to Melbourne

From Melbourne

We stopped for a break 40kms outside Melbourne and Carl took over the driving in to Melbourne (I think that was planned!). The first thing we noticed on the way in were the rails in the road – TRAMS! At first there was only one lane and it appeared to be shared by cars and trams. Pretty scary for a first time Melbourne driver! Anyway the drive to the apartment was fairly uneventful and Nuvi got us to our destination without too much fuss. When we got to the apartment we had to park OJ in the loading bay as she was too big to go in the car park! – They had car lifts that took you up to different parking levels!

Melbourne Trams

From Melbourne

We wandered the 4ks into the city and went to the Tourist Info and picked up some brochures. A little light reading for the night!
The next day we spent all day wandering around the city sightseeing and taking loads of pics, browsed the shops, bought some cheese and wine and headed off back to the apartment. Melbourne is a really nice city, there are Grand buildings, cathedrals and waterfront. If you have money to spend in Melbourne it’s not hard. What is hard, is not spending it when you are on a budget!!

Flinders Street Station

From Melbourne

We went to a museum of the moving image the next day, then went out that night and took some night shots of Melbourne using the tripod.
The next day we went off down the coastline to check out Melbourne’s local beaches and the famous multi-coloured Beach houses. The beach houses are small, on the sand and a lot like the ones you find in one of the UK’s southern towns – I can’t think where that is now?? (Answers on a postcard please, or at least in the comments on the blog!)

Brighton Beach Huts

From Melbourne

Following the road down and round the bays we headed across to Phillip Island to see the Penguins. These funny little critters come out of the sea every evening and trundle up the beach to their burrows in the dunes. As they do this at dusk we had a couple of hours to kill so we had a walk around ‘The Nobbies’ at the point of the island.

Penguin Parade - Cute!

From Melbourne

Again Penguins make there homes here to and the authorities have built a boardwalk to protect the animals and vegetation. As we were walking along a few penguins were under the boardwalk. These little birds are the smallest of all the penguins and stand just 30cm tall. After having something to eat we still had some time to kill so took a drive over to Cowes and then headed back for the Penguin Parade. If I have one piece of advice for this event, it is to take some warm clothing and am I glad we did! We took our seats about an hour before the parade and as the sun went down it got cold and very windy. As the sun went behind the cliff we could see these little white bodies come out of the sea, the tide was out so they had a lot of beach to cross and were a bit nervous, but as their friends joined them at the shoreline, they plucked up the courage and came waddling up the beach. I have to say they were very cute. We were sat in a good position and the group came right up to the viewing platform and then waddled off to the side up the sand dune. We could see another group forming at the shoreline so we decided to wait to seem them come up the beach, this group were very nervous and took ages, party due to a pacific seagull just down the beach which is one of their predators. About 40mins later they started to cross the beach and there must have been about 20 of them, they were quite comical to watch as they practically walked over one another to get up the beach. As we were leaving we were able to walk back with some of them as they walked along side the boardwalk to their burrows.
Today we have been doing a bit of window shopping and catching up on a few things (like this blog!). Tomorrow we leave the comfort of our Melbourne hotel and set sail for Tasmania. We have a night time crossing with “Ocean view” recliners, so preparing ourselves for a long night with not much sleep, if it is anything like an aeroplane!?

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The Great Alpine Road

The Great Alpine Road - 20th – 23rd February

From Alpine Road

We weren’t sure whether to drive this road as we had already been to the Snowys and thought it would be similar scenery, but everything we read said it is one of Australia’s great drives, so we had to drive it. And boy are we glad we did, the scenery was amazing, we were completely blown away. From the start the scenery was great.
We started at Bairnsdale, driving through farming countryside and followed a river up into the mountains. We decided to stop at Omeo and had a little look around the old gold mining village. We got talking to a great character at the museum who had lived in the town for 15 years after retiring here. He showed us around the historic Justice Precinct for free (normally chargeable). They had an old gaol made of logs he assured us we would not see another like it in the whole of the country! Apparently they had 10 inmates to a tiny cell at ‘busy’ times for up to 3 months. Hard to imagine as they had one cell with 2 beds in it and it was full! We were very surprised to hear that the gaol was still being used up until 1981! That seems shockingly recent to me!

Omeo - Log Gaol

From Alpine Road

After the impromptu tour of the Justice precinct including courthouse and old courthouse the friendly curator proceeded to tell us about some scenic drives we could do and the old goldmines up the mountain a little farther. Whilst describing the drive to one particular lookout point he told us about a tree that has Wild Dogs hanging in it. These dogs have been shot by a local and are hanged there to show people how many there are and the size of them. The curator stressed that they were not Dingoes but a new breed of ‘Wild’ dogs. He told us a story of how he had come across 5 of them snarling at him in Tom Groggin. (For those of you that are following – yes we have been there!). He said that if you slipped and fell or hurt yourself the dogs wouldn’t hesitate to have a go at you! This scared us a bit – we were going to stay at a free rest area in the woods but decided it might be better to stay at a paid one for the night. Help us to forget the horror stories!!

Wild dog tree

From Alpine Road

As it turned out we were very glad that we decided to stay at the local caravan park. The owners (who had friends staying on the site that night) were very friendly and invited us to join them for a drink and a chat around the campfire. We stayed up until 11pm talking away, it felt really good to socialise with a few people. We thought we would meet more people on our trip but not as of yet (Still early days!!).
When we got up in the morning the place did not seem anywhere near as sinister as it did the night before and we set off early, continuing our way up The Great Alpine Road. Just as we left the campsite we saw our first wild Echidna, we were very chuffed to have seen one of the natives in the wild. (Echidnas are like oversized hedgehogs for those of you who don’t know)

After Omeo the road continues to rise into the Alps to 2 ski resorts, Dinner Plain and Mt Hotham. We arrived at Dinner Plain first and stopped off for some lunch (a sandwich made there and then!). On the way up we had seen some breathtaking mountain scenery and had been to visit a distant waterfall.

Dinner Plain, Ski Resort

From Alpine Road

Ski resorts in summer are obviously very quiet places and we had a little drive around looking at all of the very expensive looking chalets. Some of the views these places had were awesome!
After Dinner Plain it was off to Mt Hotham, this was a short drive in distance but we stopped off at lookouts and messed about taking pics with the tripod.
Mt Hotham did not appear to offer as much accommodation as Dinner Plain. It was more ski slopes and ski lifts. We stopped to take a few pics and continued ever upward!
We stopped a few more times taking pics, never knowing if what we might see next would be better than what had gone before. I can’t express just how truly amazing these views were!! The day was perfectly clear and it was hard to comprehend just what we were seeing. Just when we thought we were on our way down and that the views we had seen were unbeatable we stopped at a place called ‘Danny’s Lookout’. Not sure if anyone has ever heard of this place but Oh My God. It beat everything we had seen before easily, row after row of mountain getting ever a paler shade of blue as they went off into the distance. The sky had a few clouds and then went from a pale ‘Sky blue’ all the way through to almost a deep ‘Royal blue’. Breathtaking doesn’t describe it and I have run out of superlatives! We took a load of pics and kept the very best ones, they don’t do it any justice though. You’ll all just have to get up there and see it for yourselves!!

Danny's Lookout

From Alpine Road

After this lookout the road began to head down the mountains and we entered a valley. The temps down here were at least 10-12C hotter than they were up in the mountains! We stopped for a few supplies and fuel and pushed on to the town of Wangaratta and the end of The Great Alpine Road. Wangaratta (what we saw of it) was a functional country town with all the shops the region required and not a great deal else. We found a reasonably priced caravan park and stayed for 2 nights – this would give us chance to explore the area for one day before moving on.

Our one day her saw us explore the historic town of Beechworth. This little town reminded me very much of the older little towns back home - Kind of a small Cirencester if you will. We wandered around the shops for a while and took in some of the ‘History’ of the place.
At this point it seems like a good idea to point something out about Australia. Something here is considered ‘Historic if it is more than a hundred years old. Unless you are from Milton Keynes ‘Historic’ in the UK, means a lot older than that. For instance the aforementioned Cirencester has a church that was started way back in the 1200’s and a Roman Amphitheatre and wall from BC! That said Australians are much more enthusiastic about their history than us Brits – I think we just take it for granted.

Beechworth Bakery

From Alpine Road

The bakery in Beechworth seems to be quite famous in Victoria. We popped in for some lunch and a loaf of bread. It is the biggest bakery we have ever seen and it was very busy. The food lived up to its reputation and was good. After Beechworth we briefly spent some time in Glenrowan. This is the town where the infamous outlaw Ned Kelly had his last stand clad in armour. Well having seen enough of the countryside for now we are headed off to the big smoke tomorrow.

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Lakes Entrance

Lakes Entrance - 17-20th Feb 2009

Lakes Entrance is a huge system of lakes that have been made to flow into the ocean by a man made trench, this trench needs to be dredged regularly to keep ‘The Entrance’ open. The Lakes are kept from the open ocean by a thin bank of sand known as Ninety Mile Beach.

Lakes Entrance

From Lakes Entrance

The whole place had a holiday resort feel and the camp sites came thick and fast. As usual we had not booked anywhere and asked at Tourist Info for something ‘central’. The lady was very nice and provided the info we requested – 3 central campsites. We drove around the sites and they all had something in common – They were small and cramped for space. It looked like all the sites merged into one. This is not what we are used to and we decided to turn to ‘Nuvi’ our sat nav. She sent us to a site slightly on the edge of town and near the beach. The site itself was much bigger and seemed more spread out. It was slightly above budget, however there was one serious plus here – 3 hrs free WiFi Internet every day! So good. Also Heidi would like to mention that there was a jumping pillow. This is basically a massive bag of air, like a bouncy castle.

Jumping Pillow

From Lakes Entrance

We set up the main tent as this was a ‘3 nighter’, then it was straight off to the showers. I was right, hot, running water felt so good! As did a shave – I was looking a bit rough!

The next couple of days were spent driving around, seeing a few tourist places and relaxing. We had lovely local prawns, chilled on the beach, drove up the silt jetties second in size to those in the Mississippi river and decided what to do over the next few days.

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Wingan Inlet & Thurra River, Croajingolong National Park

Wingan Inlet & Thurra River, Croajingolong National Park - 14-17th Feb 2009

Victoria - YEY!

From Wingan Inlet - Croajingolong NP

We left a rainy Eden at 9:30 after packing everything up the night before and getting the tent away in the morning literally 2 mins before it started raining– boy were we glad!! Wet tents are no fun – as we found out in Sydney!
With a bacon roll in our tummies we were on the road to Victoria and Mallacoota – a small town that we used to supply all of our needs for the next 3 nights of bush camping. We visited tourist info and picked up our maps, we asked the lady there (from Kent) if there was a way to Wingan Inlet without going back to the main road? She said that there wasn’t and that we would have to go around.
We had read our 4x4 trip book and this had said to the contrary, so we went the 4x4 route anyway. As it happens after reading another trip backwards sentence by sentence we made it through to the camp without going back to the main road. The route was fun and OJ managed nearly all of it in just 2wd!! Good girl!! There were lots of puddles and Carl was in his element – getting the car in a mess!!

Playing in the mud

From Wingan Inlet - Croajingolong NP

We arrived at camp, set up, ate, drank a little too much and went off to bed.

In the morning we went for a 3km walk (round trip) to the beach on the other side of the inlet that we are camping on. When we arrived at the beach we were rewarded with a close(ish) view of “The Skerries” this is basically rocks out to sea. What makes them special is that they are covered in Seals. Looking through the binoculars we could see what seemed like nearly 100 seals lying on the rocks and playing in the surf.
One issue we did have were the March flies – they are big boggly-eyed things that have a nasty bite. Lets say their population took a hit and we got out fairly unscathed (Good job we were wearing Jeans!) We also noticed Dingo prints on the beach which confirmed howling noises we heard the night before.

Wingan Inlet

From Wingan Inlet - Croajingolong NP

In the afternoon we just went off for a drive and took OJ for some more forest 4wding. This route was a lot narrower than the previous one and there were a few fallen trees to negotiate and drive over!! The track wound on for what seemed like forever and the speeds were under 10kph nearly the whole way. After about an hour of this and not really getting anywhere but further into the undergrowth, we decided to turn around. Easier said than done! We drove another 10 mins before finding anywhere remotely possible to turn and when we did it felt like a 47 point turn!!

End of the line?

From Wingan Inlet - Croajingolong NP

Safely back at camp we had dinner and wine and a chat. Whist here Carl heard a pattering of feet in the bushes behind camp and turned around to see the silhouette of a Dingo trotting passed. This made Heidi very nervous for the rest of the evening and we soon got off to bed. The whole place is so much friendlier in the light!

The next day we packed up (AGAIN – feel like we are packing and unpacking the whole time!) and set off for our second camp spot in Croajingolong NP – Thurra River. We took the 4wd access route once more and the track was a little easy and mundane for the first 18ks. Carl then got into drive the last bit and had all of the fun, a river crossing, ridges, etc – Typical!! As we were arriving at the campground we had to cross a long one lane bridge over Thurra River. From the bridge we could see some very high sand dunes (we planned to walk to these later).

Thurra River

From Thurra River - Croajingolong NP

We picked a site and were a little aggrieved to have to pay as much for this as you would for a facilitated camp site and this one only had pit toilets!!
After paying the fees in the ‘honesty’ box, we set off on the 2hr (return) walk to the dunes. It was a fairish walk until you got near the dunes, then it went uphill in sand fairly steeply. This was not too bad on the way up and we got out onto the dunes in good time - 40 mins. We wandered around the dunes for a while and found a steep downhill section. We had great fun running down it, but a mega hard slog getting back up! Your legs are moving like mad but they slip back and you don’t go anywhere. I was knackered (Carl). Never the less we went up for another charge down – great fun but for the trudge back up!

Having fun in the Dunes

From Thurra River - Croajingolong NP

After the tiring excursion to the dunes we decided that relaxing on the beach would be a good plan. The beach was 100m from out site and was really nice. We relaxed here for a couple of hours before dinner (Pasta and sauce) and then off to bed for another early night. This was partly due to seeing the Dingoes the day before but mostly because the Mozzies here were the worst I have ever experienced!! I had repellent on all exposed skin apart from my face and neck as I haven’t ever been bitten there. Until now! I was bitten on the neck, chin and one right on the forehead – not a happy chappy! (May have been their way of getting revenge after I went to the pit toilet with a can of RAID and killed hundreds of the buggers!!)

Well we are off to Lakes Entrance tomorrow via Orbost. We have had 3 days without running water and are starting to feel a little feral. A shower is going to feel Sooo good!

WINGAN INLET

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THURRA RIVER

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