The Great Ocean Road Part 2

April 17 – 19 – Back to the real world

We picked up Monique and Ingo from the airport and our two weeks of alone time was over. They had a pretty good trip in Tahiti but had a few bumps along the way with stuff breaking. Their return was timed very well though because we started work training this week too. Training was painfully boring and also not all that informative. We are going to be working at an inbound customer service center for a program called Flybuys. Which is a shopping rewards program through a grocery store. Training just reminded me how much working sucked.

April 20 – To Apollo Bay

Today we were supposed to have a short day of training. As usual things did not go according to plan. The trains were running a little late in the morning so we didn't arrive as early as we'd hoped. The day was pretty useless though we spent some time waiting for our computers to get unlocked. Then we did some silly training and we sat around some more. We eventually got signed into a training version of the program we were doing but the rest of the systems were down so we couldn't really see too much. We had been promised a pizza lunch but as 1:15 rolled around we had to boot it out of there since we had to catch a train to Apollo Bay at 2pm. We went to the train station and bough our tickets and then asked them to best way to get to Southern Cross station to catch our V-Line Train, assuming these people would know best. The sent us up to one station, North Melbourne, to come back down to Southern Cross. We got off our train in Southern Cross and booked it to where we thought our train would be, the platform was not printed on the ticket. We arrived at our platform as the train was pulling away. It was so frustrating. We had to wait 40min for the next train and would miss our connecting bus to Apollo Bay. We weren't going to get to Apollo Bay till about 8pm now. When our train did arrive it's first stop was at North Melbourne! I don't understand why the stupid woman that sold us the ticket couldn't have told us that!! (We also could have walked faster that the train took). The stupid woman also sold us a ticket for the next day and the ticket guy gave us a hard time about it too. Not impressed with my day. We had about 2 hours to kill in Geelong before we were able to catch our bus. We arrived in Apollo Bay around 8pm and called the mechanic. He picked us up in Dotti and then we went back to the shop to get the payment sorted out. It was nice to have Dotti back! In Apollo Bay though there was a music festival going on and the holiday parks were all at peak rates! We were disgusted with a $50 campsite. We ended up parking in a grassing parking area with a few other camper vans. The down side of this was that we were parked next to other vehicles that drunk people were sleeping in. We were woken up around 1am by the crazy chick in the next vehicle banging on the windows of her partners car, yelling at him over the phone and letting air out of his tires. It was not a restful night.

April 21 – The Twelve Apostles and Gibbons Steps

After our not so restful sleep we woke up the an overcast grey day. It did not look like it was going to be a promising day. We had some oatmeal and tea for breakfast and then picked up a few groceries at the overpriced Apollo Bay IGA. Fortunately by the time we headed out the skies had cleared and the sun had come out. We started our drive and made it past Bimbi park this time. Our first stop was a look out along the side of the road. It gave a very nice view of the coast line. Our next stop was Gibbons Steps, obviously this was a stair case but it lead down to the beach. We got a pretty close look at one of the lime stone formations but I don't think it was technically part of the Apostles. We had a nice walk along the beach in the warm sand before heading back up the car. We continued along to the Twelve Apostles. There was a huge information center and parking lot. While parked we made ourselves some lunch in the van. This was much easier to do than it had been in the car. We then walked down to the Apostles viewing platform. The view was amazing but the sun wasn't in the greatest position for taking pictures. The place was also packed with Asian tourists. We felt like a minority. I think I enjoyed the Gibbons Steps more since there weren't many people on the beach and you could get all kinds of different views. After the Apostles we headed to the Loch Ard Gorge. This area was named after a ship named the Loch Ard which crashed on the cliffs near by back in the late 1800s. The gorge was very nice and there was a few different and gorgeous views to be had. By this time we were feeling a little foot sore and had had quite a bit of sun. We decided to call it a day for checking out the coast. We had talked about going down to London Bridge but since the bridge part collapsed in the 90's we figured it would be a similar sight to the ones we had just seen. We decided to head up to Colac to spend the night there. Once in the town we headed to the information center and a very sweet and helpful lady gave us all kinds of information about the area and things to see and do. We decided to drive up to the Red Rock Scenic Reserve since it was still pretty nice out. The scene at the top wasn't all that great and it was a actually a little bit hazy. This area claims to be the youngest volcano in Australia. We headed back down and checked into a motor camp. Unfortunately we forgot our golden rule and didn't really check it out too closely before paying for a night. Not quite sure what we were thinking since the camp was right next to the highway. They also only had an outdoor kitchen with no stove, fortunately the BBQ had a burner on the side. We made ourselves a soup concoction for dinner and then watched a movie called the Decendants. The movie wasn't really what we expected, it was a bit of a tear jerker and a drama. After the movie Beau had a bit of a headache so he went bed while I read for a little bit.

Gibbons Steps

The 12 Apostles

Loch Ard Gorge

April 22 – Back to Melbourne

We meandered back to Melbourne and stopped into a brewery and a winery. The Otway Brewery had some very nice beers and we picked up a couple of whit's for Ingo. They were pricey but were very nice. We tried to go to some wineries on the way back but only 1 out of 3 we tried to go to was open. They wine was okay but nothing specially. We pulled into an empty motel parking lot and popped the top to make ourselves lunch. We arrived back into Diamond Creek and Beau went off to badminton with Ingo while I was lazy at the house. Tomorrow is our first day of work.

The Great Ocean Fiasco

Mar 13 – Headed to the Great Ocean Road

Beau and I got the van packed up this morning and were going to start our Great Ocean Road (GOA) trip. Beau still wasn't feeling 100% but he was much better than he was. We had to move the furniture out of our room because new carpet is being installed tomorrow. We hit the road but had to pick up some groceries and a few odds and ends. It was about a 2 hour drive till we technically hit the GOR. We got some pictures with the GOR archway as well as made several stops along the way for some scenic pictures. In the town of Lorne we stopped into the information center to find out about the local waterfalls. We got directions to Erskine Falls. Ingo had actually recommended it to us. The road was quite steep up and then back downwards to get to the falls. The brakes were smelling a bit by the time we arrived. It was a bunch of stairs down to the bottom but the falls were quite pretty. They weren't powerful but were very elegant. From there we continued along past Apollo Bay to Bimbi park campground. We had been told by Monique and Ingo that if we stayed here we'd for sure see Koalas. We got a powered site and figured out how to get the interior lights working. We used the park kitchen to make dinner but had to make several trips because we kept forgetting bits and pieces. On one of the trips Beau spotted a koala in the tree next to the kitchen. She actually had a baby clinging on to her. It was sooo cool. We had overly chickened pasta for dinner. Then we got the camper set up for bed and watched an episode of Son's Of Anarchy before bed. We heard some interesting noises in the night that sounded like a pig crossed with a donkey, turns out it's the koala's mating call.

The Great Ocean Road archway

One of many great views from the road

Erskine Falls in Lorne

Another road side view

Ditto

Koala and her baby

yummy leaves

Pretty cool how the baby just clings on to her

Mar 14 – Our luck runs out

We slept not to badly in the camper although it was quite warm last night. We had some breakfast then reorganized for driving mode, it definitely takes less time than the tent or car did. We hit the road and drove out to Cape Otway. There is a light house but they wanted $18.50 admission so we said no thanks. We stopped to take some pictures of some more koalas they were just hanging out limply in the trees. When we started Dotti back up she started making some loud clicking/clanging noises... not good. Beau had a look at the engine but we couldn't see what the problem was. We were made it back to the campsite and used their phone to call a tow truck since we had no cell service. We finally got picked up by the truck and headed back into Apollo Bay. We had to wait a little bit for the mechanic to have a look at the van so in the mean time we ate lunch in our camp chairs on the side of the road. When dude had a look at the van Beau check it out with them. Turns out we had no compression on one of the cylinders and the head needs to be machined. The mechanic said it could take 2 weeks and cost $1500. We discussed it and the way we look at it is if we don't fix this then we are out $4000 and still need another vehicle. We had to pack up our belongings and walk to the information center to buy bus tickets back to Melbourne. Fortunately the tickets were relatively cheap and the lady at the center helped us find the “cheap” accommodation in Apollo Bay, which wasn't very cheap. We got checked into a hostel and then went for a walk on the beach. Back at the hostel we made dinner then watched another episode of Son's Of Anarchy. We went to bed feeling pretty down.

Poor Dotti

Mar 15 – Back to Melbourne

The hostel provided us with breakfast which consisted of cereal or toast. After breakfast we were off to catch the 9am bus back to Melbourne. We spent about 3 hrs on the bus to Geelong then had to take the 1 hr V-train back to the Melbourne CBD and then another 1 hr train ride back to Diamond Creek. We arrived back around 3pm feeling depressed and exhausted. We'll have to wait and see what happens with Dotti now.