Day 17 - Journey from Hell!

Woke up early on Boxing Day with the next part of our adventure in mind. Gilly popped in to walk us to the tram stop and bid us a good and safe rest of the trip. If only the rest of the morning had gone so smoothly. We knew we needed several tram changes to get to Britz for the next camper, but we didn't quite estimate how arduous a task this would be. Skip to blog 18 if you don't want to endure what we went through.
We got on the first tram at about 9.15am and had to jump off 3 streets down to check out of our hotel at the main reception. So far.....no drama. Hoped on the next tram which dropped us in the CBD (bare in mind everything we own is currently being trekked across Melbourne). Had a 2 block walk across the city to catch the connecting tram that would take us out the other side of the city. So far...so good. Time travelled so far, 1hr approx.
The view changed during this tram ride as we travelled into a less salubrious side of Melbourne (remember everything we own is currently being housed on our backs like tortoises). We select a stop to transfer onto the final tram only to find there were no other trams scheduled to stop at this stop. Disaster averted, our street savvy skills rescued us and Helen spotted the stop just across the intersection. Trams outside of the city centre don't run quite as regularly so we had to wait, nestling our bags on our toes, as penguins would their eggs. What seemed like a long time,was actually only 10mins. We got on the final tram, tourney time 1.75hrs.
This is where our maps let us down (and getting the iPad out was NOT an option). One map only pointed to Britz, giving no road names. The other only showed approx. 1 mile to the east of where we needed to get to. We got off at the station thinking as it was a public service we'd be able to access more information. Incorrect. So rather then stand in the street we started walking. Having been on a DOE trip with Vicky Helen left her inbuilt sat nav 'guide us'. Incorrect. Taking some bearings and on the intelligence gathered from a very friendly beggar, we headed in the other direction. Whilst he sent us in the right direction he may have been a little bitter about our lack of 'small change' situation, as our destination was not "just over those traffic lights" as he had suggested. After walking/trudging about 1.5km we relieved ourselves of our packs at a conveniently placed bus stop. I say conveniently placed as just at this point it started to rain! Journey time 2.75hrs.
We reconciled our map with the section of map on the bus step and found we still had about 1.5km still to go. At this point someone decided our punishment had exceeded our crimes and we were sent a bus. We hopped on it (perhaps hopped is a little too energetic a description), correction we bundled onto it and covered the last stretch in a little over 7 minutes, bonza!
So having left a 9.15am this morning we arrived at Britz at roughly 12.30pm, exhausted. But we were on our way and finally had somewhere to dump our back packs!
We set off with Apollo bay in our sites, Great Ocean Road our route. Wanting to get there reasonably early due to other holiday makers who would also be looking for camp sites.
We made it out of Melbourne and reached Great Ocean Road quite quickly. We didn't stop at Torquay preferring to make a bit more distance but we were tempted by Bells Beach, where all the surfing goes on. As we got close we knew that around any one of the bends in the road we'd suddenly be presented with the deep blue sea. We were't disappointed. Suddenly there is the breathtaking blue sea stretched out in front, for as far as the world stretches. Bells beach was cool, lots of surfers trying to catch the perfect wave, awful toilets though...eugh. We persevered along on of the most beautiful journey that we have been on. Hugging the cliff on the right as it jags out to meet the emerald/turquoise/cyan of the ocean, crashing into the shore below. We stopped at several lookouts along the way to just stand and observe the complete awesomeness of this natural world.
We reached Apollo bay around 5pm and located the campsite. Every other site we've been to had been a camp site, a place for people to camp, short term. This location felt more like a travellers site, with plenty of pretty permanent looking caravans built into the sides of chalets and lean-to's. There were lots of other folk travelling through like us but it didn't have the same holiday feel as the others had had. Having been charged an extortionate amount for a square of grass to park on, we wondered to Apollo bay for dinner and a visit to the fair. As we walked there we saw 2 beautifully white Parakeets soaring above us, very different to our Sparrows. It was a small fair but Holly did come away with a souvenir teddy. Clarkey came away with two bottles of lager from the liquor shop.