Great Ocean Road Trip 2014

Day 5

Warrnambool - Tower Hill - Port Fairy - Hamilton - The Grampians - Stawell - Avoca - Maryborough - Donnelly - Waanyarra (campsite)

The Disco clocked 100,000ks today at Tower Hill. More on that later.

We awoke at 7.30 this morning to the wonderful sound of a train blasting its horn as it rolled past the caravan park on its way to wherever it was headed. Ok everyone up then!

We left just after 8.30 and headed back to Stingray Bay as Cobey wanted some beach love! Pictures over, we headed out of Warrnambool West for Tower Hill.

Tower Hill is an extinct volcano that exploded over 30,000 years ago. We climbed to the peak to view the crater and surrounds which now host wetlands and a lake. We were impressed as to how close the volcano site was to the ocean - it was a great view from the peak out to the ocean.

As we parked at the car park to Tower Hill, we had clocked 99,999ks and as we were leaving, we reached the 100k milestone. It was a one way single road on the way out and so I stopped to comment on the 100k milestone and as I looked up, just in from of the Disco was a Tiger snake sunning itself on the road just in front of us. It slithered away slowly as I crept up closer to take a pic and as I did, we noticed it glide right past a blue tongue lizard! Apparently that the 100k prize for today!

We got back onto the Highway and drove onto Port Fairy. Wow such a beautiful town and it was actually a shame we hadn't stayed here instead of Warrnambool. There are lots of pretty stone buildings that have been turned into luxury accommodation houses or restaurants and the town itself is very vibrant and happening. We drove out to the beach which was packed and looked very inviting - we drove on though - next time!

From Port Fairy we said goodbye to the beach as we headed inland towards Hamilton. We stopped by the lake for lunch and to devise the rest of our driving day. Suffice to say that we changed the afternoons destinations at least 3 times as we travelled!

From Hamilton we ended up driving through the Grampians. They had 50,000 ha burnt out there less than a week ago and whilst some areas were still burning as we drove through and some of the roads were closed, the place was still open and the scenery was just as majestic as it was a week ago! The towering mountains with their jagged peaks jump out around every corner from seaming nowhere. It's not the right time to be hiking here clearly but this is a place we will definitely come back to when it's cooler and fires aren't a threat.

We fueled at Stawell where there run the Gift and headed onto Maryborough. From there it was into our bush camp for the night . We are staying at Waanyarra which is a recreation area smack in the middle of gold territory. We saw a few mine sites along the road as we travelled here. There is an historic cemetery just back along the road that has gold rush burials from 1859 and so many unmarked and unknown graves dotted around the grounds . We took a walk there after dinner as the sun doesn't sent until after 9 down here.

It's great to be free camping again - on our own in this site (there are few others up the road from us but we wanted the privacy) Just doing our own thing with the wallabies and bull ants!

Who knows where tomorrow will take us? Back towards the border no doubt but that's the beauty of being able to just drive where you want!