Von Chav Family Road Trip - Grampians and Great Ocean Road

It was a pleasant surprise coming back to Melbourne, because unlike this time last year the sun was out and the temperature was soaring, which gave us some well earned beach time in Victoria. Unfortunately we couldn't spend to much time on the beach and we only had one week in Melbourne to get ourselves sorted for travelling on to New Zealand, see friends, and do a four day road trip through the Grampians and Great Ocean Road with Soph's sister, Nick and her boyfriend Con.

Im not going to lie, when i realised we were only going for the four days i was a little concerned that doing both the Grampians and the Great Ocean Road was going to be to much in to little time. But... we decided to give it a go, and believe it or not, we did it, and we did everything there was to do, see and we even had some time to chill out in the sun. So holding on to your seats while I try and explain the last four days...just a few names you need to know to understand this blog; Con is now known as The Baby and his camera is called camilla.

The Grampians is a national park, to the north west of Melbourne, there are spectacular views, waterfalls and bush walks. When we left Melbourne im upset to say it was raining however it was quite amusing as Nick realised she had forgotten her waterproof jacket and only had one pair of velour tracksuit bottoms... (one of the reasons for the Von Chav nickname) Anyway we set off arriving early afternoon and we got straight into sightseeing mode and whisked round to all the different lookouts and views, Mackenzie Falls and the Balconies were the highlights with stunning views. After a packed afternoon it was time for a barby, drinks and a few games of cards. Trumps was the game of choice, Dave having beginners luck won every game and The Baby (Con) although getting coached by Nick lost every game.

The next day we woke early to do the main walk to the Pinnacle of the Grampians. The weather was warmer and the sun eventually appeared and showed us the true beauty of this area. The views were spectacular and the landscape seemed to change everytime we turned a corner. As we got into the walk we settled into a pretty amusing pattern, where Nick would stroll off and The Baby would get left behind with Camilla (his camera). The Baby and Camilla eventually made it to the pinnacle 20 minutes after the rest of us. We had a fantastic A-framed chalet organised by Nick, it had a great location in Halls Gap and provided us with a perfect BBQ venue where we were able to watch the local Kangaroos and Kookoburras in our back garden.

An early rise was needed in order to get on our way to the Great Ocean Road (GOR), a quick stop in the Tower Hill Nature Reserve to try and spot Emu's and Koala's or Koawa as Nick would say, we succeed on both account. Then it was straight down to the first stop on the GOR, The Bay of Islands, The Baby's first look at the spectacular coastline, you can imagine Camilla was in overdrive. So spirits were high, we were back on the road and the music was blaring, Soph and Nick decide to delight us with there singing, there were a few renditions of the Court of King Karacticus and there was an old lady for the Irving family traditions.

The next couple of stops were the Grotto and London Bridge, these are both pretty incredible sandstone features that have been worn away by the Sea. They were enhanced even more by the perfect blue sky which we had all day. So by this point The Baby and Camilla had managed to fill a memory card and made a pretty good start on the second, so a memery card is 4GB a photo is 11mb, which equals roughly 363 photos in 2.5 days... and we still have a whole day left. Pretty good going im sure you will agree.

The next stop on the GOR is possibly the most famous, the Twelve Apostles, well not that there are twelve anymore. We took the trip down to the view area and had all of the posed photos taken, The Baby proceeded to take a fair few more, whilst this was happening we got a great snap of Nick showing her true feelings towards the whole situation, check the photo album. After this we took a trip inland to the Otways where we went on a tree top walk through a Rainforest thanks to the baby, which was awesome. We then headed on towards Apollo bay where we decided to hunt out accomodation.

During the drive to Apollo bay the road was pretty interesting, nice views, and pretty steep drops on either side of the car. By the end of the day when we were all dosing off we had our first and only scare whilst The Baby was driving. So picture this seen we are driving around a road with hair pin bends half way up a cliff face with a semi deflated tyre (we got a slow puncture, not that we were going to tell thrifty), and The Baby suddenly shouts " Oh My God!!!!" we all wake up grab something to hold onto and brace ourselves for the worst as the car starts to do an emergency stop. The baby then reaches into the back grabs Camilla and starts taking photos of the somewhat average view (ok it was quite spectacular but we all thought it was a little dramatic and didnt let him forget it for the rest of the trip, we did all enjoy the view though....).

So our last day we cruised on down the last of the GOR coastline visiting some popular beaches; Lorne and the famous Bells Beach in Torquay (if any of you have seen the movie Point Break then this is the beach that Patrick Swayze dies at trying to surf a massive swell). Then we all had to get back to Melbourne in order to say goodbye to friends before flying out to New Zealand. Our friend Tarnya had put on a farewell party for us which was a little messy especially having to be up at 6.30am to catch a flight, lets just say a lot of alcohol was consumed, lots of laughs were had and only 2 hours sleep resulted in one kick ass party!!! (Thanks Tarn and everyone who came to see us of.)

So we are now in NZ settling nicely to our jobs (we are both working at a kayak adventure park in Tauranga which is in the East of the North Island. If any of you are interested in seeing more go to the website www.waimarino.com, check out the adventure park and 'the blob' videos its the new activity which is extremely fun. We are staying with friends Pete and Gilly who Dave knows from uni for the time being and they are showing us the sites, their house is 150 paces from the beach which as you can imagine we are making much use out of.