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On Friday morning we had an early get up as we got picked up by the
Groovy Grape bus to finally start our Great Ocean Road trip, over a
month after we had first tried to do it! Our driver Lorenzo was
clearly a little bit worse for wear from the previous night as he was
first half an hour late, kept slurring his words whenever he talked to
us and didn't exactly drive in a straight line for the first few hours!
We stopped at Surf City for a little bit, which had all the famous
surfing brands, and checked out some of the coastline as we cruised
through places like Torquay and Apollo Bay. At the start of the Great
Ocean Road itself was a little monument to all the ex servicemen who
built the road after returning from WW1, many of whom died, and then
as we carried on the drive the coastline and cliffs started to become
more and more scenic.
After lunch under the lighthouse where Round the Twist was filmed
(something which was lost on me as this was yet another thing it
appears I either didn't watch or just don't remember from my
childhood!) we had a brilliant and unexpected hour or so spotting some
cute koalas in the trees and feeding loads of parrots!!
After more of the standard scrummage for the BBQ at the hostel (it
seems helping to cook just means you go last!), with the few people
from our otherwise sound group that we had blacklisted pretty early on
not disappointing, we jumped back in the van for the quick drive to
The 12 Apostles to catch them at sunset. Despite having seen loads of
the signature photo shots and being told often how good it was, it
didn't disappoint at all and we had an awesome hour or so soaking it
all up. The cliffs and Apostles themselves turned orangey-red as the
sun set and it really was one of our highlights of Oz and sent us to
bed feeling pretty content.
In the morning we had a couple of hours driving along the coastline
and stopping of at some truly stunning sites where the cliffs and
formations which make up the coast were really dramatic, and we
actually said that the scenery was even better than how we had
imagined it! We must have got caught up in it all and been enjoying
ourselves too much as we then made a spur of the moment decision (yes,
I didn't need 24 hours to think about something!) to take a helicopter
flight over the 12 Apostles! We had looked into doing a copter ride
in a few places during our trip but had always been priced out of it
but this was pretty reasonable and so, with Hutch the driving force,
we went for it! And it was well worth it, as we got to see all the
features lined up in a row and to really appreciate the whole stretch
of coastline - certainly not a bad place to do your first ever
helicopter flight!
After such an awesome morning the afternoon was a bit of a quiet one
as we settled in for the drive to Mt Gambier, the second largest town
in SA. Unfortunately the floods that had been so bad and affected us
in Queensland had made their way down to Victoria and had led to loads
of landslides in the Grampian mountains, which was supposed to be
where we were spending night 2 and going walking in the national
park. It was a bit of a shame to have to miss that out since we were
both looking forward to it, but as we had already seen there's not
really much you can do about these things.
So instead we headed to Mt Gambier and first to a huge sink hole which
was basically a crater in which a nice big garden had grown. Then we
spent the night in a cell - in a converted old prison which was pretty
cool and Lorenzo served up some gnocchi for tea which went down a treat!
Sunday first thing we went to the Blue Lake, which reminded us of some
of the scenery we saw in New Zealand. We then went to Beachport where
we chilled on the beach for a couple of hours and walked along the
second longest jetty in the southern hemisphere (Lorenzo didnt know
which the first one was). After that it was pretty much just a long
drive in to Adelaide, with a stop for fish and chips along the way as
well as seeing some blowholes. To pass the time in the afternoon
Lorenzo got us going on a bus challenge to eat a weetabix dry in the
quickest time possible. This hardly turned out to be Hutchs finest
moment as first of all she took over 4 minutes (last by a LONG way!)
and then proceeded to mess the stopwatch up whilst timing me on my
go! I waited until the very end to go again, still able to taste the
dryness in my mouth and tied for first place with our friend Lauren (I
insist that the false start first time round cost me that valuable one
second that would have meant victory!). Given that $7 was up for
grabs (!) rather than split the winnings we decided on a faceoff,
which took place an hour later stood in the atmospheric surroundings
of a gas station forecort! A change in tactics unfortunately proved
unwise on my part and I had to settle for runner up :-(.
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