Hi,

Day 1: After collecting Brucy boy, we visited Coles and stocked up on food for the trip and then motored down the road, for all of about 5 minutes before wafts of, well, what can only be described as 'poo' (!) started making their way around the driving cabin! What the hell was it?! We realised at that stage that it could well be the on-board toilet and that we actually hadn't been shown how to empty it (which consequently meant that we couldn't actually use it as we'd get a fine for not emptying it!). Thankfully, the bad smell left us - for that moment - but returned on and off over the hol. We still don't know what it was!!

By the time we'd got on the road that day, it was nearly 4pm and so we only made it 3hrs down the coast before calling it a night. We passed through Geelong, went straight onto Torquay - the Surfer's Capital where they hold Surfing Championship comps in the Summer - and through to Lorne, the next town. Whilst on the road, we drove through a valley of eucalyptus trees and when we looked up, there were lots of Koalas out in the wild! As you can imagine, Becki shrieked at me to stop Brucy and sprung out to go and get snaps of my furry friends.

We'd gotten quite hungry and so stopped for the evening in Apollo Bay and cooked up dinner in a beach front car park before heading out to find a place to spend the night. Becki decided that she wanted a go at driving old Brucy (I know what you are thinking boys! wrong move), she climbed in and off we went....We found the perfect place to park at the end of a cul de sac. So, just as we were about to stop she got ready to turn around. Nightmare! she forgot that it was in an automatic van and she put her foot on the clutch!! - which was actually the break!! as they is no clutch!! We lurged forward to a hault sharply and she fell onto the horn in the middle of the steering wheel...Haroooo!!!! Yup - that 'perfect parking place' suddenly had all the neighbours gazing out the windows at us. Sheepishly...we drove off!! I had my head in his hands in embarressment. Luckily, up the road, we found a car park where lots of other campers seemed to have parked and decided to set up shop there for the night. Seeings as it's actually illegal to park and sleep in your van, it seemed a bit more 'ok' as lots of other people were doing it too. We crashed and looked forward to Day 2 of the Road Trip! What would we end up doing?!!.....

Day 2: We awoke super early the following day (more out of being scared of being ticketed by the traffic wardens than anything else!) and made our way onto Day 2 of our adventure........

Breakfast on the beach, watching surfers riding the waves. It was already starting to get hot and the sky was totally clear. Shortly after, we set off and drove all the way to the Twelve Apostles, about half way along the Great Ocean Road. The coastline was breathtaking. Although it took a while to get around, due to the twisting and turning roads on the undulating hills, the view was spectacular all the way.

Walking around the Apostles park was nice, although about a million flies were swarming around the area. It was a chore to not let them get in your eyes, ears and nose, but when we got up to the viewing platform, it was well worth the effort. The 11 rock formations (one fell down in 2005) hug the cliff line and look spectacular, especially on a day like we had - clear blue sky with no haze or anything. We walked right along the walkway and back to the van, but just before leaving the car park, we spied a 'Twelve Apostles Helicopter Company'....on a clear day like today, it would have been rude not to go. I had never been in a helicopter and so we decided to take the 15minute tour along the coast which enabled us to see not only the Twelve Apostles, but also 'London Bridge' the 'Horseshoe' and the 'Cove'. Although slightly bumpy up there, the ride and the view was out of this world and I'm so glad that I was able to see it all from the sky! We got snaps of us all geared up with headsets on etc and then clambered out, getting blown away by the wind of the propellers.

Back on the road, we stopped off at Warrnambool in a car park near the beach for a spot of lunch, before driving and driving and driving as far as we could get before the light faded. En route, we managed to contact Matt, Tegan and Paul from Ayr and found out that they were now working in a town called Naracoorte in the Vineyards. As it was on our way, we decided to pull in there to visit them for the evening. We arrived and caught up over a drink in the back yard of the hostel and then we all went down to the local outdoor pool at dusk to have a paddle. In fact, we only dipped our feet, but sitting on the edge of the pool listening to the thousands of parakeets squawking was an experience in itself!

We had dinner out in Bruce on the road and then later on when the owners of the hostel had gone to bed, we pulled up in their back car park and parked illegally for our second night. We even squeezed through a gap in the back fence and used their showers too. Tegan also stuck Becki's camera and phone on charge for her. The joys of being a pikey traveller - brilliant! (As we weren't stationing at a campsite each evening, we didn't have any power on board Brucy!)

So there it was - Day 2 over, the highlight being the helicopter ride! Anything could happen on Day 3....

Bye for now

Miffy x x x