5th Feb

Now as great as it is to stop off and see all the great things Australia has to offer there are several thousand km's to be covered in this journey and we've done a tiny bit of it so far so today was a long driving day and also, unfortunately for us, but very welcome by the locals the start of a rainy and grey few days. We set off in good spirits as I mentioned in my previous entry because we saw our first kangaroos. Michele actually spotted them as we were driving down the track to leave the campground. I actually thought she had a problem as she started flailing her arms about, trying to catch her breath and squawking 'there's K..., there's Kan......, there's kanga......' etc until I saw them to and pulled up quick to allow the children to see out the side window. It's a bit melodramatic but it's hard to prepare yourself for when you first see a herd of Australia's most iconic animal hop past in front of you - and it wasn't even 8.30 in the morning! The children were agog and were delighted with their first sighting. We stopped for the night in a town called Warrnambool which we never quite got the hang of pronouncing and stocked up on tucker and beer before finding our campsite. Australian towns often strike me as a cross between English and American ones. They have all the small individual shops (more English) yet as you drive throuhg the main drag of a town there are the multituse of drive throughs, restaurants, hardware stores and places like 'Rays Outdoors' which stocks every conceivable camping accessory known to man. You can actually buy a fold flat toilet called a 'Tin Dunny'. Not sure I'd want to be too desparate for the loo if I had to assemble that in a hurry! The campsite had an indoor swimming pool which was fab for the children and they watched 'Dunstan checks in' on the DVD player which is in the van.

6th Feb
The rain continued today and didn't really stop. To add to this I had become quite ill in the night - splitting head ache, shivers, sweating etc and felt absolutely lousy. We aimed to get going and start the Great Ocean Road which is an amazing coastal road on the way to Melbourne. The reality was that i wasn't good for much and slept in the van for a couple of hours in a shopping centre car park while Michele amused the children and the rain lashed down outside. Suffice to say by 3 o'clock in the afternoon they'd had enough of being cooped up and I was just about able to operate so Michele took the wheel of the van and we headed off. The great Ocean Road is about 300 km and passes some incredible coast line. The first part are limestone cliffs and there are many places to stop and look out to marvel at the beauty. The sea has carved the coast line into awesome, towering cliffs and monoliths of all shapes and sizes. As different parts of the coast have eroded at different speeds and in different ways it has left structures alone from the mainland and they have been named apt titles such as 'The Tweleve Apostles', 'London Bridge' and 'Loch Ard Gorge'. The latter is after a ship (the Loch Ard) which squandered in these waters with the loss of 53 lives (2 survivors) on the final night of its voyage from London to Melbourne. There are tales all along the coast of shipwrecks and the visitors centres have excellent displays of articfacts recovered with the associated interesting stories to go with them. The weather was quite foul as we visited these lookouts to see the rock formations but the wind and rain actually helped one to appreciate how powerful and destructive the ocean can be. Our campsite was in Otway National Park (free in the state of Victoria) called Joanna beach and was just behind the dunes again. The wind whistled and the rain lashed throughout the night but all slept well.

7th Feb
After maths and a quick walk on the beach to watch the ferocious waves bashing the coast we spent some time in the area by going inland a bit to the 'Otway Fly'. The forested area we were in is temperate rain forest and the Otway Fly is a tree top walkway enabling visitors to get close up and very high with the trees of the region. The trees in question are Mountain Ash. They are a Eucalypt and can grow up to 100 metres. They are perfectly straight and are amazing when you are 70 metres up and you can see them sway a foot either way. Apparently they are an excellent hardwood and also used for making paper. Anyway the whole walk experience was very interesting and the engineering feet of the actual walkway and tower some spectacle as well. Now as an addition, quite strangely we thought, they had a dinosaur trail through the woods with models of dinosaurs and descriptions. We couldn't see the connection at all with a temperate rain forest containing 60 year old giant eucalyptus trees but the children loved them, especially Isla who fell in love with the baby ones.

Our day saw us move on to Apollo Bay where we stopped for a while and walked the beach (until the bloody rain started again) and then we escaped to the van. I chatted to a council gardner who told me the weather can be very changeable on this stretch of the coast as they get quite a few systems from Antarctica. He said he loves it and is preferable to when he lived in Northern Australia where the temperature can sometimes nudge 50 degrees!! he said basically you don't do anything during the hottest part of the day - stay in home or go to the pub! When I said which direction we were headed he told us to look out for the Koalas round the next headland where it's got a bit over populated. Well we set off hoping to give the children a treat before we got to our campsite for the night. As we rounded the headland we entered a forest of eucalyptus and I pulled over suggesting we have a quick look, not expecting to see any of these shy, sleepy fellas. Michele got out first and nearly passed out again ( a bit like the kangaroo sighting) so we all tumbled out to see a a big ball of fur above our heads balanced on a fork in the tree and swaying in the wind. What a thrill for us all. The Guy in Apollo Bay was right about over population. Over the next hour and via several walks into the forest we saw at least ten koalas. What was lovely was they were actually active because it was dusk and they were either getting ready for another riotous night out on the eucalyptus leaf or already chomping away! I wished I'd been able to watch the children's faces but I was too busy watching the Koalas or checking that one of us wasn't about to stand on a snake and suddenly end our fantastic Koala spotting. The guy had also warned us that if you see one on the ground not to get too near as they are not very smart and might think you are a tee and try to climb your leg. That sounds very cuddly but their claws are about 2 inches long! Thank heavens I spoke to the guy in the town. If I hadn't we would have just driven through this area, probably noted the stripped eucalyptus trees but certainly not have seen the beautiful Koalas. Being a house of four girls we have more than our fair share of soft toys in our house but I can see some little grey balls of fur with large black noses being added to that collection before the trip is out. Well we talked Koalas for the remainder of the time to our campground which was out in the bush and were rewarded with one more 'first' before bed - that of a Kookaburra which flew by and settled in a tree near us.

8th Feb
After the Koala 'high' of yesterday we had a relativley easy bit of driving along the last bit of the Great Ocean Road. The limestone cliffs having now given way to rocky coastline and the road hugging the beach - very windy but still stunning all the same. We passed Torquay which is the centre of all things surfing in Australia (I'm sure there's some areas of Queensland which have something to say about that but the Lonely Planet can't be wrong can it?) The weather is good enough to be out and about a bit so we had a look round Geelong where we are camped for the night and guess what - we are ina commercial campground with an ensuite for our campervan! Yes you get a little hut next to your camping area with a toilet and shower just for your use - how posh is that? Michele's just come back from indulging in the shower and says it's the best shower she's had since we've been away - and it takes a lot to impress her on the camping shower/toilet front, I can tell you. I'll never get her down to the New forest in our tent now.