Blog 62

We made it to Melbourne. In a travelers bid to save our dollars we tramped across town in search of the recommended Melbourne Backpackers, although it turned our to be a 400 bed jail house, but who's counting?

At the crack of dawn we jumped into our Hyundai Getz and zoomed towards Geelong (pron. Jerlong) to stock up at the local Westfield on snacks and goodies for our Great Ocean Way.

Navigating The Great Ocean Road doesn't take much brain power, it's essentially a one way street of brown signs telling you when to stop and adore the magnificent view. Our first stop happened to be Bells beach where we saw some awesome surfer action and our first glimpse of the stunning coastline. Other big events today included Kangaroo golf course (no explanation necessary), a good old light house, Eskine falls and then onto Apollo bay and the search commenced for a place to hide the car for a free kip. Sadly, Victoria council have spent a lot of money on "No Camping" signs. After 'cash-in-handing' a bogan 15bucks we slept in a camp site, had our first ever schmoors over a great big camp fire and watched the milky way from the now indented roof of the clapped out car.

Day 2 and 'round the twist' to Cape Otway lighthouse. The place was closed, but no dramas, WE SAW QUAALIBEARS!!!!! We also saw kangaroos in the dawn mist but they ain't no quaalibears. The best of today's sights were the daddy's of the Great Ocean Road; the 12 apostles (absolutely bloody beautiful), London bridge, the infinitely famous Johanna beach, bay of islands, Loch Ard gorge, a nature reserve in an attempt to top up the wildlife list and onto the cheese farm, FREE TASTERS! Into port Campbell for another nights car camping, a free class of port with the site owners and bangers on the barby!

Day 3 saw us up to Cape Bridgewater and the promise of a colony of 300 Auatralian fur seals. Two hours walking up a windy, rainy cliff-hugging path we made it to the lookout. From 100 feet away we spotted one seal for 4 seconds, guess the other 299 were having a lie in. Back to the car we went, and back to Melbourne for fun times at St. Kilda backpackers...
Thanks to free barbeque, a Groupon voucher for the car rental and nifty car camping the GOR (plus further) was completed for £200.
Bryn x

Wildlife sightings for the Great Ocean Road....
Pelican
Kangaroo
Koala
Crimson Rosella
New Holland honeyeater
Rufuous bristle birds
Seal at logans beach
Red browed finch
Seal at cape Bridgewater
Australasian gannets
Galah
Willie wagtail