*****WE HAVE UPLOADED 3 NEW VIDEO CLIPS ( 2 of KOSIOUSKO & 1 of the SPEEDWAY) FOR YOU ALL TO SEE!!!! ******

The Great Ocean Road - Road Trip 22nd-28 Jan 2008

Hi All, C and I are going to try and let you know about our travels over the last week. Hope you enjoy.

Wed 23rd - From Lake Entrance to Apollo Bay

We packed up our tent and Charlotte managed the first 3 nights of sleeping with only a thin mat as her bed. I am so proud of her as I know camping isn't her fav thing to do.

The road trip from LE to Apollo Bay was 8 hrs so we set of around 10 and started our journey. After 2 hrs of driving we switched places and C had her first drive in 7 months and this time it was illegal as we never put her as a driver on the hire car. They charge because she is not 25 yet. We got past Melbourne and then I took over the rest to Apollo Bay. We had a lot of stop of at sight seeing points so the drive took longer than expected.

We pitched up in a caravan park and headed into town to check out the shops and nightlife, this was okay but not Edinburgh business. We found a Seafood cafe and bought some fish and chips each, drove to a nice spot overlooking the bay and watched the sun go down.

THURSDAY 24th - Apollo Bay

Next day we went on a road trip around this area visiting the rain forests, then headed to Cape Otway lighthouse station (The oldest in Oz) and then to the triplet falls which were amazing.

We were tired out after our trip we went to the local pub and had a drink (only 1 each though as we are backpackers). We made tea and then went for a walk along the beach to the rocks where again we watched the sunset go down. We decided to have an icecream so drove into town, on our way we saw the sunset was still going on and the sky was red so we went on a chase to get a good photo but by the time we got a good spot it was all over. We got icecreams and had them on the beach.

FRIDAY 25th Jan - Apollo Bay to Warrnambool

We packed our tent up after 2 nights listening to the Ocean, we made friends with the family next to us and will probs go to their house in Melbourne for dinner when we get there. This drive was to take us along the Great Ocean road to see many wonderfull things, The 12 Apostles, The grotto, the Arch, London Bridge, The blow hole, Thunder cave and The bay of Martyrs. All of these names of sights I have said prob will mean nothing so I am going to suggest everyone googles them. What I will say is they are all formations unattached from the mainland in the sea. C and I have googles a lot of things on our trip everytime we don't know what something is!! The most fantastic sights were the Apostles and the Grotto, though as you will see from the photos the flies were back in force just to annoy me and C so our fly nets were out to combat the attack.

We arrived at our campsite in Warrnambool it was really nice only downside next to a main road and squaking birds in the tree above our tent that we later found out had a fetish for pooing on it as target practise from the trees above (Which I had to clean off each morning by hand). They were also a nice alarm clock at 4am.

SATURDAY 26th Jan - Warrnambool (Austrailian day)

We headed to the Botanic gardens due to it being OZ day. Then drove to an extinct volcano called Tower hill reserve, which also has wild animal life such a Kangeroos, Koalas and Emus which walked right past our car. We walked to the top of the summit and again nets were out due to the fly attacks. When we reached the top the views were spectacular all around. We headed back into town so that I could do some body boarding at the seaside. This was fun for me and C was hooked to her magazine or so she says nicely as she knew how much I wanted to try it.

We had a BBQ at night (veg snags for C and normal Snags for me) (Sausages)!!!, We thought as it was OZ day to go for a drink so headed into town to "THE LOFT" and C had a cocktail andd me a pint which is amazing as you never get pints anywhere.

Sunday 27th Jan - Warrnambool

We pottered around this day but headed to the speedway sprint car classic about 4 o'clock to get our seat in the terrace stand. ......(Charlotte now to continue..)It was a huge circular track with high fences and loads of grass where people brought there own chairs etc but we opted for the luxurious terrace...or so we thought!! We sat down 4 rows from the front and notice all the seats had mud all over them and then as time went by we saw people taking out hats, eye goggles, waterproofs and tarpolene sheet!!! It suddenly dawned on us that we were going to get soaked with mud by the speed that these cars zoom around the track!! But ah hah as we have our house in the car we got our trustee waterproofs and a cap and we were set - had to keep the sunglasses on as goggles!

It lasted 5 hours from 6 to 11pm and had 12 heat races with 10 laps for qualifiers and then 2 major races and a final which was 40 laps!!

It was great fun - very exciting as they go super fast and we saw some spectactular crashes ( no one was hurt!) Oh and it started to rain so out came the brollies too along with our homemade picnic in the rain for the interval! We did get flying bits of mud hit us quite a lot ( blooming sore in the face!) and lots of dust but it became all part of the fun! The finale was great and not 1 crash on the 40 laps, which Iain was disappointed about! The guy who won it broke a 22year record on the track - and we were there to witness it!

We had a final night in our tent for just now and listened as the birds dropped their poo on us as we drifted off to sleep......

Monday 28th Jan - TODAY!

Today we headed along the final bit of the Great Ocean Road to Port Fairy which had a lovely beach, ocean and island, very picturesque and then we got a bit lost on our way to Mt Eccles (extinct volcano) as it was absolutely in the middle of nowwhere with one little bendy road to it, but we got there for our lunch and did a walk to the lava caves which were huge and our torches weren't big enough or bright enough sso we got scared of all the dripping limestone so we came back out and didn't go to the end - chickens i know! Our walk on the way back led us to a view of 1 of the craters which has now developed as a lake - very pretty.

We then drove into the middle of the wilderness to where we are now - the Grampians National Park at a place called Halls Gap in remote countryside ( no mobile phone signals atall here!) We are staying in a nice cabin in the holiday park which as a kitchen and TV (bonus as iit is the same price as the tent sites that we've been staying at!) (We found this internet at the YHA Hostel - handy!) We have 3 nights and 2 days here so we think we will do some walking trails and maybe mountain bike or rockclimb too. Photos of this part of the trip with some last ones of Ocean Road will follow soon...

Cheerio C & I xxxx