The Great Ocean Road

Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village

Warrnambool has quite a bit to offer on the sightseeing front, but we didn't have much time, so after a quick packup on Thursday morning we chose to visit the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village, an interactive reproduction of 1850s coastal life. It was brilliant and we spent an interesting few hours there. The kids were fascinated with the old-fashioned printing process - a volunteer showed us how the typeface was set backwards and then printed a sheet on the press to show us the whole process. They also enjoyed feeding the ducks!

Hungry ducks

We managed to convoy out of Warrnambool without being rear-ended by the Prado and turned off to start the Great Ocean Road journey; also to start looking for a garage to fix our indicators and lights! The western end of the Great Ocean Road has the familiar scenery of the Bay of Islands, Martyr Bar, London Bridge and the Twelve Apostles (although collapses have reduced their Apostolic number). Frequent stops allowed us to enjoy the rocky scenery, although Pap, driving behind us, did not particularly enjoy trying to work out what we were doing with no lights to give him fore-warning! We re-instituted the old fashioned system of hand signals and managed to avoid any contact between the Prado and the caravan. Dad said it was a bugger as although he was driving our Prado, if we had an accident he would hit his own caravan.

Bay of Islands sea sculptures

We stopped at a garage in Port Campbell to try to get the situation remedied. The garage owner kindly fitted us in straight away - he was involved in a lengthy discussion with a local, and was possibly glad of an opportunity to escape! - and got on with checking all the wires and connections. He was slightly impeded by the boys all crowding around to watch but was good humoured about it! After half an hour he thought all was well, so we drove off. We had only got a hundred metres or so before Marcus's wild waving in the Prado behind us alerted us to the fact that nothing was working. Back we went. The mechanic again extricated himself from a conversation to assist us. After another bout of fiddling, spraying and jiggling, he gave us the verdict that it would work sometimes, it would stop working sometimes and that we really needed to buy a new connector, of which he had none. Right. Off we went again, and to everyone's surprise, the brake lights and indicators started working. This was very fortunate, as the Twelve Apostles viewing area could only be reached by an astoundingly busy car park. We parked without a rear-ending incident and walked over to enjoy the scenery. There were so many people there with the same idea that it wasn't particularly enjoyable and we decided to head off!

The Twelve Apostles

We drove the last leg into Apollo Bay through more green forest than you would have thought possible on the Great Ocean Drive along a windy road and it seemed to take forever to get out. Luckily no-one was car sick so we had the full team on deck to set up at the caravan park in Apollo Bay and all could enjoy the fresh fish and chips for dinner, which we rated in the Top 3 of the trip!

Cape Patton Lookout

Leaving the others to complete the packup the next morning, Mum, Lachie and I went back into town to get a few supplies. It is very handy having another vehicle! The convoy then headed north along the peninsular with commanding views over Bass Strait. Cape Patton lookout was our first stop, where we learned that the Great Ocean Road was built as a living memorial to the Victorians who served in the Great World War. It was built with picks and shovels and provided employment for many returned soldiers. We enjoyed the scenery along the coast and appreciated their efforts fully!

The cockatoos landed on Lachlan's and Jackson's arms
and drew blood!

Gran photographing the ceremonial toe dipping

We made a quick stop in Lorne to check out the jetty and ended up hand feeding the resident white cockatoos. After another lovely coastal drive, it was Torquay for lunch where we dipped our toes into Bass Strait. We were not tempted to dip anything further, nor indeed to double dip, as it was windy and cold. Victorians, however, are made of sterner stuff than us and were frolicking in the water; perhaps they were moving about so much to keep warm.

We gratefully installed Gran and Pap's GPS in the Blunderbuss and after a minor mishap in Geelong, followed Karen's directions in to Melbourne, with the Prado in hot pursuit. It was lucky that the brake lights and indicators were working on the bridges and Tollway! After some wending through narrow city streets, following (and narrowly missing) trams we managed to find the Melbourne Big 4 and checked in. Coffee and alcohol were necessary. City traffic and caravan convoys are not conducive to couple's composures. Oblivious to stress levels in the adults, the kids had a swim in the pool and quickly found the games room. Ella even managed to score a ride on the Big 4 golf buggy, so was very happy.

Stay tuned ...