The Grey Ocean Road

We didn’t pick the best day to drive the great ocean road as it seemed to be drizzling most of the day. All these hundreds of miles that I have driven and still waiting to see my first kangaroo. I thought they were everywhere and that Australia was infested with them. However, when we got to Torquay to start the GOR I spotted these two parrots walking on the beach. Torquay beach would have been lovely if the sun had been shining. I did manage to get the satnav to work but I didn’t switch it off when we stopped for lunch otherwise we wouldn’t have got it going again; that’s how much confidence I have in it.

On the highways over here there may be 3 or 4 lanes and all the cars seem to drive very slowly and at the same speed so it’s really hard to get past them dodging inside and out when there is a gap. The satnav makes a noise whenever it detects a camera and is constantly telling me that I am breaking the speed limit. Also the pedestrian crossings are similar to the ones in Hong Kong as they make a constant tick-----------tick-------------tick sound until you can walk and then the noise changes to tick—tick—tick—tick much quicker so you know you are safe to cross even if you are blind. We did stop a couple of times to take photos but when I looked back at them they don’t really reflect how it really looks; I guess the grey skies didn’t help. It really is a lovely coastal run and would be great for a gang of bikers to do in a pack. There are plenty of back packer’s hostels around but Claire didn’t fancy them.

We stopped off at Lorne for lunch and when we walked past the fish and chip shop it made my mouth water, really smelling fresh. I looked in and they cook everything to order, even the chips so they are always as fresh as could be. We did walk along the coast but both finally agreed that that looked the best option. It wasn’t; we were very disappointed, how could they get it so wrong when cooking fresh? The batter was awful and we both had to leave it all, while the fish seemed old and not fresh. The chips weren’t too bad but there were about twice as many as a pig could eat. Even I couldn’t eat them all. And it was $30 which seems about half as much again as it would cost in the UK. They are usually about £5 each at home and always tastes better. The weather over here seems to change like the wind; most of the time it has been drizzling but every now and then the sun comes out with blue skies. I hate the flies over here, they seem very persistent and aggressive compared to English flies which seem more relaxed and reserved. One will land on your nose and you instantly swish it off but before your hand has stopped moving it’s already landed on your ear. They don’t seem to fly away from you; it’s more of a hover over you and land again, they just don’t seem to want to go away. When I swat them off Claire they come and attack me so I leave them there now.

We carried on driving after lunch and finally settled for Port Campbell which is a lovely pretty little village just after the twelve apostles. We didn’t bother stopping to take a picture as it was raining when we went passed. Let’s hope its fine in the morning and I can backtrack a bit for a couple of shots. We chose “Sea foam villas” to stay the night as they are right by the sea and we looked at a couple of rooms before we decided. We have a nice bedroom with plenty of storage, spa bathroom and a kitchen/dinner/lounge with balcony. Very nice too and it’s fully equipped with dishwasher, washing machine, fridge freezer, cooker, microwave, iron etc. Modern, clean and comfortable, just like we do our flats. They do have wi-fi but charge $5 for 30 minutes so I won’t be phoning home from here, we will leave it until we get back to Melbourne. Claire likes it so much she wants to come here and spend Christmas by the sea on our own. We could bring all the food and drink we want with us, we have a garage for the car and we can even see the sea on tiptoe. I always wanted to swim in the sea on Christmas day. Let’s hope there are no stingers.