The Great Ocean Road(trip)

With the knowledge that I would have to send my passport off to immigration along with my residency application, I decided to head off for a holiday before I handed it in. I had a deadline to hand it in before November 15th, as my medical test would expire then (and I didn't want to pay $450 more for a new one). My friend Chris was heading out to Australia for a year, arriving at the end of October. Perfect. So I arranged to meet him in Melbourne for about a week.

I had to get to Christchurch in order to fly out there... coincidentally, my friend was driving out to Christchurch to pick up her parents, and another friend was heading out there to travel to India. So we made a roadtrip!! A friend living in Christchurch was having a halloween party, happening the night before my (very early) flight, so we would get there for that! As it was a fancy dress party, we decide to travel there in fancy dress... theme of the day? Circus.

L-R: 

Me: Human cannonball

Corrina: Lion Tamer

Claire: Clown

Vicki: Ummm.... trapeze artist?? We never were sure. Not even she knew.

 About an hour into the drive, we smelt burning clutch. Uh-oh. We'd practically broken down in the middle of the Lindis pass, and whenever anyone stopped to help us, they'd see a procession of crazy people getting out of the car. It was absolutely hilarious!

Broken down... opportunity to put face-paint on then, obviously!

We made it to the top of the pass, and then free-wheeled it down the other side. From then on, there weren't really any other hills so the car made it to Christchurch in one piece. It did require a new clutch though...

We partied the night away in Christchurch, and then at about 4am Dee and I left the on-going party in a taxi for the airport. (She was also heading to Melbourne, but on a different flight). When I arrived in Melbourne, I was veeeeerry tired. Chris came to meet me, and we walked around Melbourne for the day, found a hostel to sleep in, and decided that neither of us really wanted to stay in the big city. So the next day we hired the cheapest van we could find (a 'white man van'), blacked out the windows using bin-bags, and stuck a mattress in the back. $55 per day including insurance was a damn sight less expensive than the $100+ per day EXCLUDING insurance that we'd been quoted by the camper-van companies.

We stayed in Melbourne for a day, so that we could get dressed up and go to the Melbourne Cup horse race - a day that was an experience, but I'm not really fussed to do again. I think we both wanted to hit the road, and it was so busy there... no money was won, despite a lot of attempts on my part!

Dressed up outside our 'home'

Sooo many people!

Nope... I didn't win a sausage

That night we slept in our van in a side-street in Melbourne. Schoolboy error: we didn't find a flat parking space, so I was rolling into Chris and squashing him all night. We didn't make that mistake again! :o) We headed off the next day - me driving through the city. It was really fun to be driving a big van! We stayed in the carpark of a beach the first night, then stopped again for lunch at another beach. What a hardship life on the road is!! :)

First stop on the beach. It was cold.

The lighthouse from 'Round the Twist'!

Anarchist!

Sculpture trail in Lorne

As the day drew to a close, we went to Erskine Falls, and then camped up nearby for the night.
 

Erskine Falls

No kangaroos seen yet... despite these promises!

Our camping spot for the night

The next day, we went to 'Teddy's lookout'

Driving on, we came across somewhere that some fellow travellers had told us about: a good place to see wild koala bears! (We didn't have a generic guide book to tell us where to go!)

There were lots of birds, and some lovely people kindly gave us some seeds to coax them into our hands.

Then we went walking, spotting lots of koalas along the way! Oh they were cute... :o)

 We walked up to another look-out point. Beautiful.

And then walked to another waterfall.

We continued driving, and came across the 12 Appostles... it was such a pretty sight. Though there's no longer 12 of them as the sea water has eroded many away... there's maybe 8 now?

12 Apostles 

We parked up at 'Worm Bay' for the night.

Worm Bay

Chris taking photos

Naughty habbit

The following morning, after a very restful night's sleep, we decided that as the sun was out, we'd have a 'beach day'. So that's what we did! We stopped off at the next beach we found, and it was deserted. We stayed there for many hours, and didn't see another sole. Amazing :)

Chris braving the cold water...

We continued driving on, and came across 'London Bridge', a natural 'bridge' which partially collapsed about 20 years ago (leaving some tourists stranded on the other side!).

 'London Bridge' in the distance

By this point of the roadtrip, my camera had pretty much died, as I hadn't been able to charge it. So photos are pretty scarce from here-on in...

We drove down to another beautiful cove. Bliss.

Stunning.

Then we decided we were going to spend a few days hiking in the Grampians, so just drove. We almost ran out of petrol, and had to stay overnight on a side-road, waiting for the petrol station to re-open in the morning.

We'd done our washing at a motor-park, so hung our clothes out to dry :)

Making dinner. I love life on the road! :)

The next day we drove and drove, and arrived in the Grampians National Park - Yay!

We stopped for the night at Halls Gap and stumbled upon quite a sight as we went for an evening stroll... about 15 kangaroos were just hanging out in the Cricket Oval! It was quite an incredible 'first sighting' of a kangaroo!

 

Ah-hem... I hadn't realised what was happening when I first took this photo. He was unsuccessful, despite his constant attempts to 'woo' this lucky lady!

  

Boxing kangaroos!

We decided to keep on walking up to the waterfall we'd initially wanted to see. It wasn't very spectacular, but we did see an echidna on the way up! We ended up continuing up the hill / mountain to complete a different walk - a walk that turned out to involve a bit of bouldering, which neither of us were prepared for!

The next day, we drove on to find another hike we wanted to do, and saw some emus in the road - I LOVE THE GRAMPIANS' WILDLIFE!! :)

Emus

We decided to hike up 'Mt. Difficult'. The name was not an overstatement. It really was difficult. But rewarding. And stunningly beautiful.

At the summit of Mt. Difficult. It had taken a good few hours to hike up, and again, involved a fair bit of bouldering, but the 360 degree view (from the highest point in the Northern Grampians) was totally worth it!

After our hike, we drove as far as we could into the night. We parked up at a look-out spot, and drove on all the way back to Melbourne the next day.

What a great adventure! :o)