avelog

Last you heard, we had just left Melbourne and were making our way down along the south coast towards Adelaide. Stopping briefly in Geelong to upload the last entry, we rolled onto the Great Ocean Road, one hundred and some odd kilometers of the most beautiful scenery of any road in Australia. After a brief photo shoot at the Memorial Arch marking the official entrance to the GOR, we got our first taste of the ever-winding coastal way, around headlands above steep cliffs, down into sandy bays, with amazing blue surf and sunshine rendering brilliant the characteristic orange sandstone of this coast. The Split Point Lightstation provided the first, somewhat underwhelming, break from the twisting drive; a tall white lighthouse with no outstanding features. Fortunately, just offshore at the same spot was the first of the eroded sandstone pillars for which this coast is famous, and we treasured it as if it were one of the famous Twelve Apostles (see below) instead of a single lonely straggler.

Our campervan rolling through the Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch

Our detour inland at Lorne to visit the Erskine falls proved a bit disappointing, as the brochure photo was presumably taken during an unusually damp wet season, complete with computer-enhanced shades of green. Lofty expectations can render the prettiest little waterfalls immensely dull, especially after twenty minutes added driving time each way. Low spirits quickly evaporated a few minutes later when we stopped at a small roadside eucalypt stand recommended to us by the fine folks at the Geelong visitor’s centre. After stumbling along a few paths between the road and the water’s edge and finally giving up and heading back to the van having seen nothing but water and trees, we spotted an extra bit of grey amongst the grey branches, and what did we find but our first wild koala, sleeping away in a blissful ball of fur on a branch just above and behind the van! Koala in the wild… check.

Of course, our self-congratulations over the single wild koala were almost immediately eclipsed when I spotted (and believe me when I say this is difficult when it comes to little grey balls of fur high up in eucalypts) not one, but two koalas just moments down the road, prompting us to squeal to a stop in a cloud of dust and dreams-come-true, hopping out to discover that we’d somehow stumbled upon what must have been the secret koala athletics club where koalas do slightly more than sleep and eat. Evidently, koalas also climb things and poop! I mean, there were rumours, but no human has ever seen an active koala. After all, they sleep twenty hours a day! They even tried to poop on us intermittently as we ran excitedly from tree to tree staring upward in wonder at little grey blobs and dodging traffic on the narrow bend of road where we’d stopped.

Spot the koala!!

After a while, even pooping koalas get a bit boring, so we set off again, driving through rich late-afternoon light, each valley a cascade of brilliant sunshine, surf crashing up on the beach in a spray of fine white foam, every headland darkened by shadow and hammered by the ocean. As dusk crept in and rainclouds darkened the horizon, the main road left the coast, and we turned south onto a little side road towards Cape Otway, coming to rest shortly after dark at a pleasant and almost-deserted little caravan park that invited us to ‘camp under koalas’. Of course, it wasn’t until morning that we spotted our grey little friends, and these weren’t nearly as active as those of the previous day. Dodging cattle (in a national park!? quite common in Australia), we continued down the little Cape road, stopping for a peek at the local lighthouse ($12 admission to the grounds or free peek from a distant viewpoint?). Note the beware-of-snakes sign photographed below while hiking to the lookout.

Rainclouds darkening the horizon; beware of snakes

Having had our fill of trekking through snake-infested bushland, we were all set to drive up to some more waterfalls and redwoods (yes, Californian) inland, when our briefly-forgotten travel companion made a reappearance. It seems that the foreboding rainclouds of the previous evening had caught us up during the night and rendered our planned scenic route an impassable series of mud pits and lakes: all fun and games until someone loses a mud-filled eye trying to push the campervan out of the ditch, wheels spinning and spewing (I’ll steer!). Instead, we continued west along the Great Ocean Road, curving inland through rolling green pasture before cutting back to the coast. We stopped to get a coffee only to remember that we were out of cash. This was fairly concerning since we wouldn’t get our campervan deposit back until the end of the month and my credit card required a code I didn’t have possess.

The bitter taste of no-coffee was immediately washed away upon arrival at Gibsons Steps, a staircase carved out of the sheer cliff-face, cutting down two hundred feet to a surf-washed beach that stretched as far as the eye could see to the east. Turning west, we sighted what we decided was the first Apostle. The Twelve Apostles are the drive’s defining feature; a set of sandstone pillars grouped closely together along the coast, best photographed at sunset (we mistimed that bit). After marveling at the great blue surf, we climbed back up to the van and hopped down to the official Twelve Apostles lookout, taking the mandatory photos and enjoying occasional glimpses of the sun between clouds. Further rock formations made for scenic pauses, including Loch Ard Gorge, where a ship sunk in 1878, washing the only two survivors into the gorge. An eerie purple light apparently emanated from the nearby Blowhole, a hundred meters inland, as phosphorous matches from the ship’s cargo signaled the presence of eleven bodies. We also paid a visit to the neighbouring Thundercave, where heavy surf is funneled into a narrow channel that ends in a deep, dark crevice, creating great booming surf for tourists adventurous enough to descend a steep staircase to a fenced ledge inside the channel. A few minutes further down the coast, London Bridge wasn’t quite as impressive as it may have once been, as it used to be a two-arched finger of rock extending off a small peninsula before the arch attached to the coast collapsed in 1990, stranding two surprised tourists on the seaward side (later helicoptered to safety). Late sunset light over the Bay of Martyrs provided one last look at the impressive rock formations of the Great Ocean Road, and we arrived at its end at Warrnambool to stay the night with Liz’s uncle’s friend at her cozy little house filled with African art and decoration.

The coast at Gibsons Steps from above; from below; the ‘first Apostle’; Apostles Two and Three; the rest of ‘em

Liz at the Twelve Apostles; the same with Kieran; mountainous spray against the rocks near the Loch Ard Gorge (hundreds of feet??); a random arch off the coast; the Blowhole near Loch Ard Gorge

The entrance to the Thundercave; with us!; the Bay of Martyrs at dusk

The following morning was dedicated to a guided tour of Warrnambool and a stop to watch a Southern right whale frolicking off Logans Beach. Liz and I then set off for a marathon drive to Adelaide, passing through Mt Gambier (a little town that will come to haunt us).

Liz and I with Carol watching whales in Warrnambool

Four nights and associated days in Adelaide were spent relaxing and recharging once we’d returned our cherished campervan. We stayed with Liz’s relatives whom she’d never before met, Barbara and her son Aubyn. Barbara pampered us to no end, setting out breakfast in the mornings with fresh orange-juice from the tree in the backyard, making lunch and bringing it to us while we read our books, cooking us big suppers, and serving ice cream and cakes for desert, providing rides to the gym and shops, and generally being overly kind and generous. Born and raised in Adelaide, and having been unaware of the existence of any Canadian relatives, twenty-year-old Aubyn somehow still ended up playing ice hockey, something quite understandably uncommon in Australia. He plays for the competitive team in Adelaide, and we went to see him play on Saturday evening (the Adelaide Avalanche versus the Sydney Bears). Although Aubyn only got two shifts, being one of the rookies, the Avalanche won handily, and we went out with the team for dinner to a slick bar, feeling quite underdressed since all the players were required to wear suits.

Liz and I with Barbara, Aubyn, and Winston in Adelaide

We then set off into the heart of outback Australia for our nine-day guided adventure! Read the next post above for all the crazy details!