Australia - Great Ocean Road (Dave)

December 17th - 20th - Adelaide to Melbourne

30 years ago in the summer of 1993 I landed at Cairns international airport to start what would be a year travelling living and working in this incredible country. This is my 5th time travelling to Australia and I still learn and experience something truly unique, fun and awesome every time we visit. 

This time, after a fantastic homestay experience in the islands of Fiji, we landed in Adelaide SA and the next day piled into our Jucy campervan to spend the next seven days driving the Great Ocean Road. 

On the first day, we picked up the van and drove to the coastal town of Portland Bay. In the dusk driving through my favorite Australian wine region, Coonawarra, we saw many Kangaroos and Wallabies along the roadside (and even had a few jump alongside the van as we zoomed down the highway). When we arrived in Portland Bay it was dark and we made our way to our spot at the holiday park. As I pulled up and got out there was a rustling in the trees above and a very large Koala was climbing in the trees above us. I starred in awe and turned to Angie to tell her about it. Then I noticed that a hatch of 1000 mayflies had taken to the open door and interior lights of the Jucy Van and we had a serious bug problem to deal with instead. Quickly, we decided to drive down Portland Bay' main drag with the windows open until we could suck them all out and by the time we got back, our furry friend was long gone. 

Continuing on along the Great Ocean Road to Apollo Bay which is a beautiful little town. We took in the Bay of Islands and stopped at my favorite spot on the great ocean road "The Grotto." The Grotto is a cave, sink hole and archway all in one that has a special beauty to it. Along a trail to look at more formations, Simone spotted a big Echidna as it lumbered through the bush poking its snout into the sandy hills looking for bugs. Our campsite that night overlooked the ocean with beautiful views. 



Next day we continued down the Great Ocean Road to Bells Beach made famous in the movie Point Break where Davie and Simone messed around on the beach. The winds were fiercely on shore so there was definitely no ocean swimming. We continued through Torquay and on to Melbourne where we had dinner at the famous Victoria Market. Victoria Market has a lot of great shopping stalls but is a great place to eat with an amazing array of food stalls and even micro breweries to satisfy the pallet. As we posed to have our photo taken at the Christmas board in the parking lot a strange looking dude bouncing a basketball walked toward us and just shouted "Hey mate!" and tossed the brand new basketball at Davie, "Merry Christmas to ya!" and just carried on walking by. We were gobsmaked and not sure what to do but he just kept on walking away as we shouted our thanks to him. Weird, but even stranger is that all Davie had been talking about for two days was finding a court to play basketball in and he ended up with this brand new ball. After checking out the Victoria Market and having dinner there we headed 45 min out of town to our holiday park which was in a business park. Doing laundry I met an Aussie named Tim who had obviously not talking to anyone in a while and almost stepped on my first possum coming back from the bathroom. 

All in all, it was a really great way to start our trip and to see a bit of South Australia and Victoria. 

Dave 



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