| "Planes, Trains & Greyhound Buses" - part 2 |
| 22 June 2004 |
| ...continued from page 1... After catching the "Olympic Torch Relay" through Melbourne, and seeing Aussie athletic legend Cathy Freeman helping to light the mini-Olympic cauldron in Federation Square, it was time for us to head out of Melbourne We'd hired a camper van from a company called "Wicked" over here. Their trademark campers can't be missed if you were to see them out on the roads...basically the company buy up campers then spray paint them with random designs like "The Simpsons", "Star Wars", cartoon characters, landscapes, or ours, which was an Aboriginal design (photos to go onto the pics pages soon!) I did feel a slight moment of dread though when we rocked up at the depot to pick up the van and sitting outside was a van covered in painted on Viagra tablets...and a rather fitting message accompanying on the back door...secretly I was thinking "oh s*it, maybe this wasn't such a great idea, I can't drive round in that thing for a week!?", but luckily they'd tucked our rather less daring van round the back...phew!! So, with our more appealing van collected, we set about getting used to driving the thing! When you compare it to our "Tonka-toy" cars we're used to driving at home, it was like driving nothing short of a bus!! With the driving part mastered, we sussed out the map and headed up to Ballarat, about a hundred kilometres east of Melbourne...an old Goldrush town...couldn't find much there, the museums were quite expensive, so we had a wander at the old Goldrush buildings, then got back on the road to make it to Torquay before nightfall. Our first night to sleep in the van...was going to be an experience...and it was!! Picture us rocking up at a campsite, in the dark, driving to our pitch...no lights around, so having to cook our "2-minute noodles" in the dark, well by torchlight anyway, in the freezing cold (only slightly warmer than Canberra!) on a gas bottle with burner attachment thingy, in fairly windy conditions...then out of the 2 bowls we had, one had a ciggie burn in the bottom, so one of us had to eat out of the saucepan...just how do "2 minute" noodles take half an hour to cook?!?!? There's definately something wrong there!!? With our lavish dinner over and done with, we retired for the night (actually it was only about 9pm, but we were both tired, nothing to do, couldn't read by the car light as it was too dim, so just went to sleep!)...but we both absolutely froze!!!! Just whose idea was it to sleep in a camper van in the middle of the Aussie Winter!! Yep, non-Aussie perceptions are of a country with year-round sunshine and warmth...well, it doesn't quite work like that!! So with 4 layers of clothing on inside our sleeping bags we managed to grab a few hours of sleep, just waiting for the minute the sun would come up and give us a little bit of warmth!! And yes, before you all ask, they didn't provide us with a heater in the van, just a normal heater like on a car...but unless we were gonna leave the engine running all night, that idea wouldn't work either! Well, with our 1st night over with we set out to do some more driving, first stopping in at "Surfworld", the largest surf museum in the world, then by "Bells Beach"...this is one of the world's most famous surf beaches, and they hold World Championships here every year...not that there was much surf around today!! Then onto the most scenic part of the drive, the Great Ocean Road. The scenery's beautiful, picture a road perched on the side of a cliff, with the rocks and the bright blue sea crashing below, then every now and then we drove past where a river would meet the sea and wind over flat sandy beaches with stunning green mountainsides behind it!! It was stunning, though as with these types of "scenic drives" it's always a challenge to keep your eyes on the road and not to keep looking at all the scenery!! We decided to be smart today and cook our noodles for lunch in the daylight, so there we were in a layby next to the beautiful beach with our little camping stove cooking 2 minute noodles by the side of the road!! Was quite a funny sight!! We made it to the spot we wanted to for sunset...the Twelve Apostles...huge pillars of rock jutting out of the sea, and probably the most well-known sight of the Great Ocean Road. We endured a slightly more comfortable night after spending the evening chatting to other campers round the campfire in our next campsite, and they offered us some blankets which we were pretty thankful for! Day 4 of the tour was heading up to the Grampians - a mountain range a few hours inland from the Great Ocean Road. It had been chucking it with rain ALL day and the mountains were freezing so we chickened out and spent the night in a hostel...proper beds, free breakfast and a toasty warm fire to sit round!! The next day, the weather was beautiful and we got to explore the area including beautiful Mackenzie Falls, and the Balconies, which are, as they sound, rock balconies, pretty cool! We had a scary encounter with a kangaroo just around dusk too!! The hugest kangaroo I've seen decided to bound in front of us when we were driving! Very scary, but Shaz slammed on the brakes and managed to miss it...it just looked at us and kept on bouncing!!! Cheeky thing!! Day 5 was mostly driving along long long dead straight roads, and we arrived into Adelaide and into the relative luxury of a hostel!! Yes, a hostel was sheer luxury compared to the van!! And we were very grateful!! Though we weren't so happy to be dropping the van back, and losing our wheels...now back to public transport! Now we had a few days to recuperate, chill out and see a bit of Adelaide before heading up to the Red Centre and to Ayers Rock, which we were a little apprehensive about as we were going to be sleeping outside in swags, but all the same really excited about seeing the Rock!!! .....more to come soon!!... |