Driving on The Great Ocean Road

  Port Campbell, Australia
Tuesday, November 27, 2007

After spending the weekend in Melbourne with Dan and Brooke I headed along the Great Ocean Road and then on to Adelaide. The Great Ocean Road is known as one of the nicest drives in Australia. Going from Melbourne to Adelaide is a pretty long drive (around 1200KM) and seeing as I was going to do this in 2 days I wanted to hire a nice car. I wasn't disappointed. The lady at Hertz gave me a Ford XR6 here. It's a 4 litre, V6 beast and although it's an automatic it has lots of punch and a pretty high top end.

The Beast

I knew I was going to have a lot of fun with this car. I also knew I'd have to stop somewhere overnight but I didn't really have a clue as to where so I just started driving and decided to see where I ended up - if there's one thing I've learnt since starting travelling it's that often, the less you plan, the better the experience. I've also found that wherever you go there's always somewhere to stay. The big advantage of this approach is that if you like somewhere along the way and want to stop then you can because you've got no deadlines and no fixed itinerary. So off I went and soon enough the sprawling suburbs of Melbourne were behind me. It was a glorious summer's day and I was very quickly blasting down the motorway towards the great Ocean Road enjoying the V6 power as we boys tend to do. Within an hour I was on the winding road by the sea - I was on the Great Ocean Road - with cliffs on one side and the massive, breaking waves of the Indian Ocean on the other - the windows down, music on and enjoying the magnificent vistas - in a word, it's great! I stopped maybe 8 or 9 times along the way on this first day wherever another awesome vista opened up. It was remarkable to me just how big the of the ocean were. It looked as if the ocean was breathing as the waves that had travelled thousands of miles on the open ocean prepared to crash against the shore.

Welcome to the Great Ocean Road

Endless skies on the Great Ocean Road

Winding through the Great Ocean Road

Waves crashing in from the Pacific

Looking out across the Great Ocean Road

Endless Skies on the Great Ocean Road

Girl Surfing

Lighthouse

Lighthouse #2

Great Ocean Road - Two fisherman

Approaching the Twelve Apostles

The Grotto

Another Cove

The same cover looking the other way

The Arch

They don't discriminate against dogs!

It was great to be back on the open road again and I didn't want to stop. It was only when I started to get  near to a place called Port Campbell and the sun was starting to set that I figured that this would be a good place to stop overnight. You soon learn when driving anywhere in Australia that there can be many hundreds or even thousands of kilometres between towns in certain parts of Australia and looking at my map Port Campbell seemed to be a good choice to rest up for the night. In any case Port Campbell is near the famous Twelve Apostles Rock formations and it would be a good place to make a start in the morning . I had a lovely meal overlooking the bay as the sun went down and treated everyone to a magnificent sunset. It was so peaceful and quiet in this little place and as the sun set so the stars came out and nature gave us another of her beautiful shows - every now and again a shooting star would dash across the sky like a stray firework. It was a lovely end to another great day.

Port Campbell sunset 1

Port Campbell sunset 2

Port Campbell sunset 3

Port Campbell the day after

On the Thursday (29th November) the day started like most have been in Australia - bright
and sunny and warm. I wanted to make an early start because I realised that I had to drive
still 800 KM to Adelaide in one day. I don't know how I did it, but I completely misjudged
the distance between Melbourne and Adelaide and so I had to some serious catching up to do. On top of this I still had to visit the Twelve Apostles so I knew it was going to be a long
old day. I set off at 10am (not early I know, but I'm not a morning person) and drove the
short distance to the Twelve Apostles - they were absolutely fantastic - they stand defiantly in the sea, and yet somehow with the resignation that they will one day be swallowed by the
relentless swell that is forever shaping and slowly pushing back this ancient coastline. I
was extremely lucky because within 10 minutes of arriving at the first viewing point a sea
fog came rolling in. Within 5 minutes the fog had completely enveloped the rocks and visibility was down to less than 100 metres. I was lucky because many people
arrived after me and they didn't get to see anything. For me, it was awesome just to watch the fog swirling around the headland in a very bizarre way - it was like being on the lip of a giant kettle!

Twelve Apostles #1

Twelve Apostles #2

Twelve Apostles #3

Twelve Apostles #4

The Fog is coming but we dont care

At this point I want to say something about Australia that you never read in the travel brochures, and that is the flies - they are everywhere! Since I arrived in Sydney two weeks earlier the flies have been a constant nuisance. You cannot escape them and they love to annoy you - they like to fly into your eyes and mouth and no matter how much you swat them they always come back and they never seem to get tired. I'd kind of got used to swatting them by the time I'd arrived here this morning, but today they were worse than ever. They don't even respond to fly spray!

Covered in Flies

The Flies Attack

In a way it was quite good that the fog came because it gave me the motivation I needed
to tackle the next leg of the journey to Adelaide - time was getting on and I had a long
way still to go. Once you've passed the Twelve Apostles the road starts to head inland fairly quickly and so it wasn't long until I was heading inland and through some lovely scenery - rolling hills gave way to sandy scrub as I made my way to Adelaide.

Long way to go

And there was even some pine forest along the way. The road was long and straight and I got to do some pretty outrageous speeds...it's a good job that you're in the middle of nowhere so that there are no other cars or police around...or so I thought. After driving for a solid 6 hours with little or no stops I started to get nearer to Adelaide where I would fly out to Ayers Rock the next day. I'd met a girl (Nina) who owned a ranch near Adelaide when I'd been in Auckland and she'd said that if I was passing Adelaide while in Australia that I should stop at her place and say hi. I had sent a couple of emails to her when I'd realised I'd be passing through and she'd said it would be fine to stop by, but I hadn't had time to warn her that I'd be passing through today so when I saw a signpost for her town I figured I'd chance it and try and find her place. It was starting to get dark and I was running low on fuel and I only had an address - but I didn't want to not go and then regret it. So I turned off at the signpost to "Strathalbyn" and headed out into the dusk. I followed a country road into Strathalbyn not knowing what to expect or if I'd be able to find her street and as it turned out I couldn't find it. Although Strathalbyn is pretty small I think it was a bit overoptimistic to expect her street to magically appear. I drove around for 20 minutes down a number of lanes but I conceded defeat as it was getting dark, I was still 50km from Adelaide and I didn't have anywhere to stay for the night. So I headed back to Adelaide. As I put my foot down and headed out into the night in my rear view mirror I saw a set of lights following me in the distance. This is nothing unusual (although you can drive for ages without seeing another car on many Aussie roads) but the difference here was that although I was going over the speed limit these lights were getting closer. I instinctively let off the gas. I was right too, as within a few seconds the car was behind me and the blue and red flashing lights came on...I was being pulled over by the police! I knew I'd been driving pretty fast back there, but I wasn't sure how fast and I was a bit worried because I'd been driving some fairly spectacular speeds earlier on in the day and I figured that was all going to come back and haunt me now. I pulled over, wound down the window and tried to look as innocent as I could. The policewoman was actually really friendly - she told me that she'd been passing the opposite direction and her radar had picked me up doing 119 in a 100km/h zone (I didn't realise that police cars had forward pointing radar!) and she asked me to step out of the car and show my driver's licence. She couldn't have been more friendly - there was none of the british police attitude of "You've been a silly boy then haven't you..." she just said it was going to cost me 300 dollars (that's alot!) and how was my holiday going and what was I doing here and where was I going. When I told her that I was trying to find my friend she even got her map out to try and help. Now that's what I call a positive booking! I mean, you wouldn't get that in the UK would you? Or am I being too cynical? But the best bit was yet to come - I asked her what I needed to do with regards to paying the fine. She paused for a second and then she said, "I shouldn't really say this, but if you're not planning to come back to Australia any time soon I'd just file it in the bin. I have to issue it, but it's up to you whether you pay it or not." I gave her my biggest, happiest grin. She could have been all serious, but she was honest and I admired that. Having said all this, I may want to come back here and work one day so I will pay the fine. I even thanked her in the end, because I really felt that although I'd been done for speeding it was actually a pleasant experience! We exchanged goodbyes and I drove off (slowly) towards Adelaide. I found somewhere close to the airport, had a couple of beers and finally fell straight asleep after driving 1200km in two days! The next stop - Uluru (Ayers Rock).