Teresa was reacting to something on the ground at Mum and Dad’s place. She was fine on their top deck, but on the ground there was something in the air which she reacted to badly. Unfortunately that meant she had to spend most of the night in the caravan (as inside their house is still a problem) with the air purifier on. So we decided to leave for home today.
The trip home was uneventful (other than some problems parking when we checked out the Masters closing down sale – it’s harder parking in the city with a caravan in tow!).
It was great to arrive home. After being on the road 4 of the last 6 days, we were both quite tired.
Trip Stats
We travelled 3,997 kilometers in total, and used 663 litres of Diesel. That means the car on average used 16 litres/100km which is pretty good for a V8 with a caravan in tow.
Highlights
For David, the highlights were the Adelaide Oval, and Victor Harbor. I also loved the views at Robe and would love to go back.
For Teresa, definitely the farmers markets and “Grow Local” ethos in South Australia.
Future Trips
Yes, there will be future trips. We’ve already discussed the East coast of NSW and QLD, Western Australia, and Tasmania. Pretty much the rest of the country 🙂
The fact that Teresa can not only survive, but thrive in the caravan is a great sign. As long as we are travel in the non-peak times of yea, and stay away from other caravans in the park, we’ll be fine.
A beautiful morning this morning! It was relatively warm outside (I did not need a jumper when walking the dog) although a bit overcast. There is a front due today, and hopefully we’ll stay ahead of it. Our plan today is to travel the remainder of the Great Ocean Road from Apollo Bay to Torquay, then head to Portarlington for the night.
It was interesting watching the changing towns as we moved towards Melbourne. As we got closer, the seaside towns were larger and more tourists were walking the streets. I guess the closer you are to Melbourne, the more tourists visit there, and the bigger the town and facilities to support them.
The Great Ocean Road itself is magnificent! This leg of the trip took us right along the coast between the sea and the mountains. We saw the damage to the Wye River township from the fires last summer. It was astonishing to be able to look up into the hills and see houses (or their rebuilding) through the forest. We should not have been able to look that far through the undergrowth, but there was no undergrowth there.
We also saw the fire damage closer to Lorne from a few years ago. The trees there had started to regrow. It was amazing to see the burned trees all the way to the shore.
And we saw the damage to the road from this year’s landslides caused by flooding rains. There was still workmen on the road fixing damage and parts of the road were down to one lane. Fortunately it was still open so we didn’t need to detour inland.
Definitely worth travelling the whole Great Ocean Road. We’ll absolutely do it again.
Chocolate Shop
Just after Anglesea, we found the Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie. I had seen it on the map before today, but forgot about it until I saw the sign. Since we’d been to two chocolate shops on this trip, I thought it was necessary for us to do a comparison between all three. (That’s how I sold it to Teresa anyway).
The shop had some absolutely gorgeous presentations both inside the store with the chocolates, and outside in the building itself. They’ve spent a lot of money in setting up the place, and in their goods. And it shows in the price – everything was above $10. The cups below were $13, and another display with a champagne glass and some dark/milk/white chocolate inside was $20.
We bought some chocolate ice cream and a block of chocolate.
Lunch
We made a bypass to see Bells Beach – not much to see there today. As we left, the rain from the front started so we decided to stop for lunch at the next town, Torquay. Once there, we found a great spot overlooking the ocean and transferred into the caravan for lunch. As we did, the rain became more persistent as the front came through.
I must say, we still love being able to pull over, open the caravan, and have a healthy lunch in relative luxury. Today being able to avoid driving while it was raining was an extra special bonus! BTW Lunch today was a sausage and salad sandwich. We rested for a while until the rain abated.
Just before we headed out, I noticed our TV antenna falling off the roof, and only being held on by the antenna cable. Neither of us remember seeing it like this when we last parked the caravan, and we don’t remember going under any trees that might have knocked it off. If it wasn’t a tree, the only other option could be vibration has knocked the screws loose. We don’t use the TV antenna anyway, so I’m not worried about it, but I will need to make sure no water gets inside. So I removed the antenna and will tape up the holes at Mum and Dad’s place.
We’ll decide if we’ll talk to the caravan store about the malfunction. There are a couple of things that have broken on the van… the antenna, a clip on the awning, and the fridge won’t run while on battery power. All minor things.
Portarlington
We arrived at Portarlington at 3pm and spent a lovely couple of hours with Mum and Dad on their front deck followed by a delicious roast dinner. Thanks Mum!
I filled the car one last time, and also gave it a wash. After the rain over the last few days, it had gotten quite dirty. I’ll wash the caravan when we get home.
A late start today. We’ve finalized the plans for the end of our trip. We’ll leave Apollo Bay tomorrow and head to Portarlington and stay a night with Mum and Dad. Then on Tuesday, we’ll head home.
There is only one path to walk the dog from the park – along the beach – and we did that yesterday, So today I put Leo in the car and we drove to Apollo Bay to walk around the town. Very few people around (although it was 9am on Sunday morning – when I came through later the town was buzzing). Apollo Bay has a fantastic foreshore with quite a few art pieces and impeccably manicured gardens. We walked back along the main strip shops. I passed 5 cafes, all with patrons inside having breakfast. Not full, but I’m sure they will be in a couple of weeks.
One of the cafes’ menus stated their bread was from a local bakery, La Mana, so I made sure to find it. One of my tasks as well as walking the dog was to find some fresh bread for lunch. Most of the nicer bread (wholegrain etc) was already sold out, so I got a plain loaf and a french stick.
After lunch, Teresa wanted to recover ready for the long car trip home over the next few days, so I decided to head out to a few walking tracks. I wanted to visit the Otway Fly (a skyway over the forest) and the Otway Lighthouse, so I planned a round trip through the mountains going through Skeene’s Creek then up to Stevensons Falls, the Otway Fly and the lighthouse before returning home. Here is my trip:
David’s Sunday Trip
Stevensons Falls was my first stop. To get there, followed the signs off the main road and onto a gravel road that quickly changed to a one lane road winding down the mountain side. It was quite picturesque (even if slow).
Would you believe I got stuck in a traffic jam? I have the picture to prove it! I gather there were four cars in convoy (as they all turned off together) but the front car was so slow, I had to finish the journey at slower than walking pace.
Just before the falls was the Stephenson campground. There were a number of tents and interestingly 2 caravans parked. Definitely free camping – no power and a composting toilet.
The convoy turned off at the campground while I continued to the falls. There is a small carpark (only one other car there) and a 1km walk up the river to the falls. As I got closer, the sound of the running creek slowly morphed into the roar of water over a waterfall. The waterfall is 122 meters high and because of the recent rain there was lots of water cascading down.
Backtracking to the main road (not taking as long thankfully), I headed to the Otway Fly. On the map, the road looked like it had a few bends, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how many and tight they were! My first warning was a sign that read “Road not suitable for coaches or caravans” and the name of the road was “Turton’s Track”. The road quickly narrowed to a single lane (just like the road to Stephensons Falls) and signposted at 40km/h. At least this time the track was paved. Fortunately I saw only three other cars in the whole 10km track.
While the road was narrow, the country I drove through was absolutely spectacular! Dappled sunlight shone through multiple layers of branches in the rainforest. I couldn’t completely admire the view because I had to concentrate on the road, but I did stop a couple of times just to look around.
I arrived at the Otway Fly a few minutes before 4pm, which was good timing because the treetop walk takes an hour and the close at 5. The walk takes you into the rainforest, along the ground first. Half way into the walk, they have provided elevated gantries that take you into the mid level of the forest, as well as a tower to the treetops.
The walk was quite well done with lots of information panels describing parts of the rainforest, or to highlight something in the local area. The total length of the walk was around 2km.
I took quite a few interesting detail shots of the forest too.
I finished just before 5, which meant the Otway Lighthouse would be closed by the time I got there. So I headed home finishing my circuit. I’ll come back to the Lighthouse another time.
Teresa’s afternoon was filled with washing (she LOVES having a washing machine in the caravan) and she’s worked out a really quick way to dry clothes… She hangs the clothes in the shower along with the portable dehumidifier we bought for her cookies. A few hours later (depending on the humidity in the air), the clothes are dry! It’s allowed us to wash in the morning and put the ‘dryer’ on before we head out for the day. When we get back, everything’s dry and we don’t have to worry about showers or rain.
Tomorrow we finish the Great Ocean Road. Mum said it’s a very winding road, but it can’t be as bad as the track from today!
What a storm! A strong front came through last night, and buffeted the caravan around. The BoM said gusts of 100km/h were common. At one point there was also hail and lightning. Neither of us got much sleep (neither did many of the other campers we found out this morning).
Because of the atrocious weather, any thought of photographing the 12 Apostles was completely out. Checkout at the reserve is noon, so we had a leisurely morning – a long morning actually as we both work at 6am – in the caravan before packing up. Teresa made a lovely breakfast of scrambled eggs (Maria’s eggs).
We drove through the Otways National Park on the way to Apollo Bay. It was still windy and we had some rain so the drive through the mountains wasn’t that easy. We did pass through some amazing scenery and views though. At one point we both said ‘wow’ in unison!
We’re not staying at Apollo Bay itself, but at a caravan park a little south called Marengo. It’s a nice park on the ocean (no views unfortunately). It’s a little expensive – $37/night is more than we paid everywhere else other than Robe – but nice.
After a busy few days it was nice to relax this afternoon. Teresa made some pasta with Maria’s tomato sauce (thanks Maria for supplying two meals today!) and we plan to turn in early.
Another lovely morning. Today is meant to be the best day weather-wise for the next week, so it’s a perfect day to tackle the Great Ocean Road.
We packed up the caravan and left the park (9:59am) heading for Warrnambool. The road on the way was highly trafficked with logging trucks from the plantations. I tried to anticipate trucks arriving behind me (I was doing 90) and find a spot on the side of the road to pull over so I didn’t hold them up too much. I was rewarded for my efforts by some ‘thank you’ gestures (blinking left and right blinkers alternatively) as trucks sped away.
The first medium town we passed was Port Fairy. It seems a lovely historic town and we both commented we should come back. We even stopped beside a caravan park to look it up on Wikicamps to see how it rated. Badly… 3/5 stars and lots of comments saying it’s overpriced. Doesn’t matter, there are three other parks to choose from.
Wikicamps has been a great help in choosing parks – we haven’t gone really wrong with our choice yet. The worst park we stayed at was in Adelaide, but that was only because the caravans around us were drying washing, so we needed to keep our windows closed. At least we were only there one night. And we’ve found some real gems like Williamstown.
We sped through Warrnambool. We were planning to eat lunch there, but at 11:20 we were a little early. We thought we could eat a salad sandwich, but needed some meat to include. We found an Italian deli on our route (thanks again, Internet). I stayed with the car and dog while Teresa ran in. She messaged me a few seconds later while in the store: “As good as Mercato! I’ll be a few minutes!”. She ended up taking almost 30 minutes, but I didn’t mind as she found some great pressed meats, bread, yoghurt and some bacon from Angaston (in the Barossa).
After Warrnambool, the Great Ocean Road starts. Just past the turnoff, we stopped at Warrnambool Cheese and Butter. Teresa has been wanting to try some butter from this company for use in her Cookie Love baking but was unable to get a wholesale account quick enough. So we headed to their retail store and bought some butter to eat on the trip, as well as more for her Christmas baking. While there she also bought some tasty, Swiss and cheddar cheese.
We then hit the coast at the Bay of Islands and traveled to the Bay of Martyrs. These are kind of like the 12 Apostles, but fatter and not as tall. Still, they are an amazing site. It was getting windy by this point in the day too, but at least the wind was not cold. It was about 20 degrees outside.
Bay of Islands
There was a small beach you could visit with some amazing rock formations. I spent some time there looking for some different shots like this one:
We decided to stop for lunch – bread and meat from the deli, cheese from just down the road, salad from…. a supermarket (3 out of four ain’t bad). It was lovely sitting in the caravan with the above view outside our window!
Bailey Lunch Van
Next was the Grotto. This is a hole that’s been dug into the rock by the weak acid in the rainwater. Lots of stairs in this one and no dogs allowed, so Teresa stayed in the car. The ocean outside the Grotto was amazingly turbulent. I took a video, but we don’t have the bandwidth for me to upload it yet. Maybe on a later day.
Next was London Bridge and the Arch. We skipped those because we figured we’d get to the campsite first, the come back when the caravan wasn’t behind us. We also passed the 12 Apostles and bee-lined our way to the Princetown Recreation Reserve. It’s a campsite beside the town’s oval that doesn’t have bookings and is pretty cheap – $25 for a powered site. The water is bore water, but we have full tanks from Portland, so haven’t worried about connecting water.
This was another find from Wikicamps. The site is only 8 minutes from the 12 Apostles, so really close to the local attractions. There is a caravan park at Princeton, but Wikicamps had comments saying it was closed. We rolled up and there were only two other vans in the powered area. Teriffic! We chose a spot half way between each and setup.
I headed back to the 12 Apostles to take a look and scope the area for Teresa. When passing by this afternoon, we saw plenty of cars in the carpark, so were worried about the smell factor. The Apostles are definitely spectacular, and definitely worth a look, but for me it was spoiled by the number of other people there. Travelling off-season has spoiled us because most of the sites we’ve visited have had very few other tourists.
Also, because of the time of day (mid-Afternoon) the sun was behind the rock formations which made them very hard to photograph well. The places I read said early morning is the best time, so I’m considering getting up early and coming back… the advantages of a close campsite!
12 Apostles
There were a couple of rocks East (not technically part of the Apostles), showing off the strata.
I didn’t hang around long… there was a front and change approaching and it was VERY windy out on the exposed cliff. Before heading back, I took a look at the Gibson Steps. These are steps that were carved into the rock by local Hugh Gibson working on traditional tribe access. It’s quite a site seeing these tall cliffs from below.
I returned home and Teresa decided there were too many tourists for her to go. I was hoping to go back close to sunset, but the front was quickly approaching and there were grey clouds to the west.
Shortly before the front arrived, a new caravan parked beside us. I recognised the van and car – they had been following us from the Cheese shop near Warrnambool. I parked next to them at the cheese shop and noticed the van again at the Bay of Martyrs and again at the Grotto. I’ll need to say hi tomorrow morning.
As dark settled the storm came though. The BOM had issued a strong wind warning for almost all the Victorian coast with gusts of over 100km/h expected. I don’t know if we got winds that strong, but they definitely buffeted out caravan around most of the evening. It should abate by the morning – hopefully we’ll be able to sleep through it tonight.
We’re planning to head to Apollo Bay tomorrow and stay there a couple of days. We’ve had 4 days of travelling with only one day off, and we’d like to take it easy for a bit. Plus visit some of the attractions around the Otways.
A slow start today. As it appears we have unlimited Internet here (yey!), I spent the morning backing up photos to the cloud and downloading some TV programs our Myth had recorded at home.
We also did some research on the Great Ocean Road and have decided on a plan of attack. We’ll drive the caravan to a park close to the 12 Apostles tomorrow. I want to try to capture the 12 apostles at sunset as that will have the best light. On Sat we’ll head to Apollo Bay for at least three days and use that as a base for exploring the Otways.
We had some local fish and chips for lunch (which was disappointing) then ventured to Cape Bridgewater, the Blowhole and the fossilized forest.
Cape Bridgewater is excellent! It’s a large bay west of Portland with pristine clear water and an immaculate beach. We found a road called Panorama Drive that we figured would show us a great overview of the cape, and we were right! We did find a caravan park here, but quickly discounted it because it only had 3 starts on Wikicamps (we try to look for 4+) and there is no mobile reception.
Cape Bridgewater
I’m still amazed at how often when we go places, there is almost no one else there. I’m sure it would be different in peak times, but when we went past, there was only one group on that whole beach, and only one other car at the blowhole.
The sea at the Blowhole was ferocious – waves pounding on the cliff rocks relentlessly. We think we must have been there at the wrong tide level because we didn’t see a blow hole per se – just sprays of water generated by the rock face. Still pretty impressive though.
The Blowhole
Teresa walked back to the car after that, but I walked across the cliff a bit to the petrified forest. These are rocks that look like tree trunks, but were actually formed by limestone and millions of years of water erosion.
We visited at the wrong time of day for photos – midday. This was the best I took:
Petrified Forest
A final highlight of this area was the wind farm right on the coast. We passed through the Cape Bridgewater wind farm which consists of 29, 2MW windmills. Neither Teresa or I had gotten this close to windmills before, and it was quite impressive driving up to these massive beasts.
Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm
Windmills up close with Teresa and Leo in the foreground for scale
We then headed back to town and filled the car for our trip tomorrow. Tiny isn’t too bad with fuel economy – we have driven over 600km on one tank towing the caravan since our last fill up in Victor Harbor. That’s 20km/l on windy days.
Back at the caravan park, I tried to keep downloading more shows, but unfortunately they’d fixed their login system, so we were back to the 500mb limit. Fine for regular browsing, but not for TV shows.
Teresa was feeling dizzy so we had a quiet evening. Tomorrow, we plan to see the 12 Apostles and stay our first night in a Reserve and not a caravan park. Of course, I’ll let you know how it goes!
The main thing we noticed today was how much worse the roads are in Victoria than South Australia. Almost as soon as we crossed the border, we were running over potholes and badly completed patches.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We awoke to an overcast day. The caravan park is close to town, so I took Leo for a walk along the main strip. As well as the usual gift shops, post office etc, I walked past four cafes, all open at 8am in the morning and all with customers. I can just imagine how busy they would be in peak time.
I didn’t go in for breakfast, as checkout time for the park was 10am. On past experience, we’ve left the park either just before, or just after the 10am time, and we didn’t want to make it any later.
We’re continuing our drive home today, and plan to head to Portland. Originally we were going to travel to Mount Gambier and stay there, but as Mt Gambier is only 1.5 hours away, and Portland is 3, we figured we’d prefer more time in the car on one day and one less setup/packup of the van.
Maybe we are getting better at it, or maybe it’s because we didn’t unpack much last night, but we were on our way at 9:30am heading to Mount Gambier.
On the way, we passed a lot of tree plantations all in various stages of growth. I remember seeing a lot of those when we last came to this area for Databook.
We arrived around 11am and decided to stop for a while and grab some lunch at a bakery. After driving slowly through the town looking for one, I thought it might be easier to search online. I found this amazing little bakery really close to us called the Wehl St Homestyle Bakery. I figured It must be good because it wasn’t in a main street, and was set back from the road so had no street frontage. If they weren’t any good, they would not have survived.
I bought a shepherds pie with bacon and it was delicious! The also had some cinnamon doughnuts with custard in the middle that I also needed to try (also delicious). Teresa ate the rest of the prosciutto sandwich from yesterday. Again, it was great to stop the car, open the caravan and comfortably sit to have lunch.
Portland
After lunch, we finished the trip to Portland returning to our home state in the process (yey!) and losing 1/2 hour because of the time zone change.
I don’t remember much of Portland from last time I was here (Databook again), but I do remember the large port and parks along the shore. Both were still here, and the caravan park we selected is in the middle of town and close to the shore.
It was almost empty – the park owner even said “You can even park over two sites if you like”. We chose a spot away from the amenities and with a partial view, and rested the rest of the afternoon. After two solid days driving, we were both quite tired.
At 5pm I thought I’d take a look at the beach, and took Leo along for the walk. At the park, we are on the top of a 25 meter cliff. There is a road on one side, and a park on two sides. There is a well constructed set of stairs (which Leo loved running down) down to the beach. From the number of dogs on the beach when we got there, it seems as if this beach is Portland’s dog walking beach. I’m not surprised it is… with a cliff, rocks, and the ocean bordering three sides, and the information center on the fourth, it’s a really safe place to let dogs off their leash and know they won’t be hit by cars.
Just before dusk, two cars arrived – one towing a caravan and the other a trailer that converts into a tent. Although there are plenty of empty sites available, they proceeded to setup right next to our site. Maybe they were trying to get the same view we were. Looks like 2 grandparents, 2 parents and 4 kids aged from 1 to 8. Teresa and I were a little miffed they setup right next door. I wonder if we’re turning into old fogeys? Other than some noise setting up, they have been relatively quiet, so all good. They just stole our view.
We had a healthy dinner of pork (the leftover from our anniversary meal in the Barossa) and salad and retired early.
We’ll take a look around Portland tomorrow and probably take the caravan to Warrnambool on Friday.
We’ve loved Victor Harbor, and really enjoyed staying here, but it’s time to move on. We plan to head down the coast today to Robe. Interestingly, there was a mass-exodus from the caravan park this morning. We ended up having 4 other sites occupied in our area by Monday night, and all but one packed up and left this morning. They’re going to have the whole area to themselves.
We left just before 10am. The plan was to head straight to Robe – but as there is no direct road (Lake Alexandrina is in the way), we first needed to head north to Murray Bridge before heading south again. Google says the trip will take 4 hours, but with our stops every hour or so, and travelling at 90, I knew it would take longer (the trip ended up taking 5.5 hours).
The first leg was windy roads and great views as we headed up the mountains. We joined the M1 highway just before Murray Bridge but decided to head into town to take a look. We stopped at the side of the road at a fruit and veg shop where Teresa bought some salad for tonight.
After Murray Bridge, travelling down the east side of Lake Alexandrina, the scenery changed to be mostly flat. It reminded us of the flat plains on the way to Mildura. The road headed to the coast the followed it the rest of the way.
This section of coastline has a long lagoon called the Coorong running parallel to the coast separated by a high sand dune. The road is on the land side of the Coorong so while we saw a lot of water, we didn’t see any coast.
Salt Creek
We stopped for lunch at a place called Salt Creek (this location on the map – looks like we’re in the middle of nowhere!). Just a takeaway store and a couple of houses really. There was a historic oil rig that was placed here because this area was one of the first places where they drilled for oil in the state. The information board praised oil so much that I figure the whole monument had been paid for by oil companies.
Lunch was pre-prepared by Teresa. Prosciutto and sopressa from Mercato Adelaide on top of Sourdough bread purchased from a Port Elliot shop. We’ve been looking for “Eat Local SA” signs on shops to taste the local produce.
Teresa loving being in the open air. Memorial oil rig is in the background.
After lunch, as it was the first of the month, I needed to send a new lot of email for the Photography Dash. I love how modern technology allows me to send tips to subscribers all around the world while sitting in a caravan on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere!
Robe
We arrived in Robe just before 4pm, and checked into the caravan park. We had decided last night when we booked to get a ‘sea view’ site and pay a little extra for it. There was only one other van in this area – the vans behind us are higher, but the front points away from the view. I’m calling that area the ‘cheap seats’.
We weren’t disappointed with the site – the view here is absolutely stunning! Wow!
This is just one part of the view. The camera just doesn’t capture the full vista.
We setup the caravan then headed into town to do some sightseeing. Teresa had seen a sign on our way here advertising crayfish, so we asked the park manager. She pointed us to a local fish shop that was still open. Crayfish here are $105 a kilo so we purchased a small one for dinner.
Before we headed back, we thought we’d take a look around Robe. This was our second Wow moment for this town! Ragged cliffs jutted up from the sea The south side of the town is exposed to the southern ocean, so it was quite windy and those winds were generating some massive waves. The vista was again absolutely stunning.
Southern ocean from the top of the cliffs. Random person included for scale.
After looking around for a bit, we headed back to the van for crayfish salad for dinner. It wasn’t as tasty as other crays we’d had, but it was still nice.
We finished the day listening to the sea crashing on the beach below us.
Tomorrow will be another driving day. We were originally planning to stop at Mount Gambier for one night, but will instead travel onto Portland and spend a couple of days there.
