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.

We’ll get there tomorrow.