Month: March 2008

A blissfully smooth ferry crossing got us to Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island, which is a good job as it can aparently get quite choppy. The heat is quite amazing, and takes quite a lot out of you, even next to the sea where it seems that even the waves are too tired to break on the shore. The sea has that crisp turquoise look to it that I thought was reserved for Pacific islands, and virtually asks you to get in for a swim.
So get in we did, at Emu Bay on the sheltered north of the island. The water for the first few steps was so hot it was like stepping into a bath, but a little further the cool water was tickling our toes. The strangest thing was that the top few inches of water remained hot whilst the bottom got icy cold, so I was walking along with hot knees and frozen feet. The rest of the afternoon was idled away, Caroline soaking and reading, and me snorkelling to pester the little sand critters, and photograph pelicans.

It’s been a fun few days, and a fair few kilometres that we’ve subjected Dad to, but today we dropped him off at Adelaide airport to continue his world tour in Thailand.
Venturing into the city in search of shops proved to be a sticky affair, the city itself looked quite relaxed, with wide streets and a huge open square in the centre, but alas not a shopping centre. Salvation was found out of town, and the air conditioning, along with a couple of ice smoothies brought our temperatures back to normal. As if the cooling retail therapy wasn’t enough, Caroline had some real therapy in the form of a chinese massage to help fix the effects of 2 months of van bed.

With the three of us tootling along in the non-airconditioned van, with one window stuck closed, and largely ineffective fans blowing, the drive up to Adelaide could be understated as hot and sticky.
Beyond a doubt the highlight of the day was finding Larry the Lobster, a “big thing” as per the banana and pineapple from earlier in our trip. Larry is special though – he was originally designed measured in feet but accidentally made in metres, so he’s three times bigger than expected (the photo has Caroline and Dad standing next to him, but they’re just dots!), and a testament as to what can be acheived with fibreglass!
The day finished with a dip in a shady cold swimming pool, absolute bliss after the day in the van. We also managed to squeeze in an Aussie barbeque for Dad’s last dinner with us, well it just wouldn’t be a trip to Australia without one!

The states are just flying past, today ticking off South Australia. Before leaving Victoria, we walked out to Cape Bridgewater to see, and smell the largest colony of fur seals on the Australian mainland. The smell was bad from 50metres up, which makes you apreciate the sterling effort zoos put in to protect our noses.
Also on the cape were blowholes, although not nearly as impressive as the Kiama ones, as these just blew horizontally back from a cave. The petrified forest was so realistic we were even counting the rings on the tree stumps, albeit with the nagging feeling the stumps were just a little too close together. An informative sign further on explained why, the forest doesn’t actually contain any trees, it’s formed by water filtering through the limestone. A fossilised forest sounds a lot more impressive though!
Apart from the obligatory photo stop at the state border signs, Mount Gambier was our first South Australia stop, where we learnt they have a weird half hour time difference, and visited the sinkhole gardens caused by a cave collapsing. The mount itself holds two massive volcanic lakes, with the imaginatively titled Blue Lake doing a good oversized impression of the crater lake from James Bond You Only Live Twice. The lucious blue water looked ripe for jumping into to escape the South Australian heat, if the cliff hadn’t been so high that is.
The drive on to Robe took us on bridges over dried up river beds, dried up lakes and cows seeking shade from the blistering sun. South Australia is the driest state in the driest country in the world, and you really start to appreciate it, and that’s with us in the cooler south east corner!

Today was another treat day, the excuse this time being that Dad turns sixty in a couple of months. Even though we’d seen the Twelve Apostles the night before we returned for another look, this time from the comfort of a helicopter seat! This stretch of eroding sandstone cliffs epitomises the beauty of the Great Ocean Road, and from above is surely the way to appreciate them. Our ride took us first to London Bridge, a sandstone arch that collapsed 20 years ago leaving two unlucky people stranded on the newly formed island. They were especially unlucky as they were married, just not to each other… The fly by of the apostles finished off our wee tour, and with an erosion rate of 2cm a year, we’re lucky there’s still so many standing.
With that excitement over, it was back to the van to continue on, passing some more impressive formations such as the Bay of Martyrs, hardly mentioned, but just as beautiful. We ended up in Portland, not really to see the place, as it doesn’t boast much more than an Aluminium smelter, but was civilization, and spared Dad my cooking for a meal out.

With Dad having cycled a fair chunk of New Zealand, it was hardly surprising that he’d want to get the bike out again to cover a bit of the Great Ocean Road. What was surprising was my enthusiasm and belief I’d be able to do it as easily. For this section the road left the coast and wound up into the forests (notice “up”, and how bad that is for a cyclist). Caroline brought the support vehicle along behind, and we met at Cape Otway for lunch. On the way Dad and I managed to spot the elusive koala, mainly because this particular one chose to start roaring as we stopped for a breather. (Caroline also saw one cross the road, but didn’t get the camera out quick enough!)
Goal for the day was the Twelve Apostles for sunset, a set of twelve rock columns eroded away by the sea, so much so that some are now submerged. We’d also like to know what an apostle is – closest we got was a disciple, but that’s not a definitive answer. As the sun set we were treated to the beautiful orange hues, and reflections of the sea. It was so good that I didn’t even need to use the sunset/cheat mode on the camera (the new official standard on good sunsets).
Once the sun had dropped (along with the temperature!), a group of little penguins appeared on the beach. We had seen the many footprints leading down from the nesting sites to the sea, and were expecting a large flock to be returning. The ten or so that did appear must be the most indesicive penguins around as they made several tentative attempts to get to dry land before we gave up and retreated to the warmth of the campervan!

Our traveller count has increased by one today with the arrival of my (Simon’s) Dad, who is currently doing an around the world jaunt of his own and arrived from New Zealand this morning to join us for a few days.
The morning started with a chill in the air, a reported 9 degrees, which is probably the first time we’ve been in single figure temperatures for a while. But, as they say in Victoria, if you don’t like the weather wait 10 minutes, and true to form there was soon a bit of heat from the sun.
The Great Ocean Road was built after the First World War as a memorial to the soldiers, and a mighty fine memorial it is too. The huge sandstone cliffs have been carved away with pick and shovel (although I’m convinced they must have used explosives, or at least gone through quite a few shovels) to create what must be one of the finest tourist routes around. An attempt to find waterfalls proved futile, as there hasn’t been too much rain recently. However there were scores of sulphur crested cockatoos flying around Teddy’s Lookout in Lorne to keep us entertained, and even kangaroos in the distance to provide Dad with his first glimpse of them, although they were so far away we’re not sure it really counts.

Having our breakfast after having left the campsite seems to be the norm, I’d like to say it’s to admire the views and have breakfast in more impressive surroundings, but it’s really because we don’t manage to get up on time. Today, it was at Arthurs Seat, named after the “Scottish mountain” in Edinburgh, which is a good indication whoever wrote the sign hasn’t seen the original. The Australian one does have an actual seat on it though, so that’s one over the original.
It’s been a good while since we were in a city, having bypassed Sydney on the way down, Brisbane was the last urban stop, and that was when we were still heading north. So with the roads getting busier, and too many lanes to choose from, there was the feeling that maybe after all this rural living we weren’t cut out for city life, or it could just be that Friday afternoon roads aren’t the best way to appreciate a city! We’ll find out in a couple of weeks when we return to Melbourne sans campervan.

A cold and windy morning greeted us at The Nobbies, a couple of huge rocks jutting out of the sea just beyond the Penguin Parade. With a porridge glow keeping us warm, we were ready for the southern ocean winds that were probably last overland in the Antarctic. It’s about then it becomes aparent how far we’ve come since tropical Queensland!
The aptly named Seal Rocks lay just further out to sea, and whilst not visible to the naked eye, telescopes (or my supremely powerful zoom lens on the new camera, which I’ll now stop going on about) revealed that hundreds of seals were basking, or doing whatever seals do, out there.
With our fill of marine life, Dromana on the Mornington Peninsula was the next stop, in view of Melbourne over the bay. Whilst trying to find the campsite entrance we almost drove into a huge car park with big white screens, a drive in theatre of all things! Returning later that night (with a freshly cooked dinner waiting to be eaten) we were treated to not one but two films. There was even an American diner, albeit an early closing one, but alas no roller skating waitresses to be seen.