Great Ocean Road

The 'terrible' thing about there being free campsites everywhere here and we are not wild camping is that we don't get up as early in the morning. When wild camping, you get up at 7 o'clock sharp and start the day. When camping legally, the alarm clock doesn't ring until 8 o'clock at the earliest, and then you roll from one side to the other with the snooze button for a while. That's how we started at Tanners Road Bend Free Camp on 02.01.

Immediately afterwards, we went to the Great Ocean Road Choclaterie & Ice Creamery. As you can tell - we made it to the famous Great Ocean Road. :) But even for all the delicious sweets, it was still too early for Krissi. Here we already noticed that an unusually large number of people were squeezing through the aisles. So we only nibbled on some of the free chocolate drops and continued our journey.

In the next few days, we visited numerous lookouts that are directly located on the Great Ocean Road, offering great views of the diverse coastline. At this point, we would let the pictures speak for themselves:

Aireys Inlet & Split Point

The Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch commemorates the construction of the Great Ocean Road. The road is a total of 243km long and was built in 1922 - back in those days, it was all done by hand, of course. At that time, it was mainly used to connect the numerous small coastal towns.

We had to move a bit at Sheok Falls and couldn't just fall out of the car at the roadside and enjoy a great view. Okay, it was only 600m, but that was enough to break Krissi's sandals, so she had to walk half of the way back barefoot. The path was quite rocky, but still okay.

We spent the night at Jamieson Track Campground and just managed to get the last good spot. After us, numerous campers came and went unsuccessfully and had to drive to the next campsite. It seems that wild camping is strictly prohibited on the Great Ocean Road. But we always found a legal spot every night. :)

Thursday, 03.01.2019

We enjoyed our breakfast with a direct view of the sea in the sunshine and could watch early surfers. The Wye River BBQ Area :)

At Kennett River, no one really cared about the supposedly existing river - we didn't see it either. Everyone was looking for the little fluffy gray fur balls high up in the trees - koalas. We even caught a glimpse of one. :)

At Apollo Bay Beach, we wanted to cool off in the sea for a moment before jumping into a hot shower. But as soon as our bare feet touched the water, we doubted our plan. We went through with it anyway. The water was so cold that Kenny kept his head dry. We couldn't really enjoy our hot shower either because it was in a container with the only toilet on the entire beach. So we were disturbed after a short time by loud knocking and angry voices. We showered as quickly as we could and were quite stressed, but in the end, we were clean. When we came out of the shower, there was only a sympathetic woman in front of us, the angry woman must have given up. Nice and clean, we had lunch a bit further on a jetty and used the boat cleaning facility to make our car shine as well. :)

Marengo Seals on the Rock (nothing like our seal experience in Narooma, as they were unfortunately too far away to see clearly)

On the way to Cape Otway, where we wanted to see the lighthouse, many tourists suddenly gathered in the middle of the road. We knew that could only mean one thing: koalas! So we also stopped at the next bay and walked back to see the koalas in the wild again.

When we arrived at the Cape Otway Lighthouse, we were greeted by a large fence and a tourist center where you were supposed to pay admission to hike to the lighthouse. Obviously, that was not an option for us, since we had already seen numerous lighthouses on our journey. But since we didn't want our drive to be in vain, we walked along a path along the coast, which according to Wikicamps leads to a free view of the lighthouse. And indeed, there it was. But it looked like you would imagine a lighthouse to look like :)

Since there was no free campground nearby, we stayed the night at Lavers Hill Roadhouse & Tavern Camp for $25. A small peaceful campground. Our rest was only disturbed by late arriving Indians. The whole place was already falling asleep and suddenly three cars arrived with headlights on and about 15 people, including small children, started setting up tents - right next to our car, of course. Krissi was still so angry the next morning that she didn't greet them - a fierce punishment. :D We know how she is when someone disturbs her sleep. :D

Friday, 04.01.2019

The day started with a lot of fun for Kenny. We drove along the Scenic Drive. A dirt road, off-road, but in good condition. Fortunately, we cleaned the car yesterday - pointless. :D

The highlight of the Great Ocean Road are the Twelve Apostles. It was great to visit this place once, but there were so many other tourists there that it was difficult to enjoy it. Especially after the last few months, during which we have come to love the solitude of the vast Australia. The view was still fabulous. By the way, we could only count 10 apostles, new ones keep coming and old ones disappear as they sink and/or collapse. Along the entire Great Ocean Road, you are annoyed by the Australian flies - they desperately want to crawl into your ears, nose, or eyes. On each tourist, there are at least 5 flies. So if you're lucky, they sit peacefully on your back, most of the time they crawl around your face and buzz around your head.

We stopped at the Loch Ard Gorge afterwards. There is a great beach that looks really tempting for swimming. Some brave tourists even dared to take a short dip in the cool sea. We refrained from it because we were half frozen during our last swim in the sea. The sea shines here on the south coast in a beautiful ice blue, but unfortunately it is not as warm as we are used to from the east coast.

We followed some walking paths around Loch Ard Gorge to beautiful viewpoints. The sea has even created some arches and caves here. Wonderful.

In Port Campbell, we got hungry and ordered 2 portions of fish & chips for $24. We were very hungry, so we decided not to cook rice for a long time and thus extend the waiting time. However, as soon as we placed the order, we were told that it would take 30 minutes. Okay, that backfired. Well, once ordered, we waited. And we waited a whole hour! Hungry and a bit annoyed, we grabbed our portion and retreated to a nearby park. Already when carrying it, we noticed that we had obtained a considerable amount. When it was in front of us, it almost left us speechless, so much fish and especially chips were in front of us. Greedily we started to eat and fell in love immediately. They were the best fish & chips we have ever eaten. The anger quickly faded away. By the way, we have already had lunch twice from the portions and we still have a lot of chips left. :D In the evening, we didn't have anything to eat except for a few lettuce leaves because we were still so full. :D

Our trip continued to London Bridge. However, it is unfortunately no longer completely intact. But it still looked pretty cool.

London Bridge

We spent the night again for free at Panmure Free Camp. Clean toilets, BBQ areas, and plenty of space. :) Really a great freecamp.

Saturday, 05.01.2019

We spent almost the whole day in the great little town of Warrnambool. :) Somehow we liked it there.

We walked along a beautiful path along the coast. We saw Middle Island, where 'Little Penguins' apparently nest from September to February. We saw birds that could be penguins, but could also be just other birds. We're not sure. At least we learned that this type of penguins no longer have swimming feathers in late summer and cannot go into the water. They are quite defenseless against attacks from foxes, for example. Middle Island is a good place for them ;)

We had lunch at Lakes Park - here we found an incredibly clean BBQ area :) Two BBQ areas for two people - that's the way to go :D As I said, there were still chips left.

Next, we went to Tower Hill Wildlife Resort, where an inactive volcano crater was waiting for us - but it looks like a normal mountain, doesn't it?

The Tower Hill Wildlife Resort is apparently tailored to people who like to be comfortable. You can drive through it by car and if you like, you can occasionally take short hikes.

From the Tower Hill Lookout, you had a beautiful view all the way to the sea.

However, the highlight there were a koala and an emu at the picnic area. :) Unfortunately, despite the ban, many tourists still feed the emus here.

Port Fairy is almost at the end of the Great Ocean Road and should be another highlight. Unfortunately, we didn't feel that way, so we didn't stay there for long. But that doesn't matter, because the Great Ocean Road has given us many beautiful experiences.

In the nearby Portland, we enjoyed a free hot shower. Well, Kenny enjoyed it because the timer for his shower didn't work. For Krissi, it meant showering for 3 minutes, waiting 5 minutes for the water to come back on, and quickly finishing the shower in another 3 minutes. But still better than showering completely cold :D

We had a nice ending to the day at dinner, where we enjoyed the evening with a view of the sea and the sunset at Nun's Beach.

View of the sea in Portland