Melbourne - Adelaide / Great Ocean Road

09.08.2024:
We got ready, drove into the city of Melbourne, and went to Skydeck Melbourne. It’s an observation tower, similar to the one in Sydney, but not quite as tall. However, the views from up there were still fantastic. After that, we went back to the apartment and just chilled again.

10.08.2024:
Today we thought we would go for some drinks. So we went to a pub at 1:00 PM and had our first beer. The people we talked to there were all very nice. We really got to enjoy ourselves. However, the night couldn’t go on too long since we have to pick up the next car at 8:00 AM tomorrow.

11.08.2024:

Woke up at 7:15 AM. I could have easily slept for another 4 hours, but that wasn’t possible. We took an Uber to the Melbourne airport and rented a car for the trip from Melbourne to Adelaide. The route we will be driving for the next 3 days is one of the most famous routes here in Australia. It’s called the “Great Ocean Road,” and it’s really difficult to concentrate on the road because the views are absolutely stunning throughout. In the evening, we arrived in Apollo Bay, where we booked a hostel for the night in a shared room with 3 other people. One of our roommates smelled like a tipped-over spice cabinet, and his snoring and smacking were really disgusting.

12.08.2024:

When I woke up, I quickly wanted to leave the room to take a shower and breathe in some better air since there were no windows to open. After breakfast, we drove to a beautiful waterfall in a national park, then to the Twelve Apostles (huge limestone cliffs standing in the ocean), and finally to the “London Bridge,” which is also a large limestone formation in the water but has a hole in the middle. In the evening, we reached our hostel in Port Fairy. Because we visited some nice spots today and thus didn’t cover many kilometers, we need to get up earlier tomorrow since the car has to be returned in Adelaide by 4:00 PM.

13.08.2024:

We had to wake up early because we still had 7 hours of driving left, and since it was an electric car, we also needed to plan for some charging time.
We were actually on track, but the one charging station we wanted to use was occupied, so we had to wait a bit. Due to the unexpected wait, we unfortunately arrived at the airport in Adelaide just after 4 PM, where we had to return the car. It said online that if you are late, you have to rent the car for a whole day, which we definitely wanted to avoid. Luckily, it wasn’t a problem. At the airport, we were picked up by Jason. He is a 42-year-old man who lives in Adelaide and signed up as a host on “Couchsurfing.” Couchsurfing is interesting because as a user, I sign up on the site, apply to the respective hosts, and if they accept, I can sleep on their couch for free. Jason accepted Aileen and me, and he even offered to pick us up from the airport, which he kindly did. We drove to his house, and we were both really impressed because his house was truly big and beautiful. I had the upper floor all to myself and could sleep in a large air bed. Aileen had a room to herself with a large regular bed in it. It’s incredible that it didn’t cost us a single cent because if he had listed it on AirBnB or something, he could have certainly charged 60-90€ per night. However, he travels a lot himself and knows how expensive Australia is, which is why he signed up back then just to be nice. He has been a Couchsurfing host since 2012 and has hosted quite a few people since then.

14.08.2024:

Since this was the only full day we had in Adelaide, we briefly went into the city but then decided to go to the beach and relax since the next trip would be very strenuous. When we returned to Jason in the evening, he was sitting on the couch and told us that his grandmother had passed away today. Therefore, we left him alone and went to bed early.