The Great Ocean Road and Princess Highway

OH boy, a road trip! We had secured a car, from Thifty again, as the local boyz didn't want their 2nd hand heaps leaving the confines of Melbourne, and they were charging almost as much for a 10yr old Camry as Thrifty charged for a new Mitsubishi Lancer. Except that Thrifty pulled a switch on us, giving us a Hyundai hatchback instead of the Lancer, which we had just managed to squeeze into last time. I expressed my doubts, but he assured me there were no Lancers to be had as their time was up and they had to go back. We used this car on the Dandenong trip where it served adequately, since we didn't carry all our baggage on that day trip. But the next day, attempting to load everything in, we realized it just wasn't going to work. So Francie called them up and wheeled and dealed and we wound up with a Camry sedan for a few quid more. Never underestimate the power of a woman with a goal.

So in our brand new blue Camry we ripped off down the Mornington freeway to the Sorrento ferry. It seems they only charge $40 to take a car across, so we deemed it cheaper (and more fun) than driving up around through Melbourne. On the ferry we met a daft older couple on their way to Apollo Bay for a weekender. They were very sweet, telling us all the good things to see and do. Of course we did none of those things, but that's what road trips are all about.

We bypassed Geelong via Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads, no doubt missing kangaroos on the golf course and a myriad other tourist attractions.

The Great Ocean Road resembles Hwy 1 in northern California circa 1960. A twisty little road clinging to the sides of cliffs or the beach, diving down into the canyons cut by streams running to the ocean, slowing for tours of small tourist oriented towns every so often. Very enjoyable, and obviously being enjoyed by many motorcycle groups and a few other tourists. There were lots of little bays and headland vistas to stop and either let the kids play or take pictures. Just short of Apollo Bay we passed a little B&B type place, the Cookaburra Cottages. Connor immediately started emoting that it was so cute and this was the place we should stay at and could we please stop, and he was tired, blah blah blah. Well, it was only 4:30 and we hadn't left Frankston until 11 or so, and it was a LONG way to Adelaide and we had a time scheduled to meet Oonagh, blah blah blah, so I was willing to look but didn't want to stop yet (wasting daylight and all...).

Cookaburra Cottages is a collection of self-contained cottages with an herb garden, a pool, and critters to look at. but it's also a working farm, and has an exercise center (members only) and bike and swamp buggy rides for tourists. It appeared to be all run by this wonder woman (obviously of hippie descent) and her strapping 20 something son. Really far out. So we stayed, despite the rather steep $160 bill for a room, no brekkie. Well actually she gave me a big piece of banana cake when I remarked how good it smelled in the office. It was delicious.

The next day we stumbled into the Saturday artists market in Apollo Bay. Nice, very tourist oriented pottery, woodcrafts and other artwork. Also a giant sand beach in the bay that you could walk on forever.

On down the road we went, stopping at the Mait's Rest rainforest in Otway NP for a walk and taking in the main tourist attraction on the coast, the Twelve Apostles, of which only 8 are still standing. Time marches on, even for rocks. This stop was not popular with Francie but it was very popular with the tour bus set. There's a causal relation there I suspect. Later we stopped in Killarney for a very nondescript lunch. Lots of Irish settled here it seems, with other town names like Koroit and Kirkstall and Port Fairy (who but the Irish would have a fairy port?) The unlikely town of Mt Gambier has a rather interesting geographic anomoly or two. The one that caught my eye was a large sinkhole right off the main road through town. It was made into a garden and a park with steps leading down to the bottom and friendly brushtailed possums begging for food. Very pretty, and so small town Australia!


Made it to the western beach, facing the fabled Great Southern Ocean at Beachport. It seemed pretty tame, I suppose because we were looking at a bay of sorts. We stayed in a nice old hotel, Bompa's,
which served a mahvelous breakfast the next morning, then off to Adelaide. By this time we'd had quite enough of twisty little scenic road, so the straight lines and boring vistas of grassland offered by the road north to Adelaide was a welcome relief. This Zen meditation was interrupted by one of Australia's iconic large roadside objects, this one resembling a lobster (locally known as a crayfish).