Well I feel it’s about time I spoke about the week that
followed the fortnight in Melbourne.
After hearing about ‘The Great Ocean Road’ we decided that we should drive
along this apparent paradise and then onto Adelaide. The only problem was the fact that this
would mean spending a total of 8 days on the road to make sure we saw
everything. So we couldn’t sleep in any old car. No. What we needed was
something a little bit bigger. This led us to an amazing vehicle that we named
Chuck.
He was a campervan, an aged machine that had quite obviously
been through a lot. Now why would we call it Chuck? Well that would quite
honestly be because of the amazing decoration all over the van. Chuck Norris
featured on both sides with various quotes all over the van, my favourite
being, ‘Chuck Norris featured in the film Twister. He played the Tornado.’ We
knew right there and then that this was going to be an interesting trip.
We realised quite quickly that although there was enough
space to for all 5 of us to sleep in the van, this wasn’t without
some…discomfort. There were 2 hammocks that hung from the roof of the van
whilst the other 3 slept underneath. Due to the size of the van this meant that
any movement resulted in someone being hit in some way. This, and the actual
lack of comfortable bedding, resulted in 7 nights of pretty terrible sleep.
However the trip was more than worth it.
Our first destination was Torquay, also known as Surfer’s Paradise. The beach was beautiful and the waves were
enormous. We spent 2 days here just throwing ourselves through the waves, the
weather wasn’t even that great but the beach was just so amazing we just didn’t
care.
At night the view was even more spectacular. It was here we
realised how clear the sky was. You could see all the stars glinting in the
sky, an incomprehensible amount of them shining with various strengths. The
sound of the sea was like nothing I’ve ever heard; deafening in its volume, but
with such a calming tone.
It was with high hopes that we set off the next morning,
hoping we would see more beautiful scenery like this.
Whilst passing through a quaint little town called Lorne, we
stopped off for a quick lunch. It was here we realised how much Australians
love cake. Popping into a bakery hoping to get a sandwich our eyes were drawn
to the enormous pastries and cakes that decorated the shop. The temptation
proved too much as we gave into our stomachs and gorged ourselves. Unfortunately
it was here that disaster struck.
We left Lorne with full stomachs and headed onto our next
stop, Apollo Bay.
Unfortunately we were followed. As we gazed up at the sky we
uttered the immortal words, ‘Ah bollocks man!’ The sky was a miserable shade of
grey. The brilliant Australian weather we were promised was nowhere to be seen
as we pulled up to yet another one of Australia’s greatest beaches.
We were determined that this would not ruin our day, and so
we marched onward towards the nearest surf store. There we hired some wetsuits
and surfboards. Although completely untrained in the art of surfing we were
decided that this was a perfectly logical idea. Looking rather fetching in our
skin tight wetsuits we threw ourselves into the waves. The first thing I saw
was Martin, Greg and Matt attempt to mount a wave that must have been twice as
big as me. Needless to say they disappeared from sight and all I saw of them
was their surfboards fly into the air. The rest of the afternoon generally
revolved around a lot of sights much like this one. But I have to say…it was
damn good fun. Even when the heavens opened above us it could not take the
smiles of our faces. It has definitely made me determined to learn to surf
properly.
Our fun filled day regrettably ended on a rather sour note
as we discovered, much to our dismay, that whilst we were busy being tossed
about in the sea ol’Chuck had received a parking ticket. But even this blow to
our finances was not enough to diminish the fun we had that day.
After returning to the road we saw many amazing examples of Australia’s
beautiful land. We pulled over to Mait’s Rest, a small bit of rainforest just
off the road. It was as if I’d stepped into Jurassic Park.
The whole scene made me think a raptor was going to jump out of the trees. The
place felt so alien to anything I had even seen before that it almost didn’t
seem real. There was one amazing tree that seemed as if three trees had
entwined together creating a giant throne. I doubt I would have liked to meet
the being who sat in it.
Leaving the rainforest behind we returned to the road where
we saw our first examples of Australian wildlife. Now we had seen many signs
warning us that Kangaroos regularly just leapt across the road willy nilly, but
we were not quite prepared for when we saw a wallaby just chilling out by the
side of the road. This went doubly so when two emu’s ran across the road at
such a point that Chuck barely missed them.
Despite our narrow misses with the natives we arrived at a
landmark known as the 12 Apostles and another known as London
Bridge (no not ‘The’ London Bridge).
These were all examples of the terrifying power of nature. All these landmarks
were once part of the mainland of Australia, but now they were giant
mounds of rock that the sea had battered into submission. The sea had managed
to divide and was slowly conquering these landmasses, battering them into dust,
eroding them into nothing. Of the 12 Apostles there were only 8 left that stood
tall, the other 4 were either completely gone, or were very nearly there. It
was a rather sobering sight.
From there we headed onto a place called Griffiths Island,
a nature reserve. We thought this would be a fantastic chance to see the
Australian Wildlife up close. Well this was true…however I wasn’t quite
prepared for what I actually came across.
Now I need to state for the record, I hate birds. They’re
disgusting creatures. As much as this island had its fair share of wallabies
and other creatures, that majority of its population was birds. On top of that
it was covered in dead birds, it was foul. It was a beautiful island covered in
long grass, and beautiful foliage; but it was impossible to ignore the sheer
amount of dead birds and mice. At one point we came across a wallaby, well by a
wallaby, we came across the bottom half of a wallaby. We could not even begin
to fathom where the top half had gone, and to be honest the sight was so
grotesque that we decided to move on quickly.
After leaving the island of death and decay we swiftly drove
into Southern Australia, we were finally nearing our destination Adelaide.
We briefly stopped in Portland
for fuel for Chuck and fuel for ourselves in the form of a McDonalds where we
met a lost little soul in the form of Stiffy. Stiffy was a lovely little dog
who took a shine to us as we were eating outside in the lovely sunshine. At
first we believed he was waiting for his owners who were inside. It became
clear however that this was not the case as he started running about following
all sorts of people then coming back to us. It dawned on us that he was
actually lost. At one point he ran through a busy car park, at this point
Martin decided to take action. I, Matt and George stayed with Stiffy and made
sure he stayed with us whilst Martin and Gregg went to the vet nearby to ask if
they knew anything about him.
Martin soon returned with a leash and being the Good
Samaritan he is took it back to the vet where they said they would look after
him. We left Portland
feeling better for our brief visit and hoping Stiffy would either find his way
back home or at least to a caring family. He was a nice dog.
Immediately we noticed the weather was considerably warmer,
although we were very conscious of the fact that we were getting closer and
closer to the height of Australian winter. So we took advantage of lazing about
in the sun or kicking a football about whenever we could.
Whilst doing this we realised something. We were in the
middle of nowhere. Fields stretched on forever, no sign of civilisation, maybe
the odd petrol station or roadside café, but other than that it was just us,
our van and the open road.
This unfortunately didn’t come with its problems. We pulled
into a campsite for the night. The sign as well as the brochure claimed it was
four stars, so we thought it must be pretty darn good. It didn’t look like much
but we thought, well maybe the facilities are good. The tap water was a dull
brown colour. Ok, we thought, this isn’t too good. We had a look at the
showers, same problem. Well at least there was a barbecue so we could cook
ourselves some sausages. Well we eventually got it working, but only after
essentially making our own fire inside it.
Well the next day we drove swiftly on getting closer and
closer to our destination.
Stopping in a small town we came to terms with it being our
last night with Chuck. Despite all the hardships, the uncomfortable sleeping,
lack of space and the fact that it was pretty much on its last legs; we had all
become attached to this big hunk of junk. We had one hell of a trip.
We decided to spend our time wisely and play some football,
as well as attempt to play some Aussie Rules (failing miserably), and then we
went to the local cinema to see ‘The Avengers’ (good film, but Australian
cinema prices are insane). We slept soundly knowing that tomorrow would bring
on our arrival in Adelaide.
Driving on we arrived in Adelaide. Parking up next to the hostel we
sorted out our accommodation and then we waved goodbye to our faithful
companion Chuck. It was a sad parting but it was with high spirits that we embarked upon the next leg of our Australian Adventure.
