There and back again: A tale of two muppets
Friday 19 December
With the odometer clocking in at 1,015 km, our road trip down the Victorian coast came to an end yesterday, and we returned our Volkswagen Golf a little dustier and a little more worn to its rightful owner. Now back in Melbourne, having showered without flip flops on and having slept on a mattress that doesn’t deflate when I roll over, I’m in a much better place to sit down and unpack the last few days.
The first thing to say is I’m going to attempt to condense nine days into one short-ish blog and that would be unfair to the absolute pleasure that was experiencing it all with Ol. Just being in the car together for all those hours - spent in our little Golf - was arguably where we had the most fun. From playing each other new albums we’d recently heard, shouting at the Ashes scoreline on the radio to ridiculous ‘would you rather’ questions, it was a joy to be cooped in a car for that long together. And with only one minor scare on the way back to Melbourne where I took a corner too fast and went off the road (just for a second!).
It probably comes as no surprise that we arrived at our first campsite in Wilson’s Promontory, Australia’s largest coastal park, later than planned. After circling our campsite trying to find our spot to pitch our tent for about 45 minutes, we unloaded the car and began to assemble the tents in near-darkness, before celebrating with some rather sad but overly-buttered sandwiches in complete darkness (pictured). But thanks to one head torch between the two of us we made it work and managed a laugh too. On the right-hand side of the table you’ll see a ‘chicken in a bag’, an absolute staple in all Australian supermarkets, typically designed with men in mind who literally can’t wait to eat their food until they get home - aptly named a ‘bachelor’s handbag’. The Aussies really are great at naming things.
The next day, we decided to explore the coastline around Wilson’s Prom and just over the line of hedges that surrounded our campsite we were met with a truly stunning beach, which looked as impressive in the morning as it did in the evening when the sun went down (see pictures). The Aussies are completely spoiled for beaches over here and I’m sure this would be considered a very typical beach for them. White sand, blue sea and nobody for miles. Even the jellyfish in the sea didn’t put a dampener on things.
After spending two nights at Wilson’s Prom, we started to make our venture west towards Sorrento, where we would board a ferry to cross the bay and head out towards the Great Ocean Road. Before we reached Sorrento, however, we stayed a night in the Mornington Peninsula so we could visit the famous Peninsula Hot Springs (see picture). Drifting between the geothermal pools was a treat that felt surprisingly well-earned after three days of driving, pitching tents, and living off beef jerky and squeezy yoghurts. The visit also got off to a nice start as the receptionist forgot to charge us the $50 entrance fee after handing us our towels. Ollie thought this was due to our ‘English charm’, whereas I thought it was more likely due to the pressure of the large queue behind us. What do you think?
Following this stop-off, we drove over to Sorrento for what we had planned to be a full day. Sorrento is a sweet port town but it has been slightly overrun by bougie designer shops and posh hotels. After quickly coming to this conclusion over an unsurprisingly expensive pint at the Sorrento Hotel, we made the decision to jump on a ferry to cross the bay to Lorne that day. This included driving the wrong way down a one-way street to make sure we made the ferry departure. With a couple of hours to kill crossing Port Phillip Bay we turned to a pack of Stars Wars Top Trumps - you’re never too old for a game of top trumps. Ollie quietly dispatched me 2-1. There’s something more irritating about a winner who stays completely silent afterwards rather than rubbing it in your face - like the win was always in the script.
Now, I think this is where I have to come clean. After disembarking from the ferry, and after three days of camping in a tent, I put forward a strong case for staying in a motel for the night in Lorne. Wasn’t the point of this road trip to drive around and pitch your tent as you go I hear you ask? Well, yes, you’d be right - and don’t get me the wrong, there is something magical about waking up, unzipping your tent and stepping out into nature - but, on the other hand, one has to contend with sleeping diagonally on a thin mattress so your toes don’t poke out of your tent and suffering incredibly loud birdsong at 5am and that’s before we get to being hungover. So after some convincing, I directed Ol towards a cheap motel and a single queen-sized bed for two it was.
I pushed for the one motel in town that was attached to a lawn bowls club (naturally) which became the site of my first victory of the road trip, claiming my top trumps revenge by pipping Ollie in the last round (see video). Whereas Ol is more of a graceful winner, I like to hold post-match press conferences…
Exploring Lorne didn’t take long. Like most seaside towns on the Victorian coast, they largely consist of one tourist information centre giving advice about one local attraction (normally a waterfall). Perhaps this is me being cynical but we were really hoping for a decent pub by now. In Lorne’s defence, they were not short of great fish and chips shops, where we tried a local delicacy - a scallop pie. The jury was out on that one for both of us.
On Monday, we put the small seaside town of Lorne behind us as we started our venture West along the Great Ocean Road and it did not disappoint. The photo of the waves crashing against the roadside doesn’t do it justice. Over the course of the next two days we navigated the increasingly winding roads from Lorne to the Otway National Park to Port Campbell. Granted Ollie was holding onto the grab handle some of the time, but it felt like driving in a video game. It’s a bit of road where you have to just stop checking google maps or the music as every turn seemed to deliver a better view than the last.
We decided to set up shop at the Port Campbell Hotel for the final two days of the trip as it was a twenty-minute drive to the main attraction in those parts - the Twelve Apostles. The Twelve Apostles (pictured) are an incredible rock formation that rises out of the Southern Ocean. One can observe these from the skies via helicopter ride for a meagre $500 each or you can look at them from a cliff-edge, take a photo and go home knowing you’ll be able to pay for food for the next three months.
They were incredible to witness, something I had never seen before and it makes you wonder how many millions of years they took to form. However, they really should come with a warning - beware the heat and beware the flies! We did a fantastic job at exposing ourselves as the true tourists that we are by deciding to visit them at 1pm - the hottest part of the day. The roads were clear and the queues were short, but turns out that’s because the locals aren’t fools and everything shuts down for a couple of hours due to the heat and the flies. I’ll let a picture of my back and video of Ollie capture our overall sentiments. It’s also worth adding that there aren’t twelve apostles (rock formations) anymore - more like seven - as a handful have crumbled into the sea over time. I guess you can’t change the name every time one disintegrates.
The sunsets in Port Campbell deserve a quick mention. The sky would often turn deep red and orange, and the locals would meander down to the shoreline to try and capture the sun as it sunk into the sea, and everyone would go quiet for a bit. A friend told me that when you watch a sunset in Australia everyone back home in the UK is watching the sun rise on the other side of the world. I liked this idea too much to check whether or not it’s actually true.
Running with the theme of the trip of not being able to find many good pubs or clubs, we spent most of our time in the beer garden attached to our hotel. This was where we ate sub-par ‘chicken parms’ and had boozy conversations with the other guests. This included Elisa and Marius (not their real names) who were a couple from The Hague (see photo). By complete coincidence we were sat on the table next to them when stopping off at a restaurant in a town called Apollo Bay a few days before. I had nodded at them so Ollie would see what I see I was seeing - Marius getting increasingly frustrated that the other diners kept leaving the door slightly ajar, allowing the cold air to come in. It must have happened six times and Elisa just rolled her eyes at Marius’ frustration. I found the whole thing hilarious and approached them in the beer garden of the hotel to explain I had seen this. They couldn’t believe it and joined our table, explaining that they were celebrating Marius’ retirement with a big trip around Australia and parts of South East Asia. We were the same age as their kids but it didn’t stop us from talking about the secrets of a long marriage or from laughing at the contrasting experiences of our separate trips. They were incredibly lovely, and we’ve stayed in touch since.
