The Great Ocean Road

An uneventful morning in Hobart led to our arrival in Melbourne at 4pm and within an hour we were back on the road in a rather sporty Toyota Aurion - a free upgrade as Hertz had run out of crappy cars to give us. Not a typical backpacker's car but we weren't complaining. Our destination for the night was Torquay, the surf capital of Australia and pretty much the start of the Great Ocean Road, but along the way we went through Geelong and took in a series of small towns that form what is known as the Bellarine. I have nothing to report from those places, and I don't have much to report from Torquay either apart from that it's full of bleached surf dudes and is the original home of surf shops such as RipCurl and Billabong. The weather was pretty rubbish which admittedly didn't help our impression of these places.

Onto the next day. The weather was still crappy but improved as the day went on. We started our journey towards our next stop, Warrnambool, by taking in a few coastal points such as Point Danger, Surf Beach, Jun Juc, Winkipop Beach and Point Addis. Next up was Aireys Inlet, home to Split Point lighthouse (the lighthouse from 'Round The Twist!'), and then we reached Coalmine Creek, the entrance to the Great Ocean Road.

The road was built as a memorial to WWI by 3,000 returned servicemen and took approximately 13 years to finish. The idea is that you drive along it, taking in the ocean views as you go, and just pick amongst the umpteen million places and things to do along the way. Some do it in a day, others take weeks. We took about 3 days to do the journey which, given the crummy weather, was plenty of time.

It wouldn't have been a roadtrip for us if we hadn't seen some waterfalls, so we took a butchers at Erskine Falls before stopping for a quick sunbathe at Apollo Bay. Eventually we mustered up the energy to complete the final part of the journey to Warrnambool - via the Twelve Apostles.

The Twelve Apostles are a very famous landmark in Australia, a set of limestone stacks that have been formed by erosion over time. There are actually only 8 left - the 9th fell in 2005 - but noone seems to care about that little fact. The main attraction is the view at sunset or sunrise which is, apparently, spectacular. So spectacular in fact that after checking them out and driving to Warrnambool to check in we drove back to take in the sunset - only to be denied by clouds. We weren't the only ones, mind, there were probably a few hundred people there at sunset. Warrnambool was pretty much dead when we got back so we grabbed some fast food and went back to the hostel for a few drinks before bed.

The next and final overnight stop on the journey was Robe, a small town 3 hours south of Adelaide. The map didn't offer many suggestions along the way so we tried to do our best with the scant offerings we could find.

First of all we went to see the lake at the centre of Tower Hill, which was in fact bone dry from drought. We did however get to see some enormous emus there, very close to the path we were walking along. Having navigated our way past them we drove to Portland and Cape Bridgewater where we tried desperately to find a beach to suit the improved weather but failed miserably apart from a small grey looking beach in Portland that overlooked a massive oil rig. Then, when all hope was lost, we meandered through Mount Gambier, the second biggest city in South Australia, and decided to take a look at the Blue Lake from the lookout point. Finally, something to gasp at after a 3 day journey!! I can't describe the shade of blue of the lake and I doubt my camera does in justice either - it really is something to behold.

The remainder of the road to Robe was a mixture of barren wasteland and - well, nothing at all. Totally uninteresting. We had mixed emotions when we arrive din Robe; on one hand we were glad to be off that boring road, but on the other hand we knew that there was nothing to do in Robe either. Catch 22.

The hostel - the Robe YHA - was certainly impressive. It's like a mansion, only one floor but huge and we had a room to ourselves with 10 beds to choose from (only four of us). There was also a fantastic library with beautiful leather sofas, bathrooms the size of houses, nice gardens and an awesome hostel dog to mess about with, a particularly lively chocolate labrador. And all this for just 10 pounds a night each! For that money you'd be lucky to get a sofa to sleep on in Sydney. As for Robe itself - nothing to report, unless being joint winner of 'Best Medium Sized Town' in 2007 is really the claim to fame that they make out.

And so we reached the final chapter on our journey to Adelaide. We left Robe at 10:30am and arrived at the Hertz depot at 2pm, minutes before they shut the doors. And so now I'm in Adelaide, it's hot - just over 30 degrees - and we're off to explore and see if Adelaide is really as dull as people say it is. After 10 consecutive nights in different places it'll be nice to spend 3 nights in the same hostel; after that it'll be off to Perth.