What time is it there?!

.... and so it was time to leave the comforts of Adelaide again and commence our journey along 'The Great Ocean Road' to Melbourne. Something had been telling us that this 'great' road spanned the distance from Adelaide to Melbourne but we quickly realised that it is really only a very small part of yet another massive disctance between two cities. We decided to break the journey up with two stops. Our first day on the road, it rained consistently ... like being at home! Luckily we weren't anywhere near the coast at this stage so we didn't miss much. We stopped overnight in the town of Mount Gambier which is a small country town up a little bit of a hill. It was still torrential rain so we didn't get to see much of it that night. Anyway we settled ourselves into a motel and watched the first Formula 1 race of the season as the anoraks we are! It was great to hear the ITV commentary, as the Aussie commentators don't have a clue and it gave us a little taste of home along with the weather. We have decided that the Aussie TV people don't really know much about anything related to Formula 1 other than the sole aussie driver Mark Webber, so it is probably better that they drafted in the Engligh commentary ... more about Aussie media later on..........

We woke to the weather we have been used to and as we approached the coast and finally started on 'The Great Ocean Road'. The guide books say that this is one of the top 20 drives in the world and the views were specatcular. There are many turn off points which take you to sheer cliffs and thrashing ocean but one of the main highlights is 'The Twelve Apostles'. In fact there are only now 11 as one collapsed last year, although you cannot see them all at once so there may be less but you'd never know! The Australians seem convinced that by the power of the ocean, more will be created over time but they seem to ignore the fact that they will probably collapse faster than the sea can carve new ones. Despite this they are still proud to call it the twelve apostles .... although now we know different!

The road is littered with tiny coastal towns. Butlins hasn't quiet made it here but there were a few offereings which had 'yellow coat' potential, if the wind changed direction! We were lucky and found a little retreat in the forest with sulphur crested cockatoos joining us for breakfast. It was a really magical place, shame we only had the one night.

We felt (ok ... I felt) that I hadn't seen waterfalls or lighthouses for a while so I embarked on visits to both to curb my cravings! It was really nice to see some lush green plantlife after all the browny/redness we had encountered throughout much of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Unfortunately the lighthouse wasn't that spectacular but we have kept the photos in anyway because at the rate we are going we could go into calendar production and have enough photos to last several years!

All too quickly after it started, we headed away from the coast and towards Melbourne and our Great Ocean Road experience was just another memory. Shame there wasn't more of it .... next time I meet our 'Creator' I'll ask them to add a few hundred more kilometres on..........!