Adelaide and the Great Ocean Road

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Adelaide is a very well-ordered city with gridded streets and a ring of parkland circling the downtown. As always, our car was a serious hindrance – with no cheap parking to be found, we stopped in loading zones just long enough to tack up ads in hostels offering rides for the onward journey. Ashley decided this was the place to release all her pent-up shopping energy with a spree through center city; sadly our trip to the purse shop had to be cut short as I had only put enough in the meter for 20 minutes.

After dropping off our passengers, we headed north of the city to Ashley's roommate's parents' house. They had agreed to put us up for the night. We got a delicious home-cooked meal (not a bad switch from peanut butter sandwiches and instant noodles), we got advice on the next leg of the trip, and we washed our clothes, checked our email and slept in actual beds; now we were ready to tackle the final stretch of our journey.

Following morning tea, we went and parked next to the botanic gardens and explored the streets and parks of Adelaide. Given the cold temps, I didn't really expect any plantlife to live here, but there was really a huge range. Our first stop was the art gallery and was followed up by the South Australia Museum which had stuffed versions of all the roadkill we'd seen on our trip. We visited a chocolate factory where there were reportedly free samples (but as it turned out, it was first necessary to buy a few of the $2/10g morsels). Our final stop was the Tandanya museum which featured aboriginal culture exhibits like an interactive john-boat simulator where an old guy shouted at you to steer the boat towards the fake stars on the ceiling.

We left town around dusk with no new passengers; from here on our, we were on our own. We drove for a few hours to the town of Horscham where we camped in a random parking lot and slept peacefully except for the few times when I set off the car alarm (I've never been quick to pick up these new-fangled technologies).

I made a small miscalculation on time zones and we were up and moving an hour before dawn. We drove down to the Grampians National Park where we encountered thousands of kangaroos and wallabies throughout the surrounding fields. I managed to clock one that picked an inopportune moment to dart across the road; it was a civil encounter – he rolled cleanly across our hood leaving nothing but mud, so we just made our apologies, exchanged insurance information, and went on our respective ways.

The weather was not the best for hiking; with a thick layer of clouds hanging over us, the lookouts provided all of a meter of visibility. We decided on a trail that took us up through the “grand canyon," which was made up of high rock walls channelling a yellow, foaming stream and closely resembled a giant urinal, and then up a series of treacherous wet rocks to the pinnacles which provided impressive views of the valley below (in the few patches where the clouds had burned off). We then slipped and slid back towards the car; in one particularly awkward maneuver, I split my only pair of jeans; this made for many uncomfortable encounters with passive hikers.

From the park, we sped toward the seaside town of Warnambool, seeing many more jagged peaks and a good supply of sheep as we passed by “the wool capital of the world." Warnambool offered our best chance to see the southern right whales that migrate to this coast each year and so we sat out on Logan's Beach in the cold and the rain for nearly an hour, peering in silent anticipation out over the water. Crazy surfers rode the waves of the Antarctic waters. Finally, we saw a calf and then its colossal mother breach the surface; they moved slowly along the beach, rolling and kicking their tails into the air; unfortunately, they weren't, on this occasion, inclined to execute their spectacular midair barrel rolls.

We explored town; the trouser factory was closed, so I had to settle on Target; this may have been the first occasion where the employees had seen someone wear a pair of purchased pants out of the store – I would bet that having the customer slide his butt over the scanner is hardly standard procedure. We found the town movie theatre which charged twice as much as Brisbane's but was truly the only game in town. I had heard something about a new Batman movie, so we bought tickets and watched the blockbuster in an empty theatre; I won't publish any spoilers here, but to summarize, it was pretty freakin' cool.

We returned to Logan's Beach and set up camp in the parking lot; we ate dinner in the wind-sheltered alcove of the women's toilet. At first light, we were at the viewing platform and saw another whale (or possibly the same one) execute a sequence identical to that of the previous night.

We got moving on the legendary Great Ocean Road; our first stop was a cheese factory; I'm not sure if many people associate this tourist route with cheese, but they did promise free samples. The Bay of Islands was next; here we found massive rock pillars randomly jutting out of the turbulent seas. The Blowhole and Thunder Cave were the next set of geological phenomena which issued eerie sounds from dark tunnels. The Loch Ard trail didn't actually include a wreck but did offer and few coves and an island covered in muttonbirds.

The Twelve Apostles made up for the lack of tourist glitz at the other sites with a visitor center and a Walmart-sized parking lot. These were a series of oddly shaped rocks rising out of the waters. The nearby monument of London Bridge is no longer a very effective bridge as a large span crashed into the ocean 15 years ago (marooning several tourists).

We didn't know what to except on the twisting, turning road until a sign would indicate that one or another attractions were coming up in the next 100 meters. This is how we ended up driving 20km out of our way to get to a lighthouse that charged a $10 entry fee (that we had no intention of paying). Most of the turnoffs were only small parking areas with dramatic views of the sea or rolling hills.

As the sun set, we searched for a place to sleep; Ashley was suddenly making a stir about needing a site with a shower, citing some mysterious “3-day" rule; I tried to allay her fears with the well-known fact that after 4-days you just can't smell any worse, but she was determined. In the end, it turned out that showers would cost us $10 each whereas we could sleep in a random parking lot for free, so we ultimately decided on the latter. We turned in around 8PM which is pretty sad even by camping standards.

We finally got moving a bit after 7 since it was both cold and rainy; we managed to shift everything out of camping mode without actually getting out of the car. The next few hours were spent cleaning out several layers of red dirt that had infiltrated every inch of the interior; the mossie blood stains and cocoa puffs from our previous passengers also presented interesting challenges.

After moving our car to the nearest free parking (only a few km out of town on Sunday), we went to the Parliament's Open House where we got to sit in the speaker's chair and learn about the legislation governing the country's football leagues. My guidebook recommended that we go to the 35th floor of a fancy hotel and take pictures out of the bathroom window - this seemed a bit odd but was accomplished without any arrests. Next, we grabbed a train to St. Kilda, the stop for which was adjacent to a public square where a large man in a purple leotard was performing acrobatic feats. As so often occurs, some silly pedestrian jumped in front of a tram and we had to be dropped off a mile from the beach. The St. Kilda markets showed off an extensive collection of crafty crap which was sufficient for 5 minutes entertainment before we got bored and returned to the city. We drove to the northern suburb of Coburg, dropped off the car, and caught a taxi (which with any luck will be reimbursed) to the airport. At the check-in, I learned that my flight would be delayed by an hour and I would miss the night's only train back to Brisbane. So I set about milling around aimlessly and Ashley went to seek out the airport's public shower and a place to sleep for her 6:40AM flight to Hobart.

JetStar has no seat numbers so everyone rushes for the front, and failing that, tries to avoid sitting near the screaming babies and the backpackers who haven't showered or changed their clothes in 4 days. When we arrived at Coolangatta, I was informed that I couldn't sleep at the airport and there was no transport going anywhere that night. Brisbane was about 100km away so I resolved that I better start walking if I planned to get there in time for my 1PM exam. All the hostels along the way were closed, and after 4 hours of wandering, I crashed on a playground next to the beach where I managed half an hour's rest before the weather turned ugly. At 5am, I caught the first train back to the city (where I managed another hour of sleep) and got back just in time to start prepping for the test.


Grampians National Park









Next in the Wicked Camper collection...
































These jeans have seen better days


I know it looks like a log but it is in fact a whale












The left? Holy crap, that's why they've all been honking!

































Adelaide


You just don't see enough squat toilets around nowadays




The Great Ocean Road is supposedly an excellent place to see wild koalas, and since I will otherwise have to leave Australia having never seen one in the wild, I am declaring this creature a koala.






Melbourne as seen from the 35th floor toilet




This walk is going to suck!