The Grampians and the Great Ocean Road

Running somewhat short of time, we set ourselves up for another mammoth drive down to Halls Gap in the Grampians. The most tedious part of this was the 300km return trip to Mildura, and the only thing that broke the tedium was hitting a bird – I assumed it just bounced off, but after we'd parked outside the cafe in Mildura, I found a very mangled bird wedged in the grill.














After lunch in Mildura, we were making good progress south, when I accentually got clocked doing 123 in a 100 zone. When the cop handed over the $240 fine, he pointed out that if I didn't pay it absolutely nothing would happen – result. So finally we reached our hostel in Halls Gap at dusk. As we prepared dinner, kangaroos bounced around on the lawn outside, and a German girl wittered away endlessly on Skype.

The Grampians are another attractive range of bush covered hills, with stunning views and (apparently) great hikes. Our timetable didn't allow for anything but driving to a couple of the better lookouts, and short walks. The area suffered some serious fires a few years ago (of course the rest of Victoria is currently suffering a large number of deadly bush fires), and the green leaves shooting out from blackened trees is rather odd.

The second part of the day's plan was to drop straight down to the coast, then take the B100 Great Ocean Road along to Apollo Bay. Having left the Grampians it was another couple of hours before we finally reached the coast at Warrnambool. From there the road immediately goes back inland, hitting the coast again at Peterborough (as unlovable as its namesake), before becoming a proper coast road. On this stretch you are bombard with lookout points, some better than other, before reaching the pinnacle of the Twelve Apostles (pun intended). There are actually only eight stacks, and after taking the standard set of photos, we completed the long drive round to Apollo Bay. Our hostel here (YHA Eco Beach) must set the gold standard for how hostels should be designed and run.

After talking to the guy on reception, it turned out we'd overshoot the Koalas, who like to hang out on the road down to Cape Otway, several miles back the other way. Fortunately the Koalas are not hard to spot – you just pull up behind the collection of badly parked campervans and there they are. Koalas eat nothing but eucalyptus leaves, which provide minuscule amounts of energy, meaning they have evolved tiny brains (most of their skull is filled with cerebrospinal fluid, rather than actual brain), and sleep 20 hours a day – still they're ever so cute.














Koalas ticked off the list, we hugged the coast as far as Torquay (Kirsten of course wanted to hug a Koala), before diving inland to Melbourne.