After a bit of a short night we arrive in Melbourne airport
to be greeted by the sniffer dogs as we
are the only ones who are being send for a check, I start to very much worry
about my appearance. It must be the tired
look, Grom’s tries to reassure me. We
pick up the van in a lesser neighbourhood of Melbourne, where a bloke of about
25 asks me if I want to have a little teddy bear he had with him as he grins at
me from behind the big scar on his face. I’m so happy I’m having my personal
bodyguard walking next to me.
The van turns out to be a bit different then we saw on the
photo, but they always do that I suppose and this one was a good deal. And it
turns out later to have all we need and be quite comfy, so what more do you
want. The road trip can get started!
So we head off from Melbourne to Geelong and then onto
Torquay, surfing paradise, they even call the region like that there is so much
surf. Unfortunately there is hardly any when we are around as people tell us it
was great 3 days ago… rub it in boys. But at least it gives us time to settle
in, get some groceries and find Grom a board. As you might remember he broke
his old one in Mamallapuram in India. There are loads of surf shops around and
even shops that specialise in second hand boards. We load it all up and head
for Bells beach and Winkypops. It turns out to be quite small as predicted, but
even so, there are 12 guys out at Winkypops and 3 at Bells, you don’t need a
fortune teller to imagine how busy it gets when there really is swell. Groms
goes for it anyway and even gets a little barrel. It’s really pretty out there,
the rocks of the coast are sort of golden orange in a marbled fashion, with
loads of green on top and winding roads. Loads of people turn up to look at the
surf, hand out on the beach or go for a walk. This area is really one of the
healthy people doing their outdoor thing.
I work on my cooking skills in the mean time as Graham gives
me some instructions I managed to produce some pretty tasty dishes and that’s
in a campervan. We both really enjoy the camping experience as you are very independent
and bought really missed eating home cooked food.
We got a bit of a shock though going to the supermarket,
everything is so expensive, 5 dollars for a small pack of cream? 5 dollars for
a bread? My god, the euro most be doing bad and people must make a lot of money
around here. But hey, shopping with some extra care will get us there as well.
