Yes folks, that is the image we have painted on the side of our 'Wicked' campervan... For those of you not aware of Wicked campervans, they're basically old clapped out vans which are done up to fit a bed and small kitchen in the back and then passed off to unsuspecting tourists as 'camper vans'... Mmm not the best but definitely the cheapest! And fun! All of them have some image and words painted along the side of them, some are funny, some are rude so we were very pleased that we didn't have anything rude for the next 2 months.. They cause enough people to stare as it is!
We picked up the van last Friday and headed South East along the coast to a pretty little town called Robe where we spent our first night in the back of the van... Had a BBQ and lots of wine to help us sleep! The campsites here are pretty special...lovely showers, camp kitchens and they even play music in the loos!
Saturday we drove to Mt Gambier along the coast again and checked in for 2 nights to a nice place. Mt Gambier is famous for its volcanic craters, of which one - The Blue Lake has the most brilliant blue water which baffles most geologists. Check out the pictures which we promise we'll upload tomorrow..! We took a 3.5km walk around the craters edge and then drove to the next crater called Valley Lake. Here we walked about 5.5km around this lake and also up to a tower lookout at the top which was pretty high, we had to walk a 1-in-3 gradient to get up there.... Phew.
Monday we drove on to Port Fairy which is a really pretty seaside village just before the start of the Great Ocean Road. We visited Griffiths Island where there is a mutton bird colony and we also saw some wallabies. The weather wasn't great but the island is uninhabited and so it felt pretty wild and rugged.
Tuesday we drove to Cape Bridgewater and did a beautiful 6km clifftop walk to a seal colony where we saw a few seals swimming about in the water! We then started the Great Ocean Road and spent the night in Peterborough, a very very small town with not much going on... Sadly the weather got pretty bad that night so when we woke up it was raining and very misty. We mananged to visit all the sights along the Port Campbell part of the road including The Arch, London Bridge and Loch Ard Gorge. However at the Twelve Apostles it rained so hard that from the point of getting out of the van to seeing the rocks both of us were literally soeaked through... We had our waterproof jackets with us but our bottom halves were soggy! We only managed to get the camera out for 1 photo because it was so wet!
We spent the night in Apollo Bay, one of the larger towns along the route and made the decision that if the weather didn't improve the next day we would just drive along as far as we could get to Melbourne.
We woke up to rain. So we drove along the next part of the route which is pretty spectacular even in the rain, the roads take you so close to the water that you're driving along roads carved out of the cliff edge... Amazing. We stopped off at Torquay, the last town on the Great Ocean Road for some lunch and then decided to drive about 100km to Melbourne. We were sad not to spend more time on the Great Ocean Road but when it was raining that hard there is little to do during the day...
So we're here in Melbourne for a good few days, checking out the sights and possibly a few of the bars.... We're in a campsite on the outskirts of town and we have to catch a tram in, glad not to be driving in this city...! We're off to find Ramsay St on Sunday/Monday and I can't wait!! What a saddo.
From Melbourne we'll start to head round the coast to Sydney...!
With love to you all,
B and C xxxx
