Wed booked a little Toyota Corolla for our road trip to keep the costs down and knew it would also be ok to drive too. Avis did their usual of giving us an upgrade to the heady heights of a Hyundai Elantra
. We should have said no thanks as we realised they probably wanted to get rid of one of their crappy cars up to Adelaide!! So we set off feeling a bit like Stars in a Reasonably Priced Car trying to avoid trams and cope with the crazy hook turns that people do in Melbourne (basically you turn right from the left hand lane argh!).
Heres Steve looking very proud of the great motor.
The roads were very busy leaving Melbourne heading towards the Great Ocean Road as it is in the middle of the long school holidays and a lot of people are off work until Australia Day on Jan 26th.
It took a couple of hours to get out of the traffic and onto the Great Ocean Road proper which starts at Torquay properly. It was a very beautiful drive through lots of little seaside town up twisty hill roads (which reminded me of Lake Tahoe in Nevada!). We briefly stopped at Split Point lighthouse which was beautiful, and in Lorne for our market picnic lunch wed bought that morning. The next stop we made was at Gibsons Steps which led down to Gibsons beach the most magical beach at the start of the Twelve Apostles. It was a bit dusky and hazy and it just had this ethereal feel about it. I loved it and could literally have just camped out down there for the night!
We took a proper stop at the Twelve Apostles viewing point just stunning. The flies take a bit of getting used to here but a bit of grass makes a good swat! We got into Warannbool pretty late around 6ish it had been a long drive, probably the longest leg of the 4. Our motel was dead basic and we were really tired so had a quiet night in and did our washing, got two yummy pizzas and watched the Bill!! Warannbool is very 50s like town with lots of original shop fronts a few nice restaurants and not a lot else really. Were even a bit sick of boozing after 15 consecutive nights!