Road Trip Day 1 - The Great Ocean Road

We set off for the Great Ocean Road in a hire car that Dougie had chosen. It was a pretty sporty red number and Dougie was looking excited at the prospect of driving round the narrow winding roads of the Great Ocean Road.

Before setting off we had attempted to do some laundry at the hotel, after pulling the washing out of the dryer it was still pretty damp. We didn't have time to put it back in so we decided to display our underwear and the like on the back self of the car as we sped off in the sunshine.
With the car looking like a mobile laundrette we flew down the highway and immediately hit traffic on the way out of the city. It didn't last long and soon we were out on the open road and heading for the coast.

We really covered some distanced stopping off in a surfer town and hitting the world famous Bell's Beach where major world surfing competitions are held.

As we ventured further down the coast we began to notice the vast number of "no vacancy" signs out side every resort, hotel, motel or camp site in the area. It soon dawned on us that every Aussie and their dog had taken off for holidays down the Great Ocean Road....and no one had told us....well the guide book had told Dougie...but this he failed to mention.

We stopped off at Split Point Lighthouse where I joked to Dougie that the lighthouse was used in the kids TV program "Round the twist", I didn't really think it had. Later on the following day someone on the Neighbours tour mentioned that they had seen the lighthouse from "Round the twist", I enquired about where they had seen it and low and behold it was the Split Point Lighthouse!

We tried a few various phone numbers from an information point but as the sun went down it became apparent that a night in the car was on the cards.

At this point we decided to make a little more progress and head for the next town on the map just in case there was anywhere to stay. It was dark as Dougie took the winding bends like a F1 pro flying past blurry signs warning of  the possibility of plowing down a kangaroo.

The last thing we needed was a 6 foot kangaroo landing on the windscreen but we nearly had just that. As we took a tight bend up into the hills a lone kangaroo sat on the left hand side of the road watching as we slowed to avoid him if he decided to jump into the middle of the road.

At our next stop we realised it was either to be another long drive off the coast to find some accommodation or a night in the car. We parked the car just off the main road facing the beach and drank a few celebratory beers we had purchased before bed time.

We covered the windows with a few clothes (most notably Dougie's undies) and attempted to get some sleep. I would have been fine if it hadn't been for Dougie snoring like a bear, at 2 in the morning I got out and took the ear plugs from the boot and went back to my passenger seat. At last I managed to sleep and woke up to a fresh morning after sleeping for about 7 hours.

We had our fingers crossed that for our second night on the road we wouldn't be sleeping in the car again.