Mozzeenet

On Sunday July 10, Andrew and I headed off from Melbourne on a ten day road trip through south-west Victoria and Central Oz including South Australia and the Northern Territory, armed with an esky, a library of CDs, 12 litres of water and a couple of backpacks.

No-one, especially us, was surprised to find out that we departed several hours later than planned that day. We are optimistic and ambitious but definitely not early-morning types.

This was my second trip along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria (I visited the area in 2004 with Amit and his family too). Andrew had also traversed the route a couple of times before. It’s somewhere though that one can never tire of because it is different each time. And this time it was actually physically different - with one of the twelve apostles having crumbled and fallen into the ocean a couple of weeks before our trip. The photo on Amit’s blog shows the now non-existent apostle and here is the photo I took this year where you can see the mound of rubble where the apostle used to be.

There are now only eight left standing of these amazing pillars of rock, the products of eons of sea and wind erosion. It is eerie to think about how long it has taken to create them and how quickly one can disappear. The unpredictability of the elements and how this changes the scenery and atmosphere is fascinating.

At a morning stop at Lorne, we ate pumpkin soup overlooking the sun-lit turquoise ocean, for lunch we ate sandwiches from our esky under a park shelter in the middle of a heavy downpour and later in the afternoon we viewed the rugged coastline around the apostles with a backdrop of sun streaming through grey and a magnificent rainbow.

In the early evening we reached our resting place at Killara B&B near Port Fairy. It is on a dairy farm and run as a side to the farm business which Heather and her husband manage. It was a wonderful spot, one of the best places we stayed at. The room was gorgeous and very homely and comfortable, decorated with tasteful wooden furniture. There was a small lounge area attached including home-made complimentary biscuits. It was separate to the main house so very private.

In the morning, we had a lovely breakfast and we were fascinated to see a calf which had been born during the night in the yard near the house. It was trying desperately to stand up and its mother was on the other side of the yard. It was a big calf and it had been a difficult birth with Heather’s husband out during the night to assist.

On Heather’s recommendation, we visited the Tower Hill reserve nearby where we climbed the hill to get a good view of the surrounding fields and ocean and also saw koalas sleeping high in the tree-tops, a large kangaroo hop across the road and ducks nesting in a rock wall.

After eating some dodgy fish and chips at Port Fairy, we started out for Adelaide and South Australia which was where our experience of all things “big” began. Our “big” adventure kicked off that morning with a viewing of a wind farm, an impressive sight with about 10 of the massive white propellers all in a row. They look like something built by an alien civilisation standing watch over land and sea. I’m quite impressed by some of the innovative and progressive schemes like this one under way in Victoria.

In the afternoon, we crossed the border into South Australia, the land of the BIG things. We stopped for a break at the Big Lobster at Kingston. The attached restaurant/shop was deserted and was stuck in a 70s time warp. Andrew and I felt obliged to buy something so we ordered a coffee (instant) and bought some honeycomb.

The road from Mt Gambier which is mid way between Melbourne and Adelaide was dead straight with flat, unchanging scenery - it seemed like it would never end. We just had to stop at the big oil rig replica though. Boy were we glad when we got to the outskirts of Adelaide in the early evening!