The Great and the Ocean of all Roads

Logan, Travis, Kevin, Me, Cole

Entrance to the Great Ocean Road

We are quite the traveling squad of hooligans. None of us packed until the day of departure. We planned to leave by 9:30 which shortly turned into 11:00. A map was an unknown object to us and so we hit the road with just logic and intuition guiding us. With a few detours, we finally made it out of the city toward Geelong (the entrance of The Great Ocean Road). First of all, I must describe our car. Just before we left Melbourne Cole found some fabulous window flags that said “Proudly Australian”. Then, we had a surfboard strapped to the top. There were five of us in this small white car with bright orange tie downs running across our foreheads (luckily I am short enough that is was above my head and never a nuisance).

Car RAM ROD

First thing we did was stop for a bit to see a light house at Airley’s Inlet. Pretty cool I guess, but nothing spectacular. If you’ve seen one lighthouse, you’ve seem them all! Overall the Great Ocean Road looks very similar to Highway 1 in California. We drove through Lorne and continued on to Apollo Bay. It was about 5:00pm and we were curious as to what to do there. We made random turns until we ended up near the dock next to a fish and chips place. When in Rome! So we decided to grab dinner. We got heaps of chips and all packed in the parked car to eat because the restaurant was take away only. After that meal I think I consumed my yearly intake of sodium and fat. We hit the road again to make it to Johanna beach and set up camp before the sun set.

When we rolled in we had countless looks at our beautiful car. The looks didn’t stop there. When we set up the tents we found out that one of our tents was missing poles and a rain fly. Being a crew of engineers, we figured we could make it work. With the assistance of the car, some string, two bungee cords, and a borrowed pole from the other tent, we had ourselves somewhat of a place to sleep. Our neighbors got a kick out of set up and warned us that a storm was coming. Of course we check the weather before we left… not! Because of the rain, our neighbors where hitting the road so out of kindness or maybe pity, they gave us some food to at least survive the night.

It was now goone o’clock! Since alcohol is sooo expensive here, we had become accustom to drinking box wine aka “goone”. It’s about $12 for 4 liters. We grabbed the wine, towels, and hit the beach. The storm was rolling in over the horizon so of course we made a drinking game out of it. Every time we saw lighting we had to drink. The five of us reminisced and told ghost stories until it began to sprinkle. We rushed back to the tent realizing we didn’t even have a flashlight! Once again, we are very prepared campers! To solve this problem, we just made some friends with surfers and chilled with them until it was late enough to hit the sack. Returning to camp we noticed our makeshift tent was now flooded so it was concluded that all five of us would spend the night in our three person tent. Goodnight boys!!