Now I wasn't that excited for the Great Ocean Road, but it is an Australian institution and we were near Melbourne so it would be silly not to do it. We did the ride down to Geelong, with nothing to see and then got to Torquay. We went to see the famous Bells Beach, which was underwhelming but we expected crashing waves. Apparently its temperamental so maybe we caught it on the wrong day. We then drove on down to the lighthouse where we turned off early and Cannelle scratched up the underside of the car doing a u-turn. Shit. Was a bang and a scratch. We had a look underneath and the paint seemed scratched off and there was a lot of mud underneath where it had removed the mudguard. Way to ruin a trip. Shit. We had taken the minimum insurance and now we had dinged up the car. Apparently a new bumper could run up to $2000 and we had an excess of $3300. Shitty. We drove on and saw the koalas that were sleeping as usual. Some idiots have obviously been feeding the birds for photos as they were quite aggressive in coming for my ice cream. On the way into Apollo Bay we saw a car pull over. We stopped to have a look. A koala had apparently fallen out of a tree and was trying to escape the side of the road. He couldn't make it over. I suggested picking him up and the other driver lifted him over the barrier. The koala was waving his arms and screaming "noooooooo". It was quite funny, but he seemed fine enough when he was on the otther side and walked off. We got to Apollo Bay and tried to clean up the underside of the car as best we could. Not sure what was going to happen when we got it back. The first day on the Great Ocean Road had been very underwhelming. I didn't see why it was so famous. We were hoping for more on the second day.
On the second day we drove on through Cape Otway National Park and into Port Campbell National Park. It was still less impressive than the New Zealand west coast drive, which was also disappointing apart from Punakaiki. Even the twelve apostles are not that impressive. Yes they are nice and I am happy I have seen them, but I am not sure they are worth the drive out here if you are not coming this way. London Bridge, The Arch and the Grotto were all better in my opinion. At last we had found something worth seeing on the Great Ocean Road. I really think it is overblown and the Australians can't seem to see what all the fuss is about either. When we told the rental company we were going to wilsons prom, GOR and Grampians they were only interested in the first and third ones. I think we should just chat to Aussies as they tend to dismiss the overhyped tourist places. Most of them think Queensland is overrated as well. Well the Great Ocean Road certainly won't be a highlight of this trip or even of this 6 day roadtrip. Its nice. Its pleasant. Its not that special. We pushed on up to the Grampians and the mountains at the southern end of the park are really beautiful. What a start. We drove North up to Halls Gap and had a good feeling for the park.
We would stay two days at Halls Gap to visit the Grampians. Its a really nice natonal park. We stayed at Tims Place which is a really nice place and the owner is a nice guy. He was learning French so we chatted together for a while and he told us what to do to make the most of our time there. We did the pinnacles walk via the grand canyon that took us just over 2 hours (rather than four). The first part to Cleopatras Pool is not bad and quite pretty, but the highlight is definitely the walk up through grand canyon and silent street. Really beautiful rock formations and reminded me a little of Slovensky Raj in Slovakia. The view from the top is nice as well, but the climb was more unique. We thought it would be Blue Mountains light and although it is similar, it is also different. More jagged and on a smaller scale than the blue mountains. Lacks the epic feel. After that we drove across the tourist pass to see the lookouts (they are nice) and past the damaged areas from the forest fires. The waterfall looks stunning, but you can't visit it anymore because of the fires. Shame. You can't even stop along the side of the road (I don't know why) and I think we should have done it anyway. Just be aware that the waterfall access is closed. Not sure when they will open it up again. Finally we went to the aboriginal museum, which is informative and well worth stopping in.
On the drive back we decided to visit Ballarat to break up the journey. Its a nice mining town with some cool architecture but its also bitterly cold. We also had to print off our flight tickets and print and sign documents for the taxman as we hadn't done them on the road trip. It would turn out these forms had some errors and we would have to print off new ones in Launceston and do the process all over again. Neverending lol. We were now shitting ourselves about dropping off the damaged car. We ended up dropping off the car early at 2.30pm and looked nonchalant as we dropped off the bags and left him to do the inspection. We had also had a stone flip up and chip the windshield on the way to Ballarat so that was further damage we had to worry about. Luckily the old guy who rented it to us wasn't there and just his moron assistant. He said nothing and gave us our receipt. Great. We escaped out as quickly as we could, but we weren't sure if they could still take the money later, so we spent the afternoon futilely looking for a way to transfer all of Cannelle's money to my account so they wouldn't be able to take it. We were still stressed, but failed miserably in every effort. Cannelle then got a missed call and we were sure it was them so we panicked even more. Eventually she listened to it and it turned out not to be them. We resolved not to stress anymore and just relax a bit. We would wait and see what happened with the $200 deposit. Maybe they would just take that when they found out. We figured the longer it went on the less time they would have for recourse as they wouldn't be able to prove it was us that did the damage. Oh well. We went out in Melbourne and the next day we caught a plane to Tasmania. I was really excited for this part of the trip and we had hired a car with a different company just in case. The flight was really short as it was only 49 minutes in the air. You are up for a bit and then next minute you are coming in to land again. Tasmania at last.
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