Day 82: From Killarney to Apollo Bay (22/08/12)

After a very good night’s sleep we woke up to a pleasant sunny morning. We had our showers in the sports ground facilities. They used bore water and it was as if we were back in the parts of Australia we had travelled through where artesian water was used. The water had that faint farty pong which we had often encountered ever since leaving Cairns. It was more noticeable in some places than others, with Normanton standing out in my recollection as having the smelliest water. Other places like Yulara and Coober Pedy had expensive water treatment plants using reverse osmosis where the water was (almost) as good as Launceston’s water. But if you had showered in bore water, it always took a day or two before you were absolutely rid of that water whiff.

Before Warrnambool we stopped at Tower Hill, a complex of volcanic crater lakes

The layers of ash in the wall of the crater.

We drove off into Warrnambool in search of petrol and morning tea. I got the former and Joke got the latter. When I was finished, I decided for some reason to have a senior moment and tried to wipe out a petrol pump. Luckily Joke was at hand to stop me and no damage was done except to my self-esteem.

After Warrnambool, the road led us through that quaint series of right-angle bends to the coast where we stopped at the Bay of Islands. 

This is how the sea erodes the land, bit by bit.

Stacks in the Bay of Islands

More stacks in the Bay of Islands (or a different view of the same stacks..)

Lots of birds nest on the stacks, safe from foxes and man!

This proud-looking stack does not have the firmest of foundations. I think this is a case of pride goes before a fall!

This headland looks like a petrified crocodile.

Ahhh! Another beach!

Beautiful colours

The Grotto (I think..)

We had now entered Great Ocean Road territory, and we would find ourselves once more among the tourist masses. Many of them were overseas tourists and of them, many were Asian. Doing our Grey Nomad greet-everybody-and-sundry thing, we noticed that we had much more chance of a smile and a return greeting with the Chinese tourists than with the Indonesian/Malaysian tourists. One such party of the latter kind had particularly sullen male members, and we kept bumping into them from one stop to another as we made our way to our lunch stop at Port Campbell.

First, though, we stopped at London Bridge (fallen down in 1991) and other viewable bits of coastline. 

London Bridge has fallen down!

Then we glided into Port Campbell and found a parking spot on the foreshore. Suddenly Joke was giggling away as she espied the young male in charge of our party described above walking around between minibus and picnic table carrying a small green plastic indoor watering can. The men of the party had spread themselves a lunch-feast while the women had disappeared or were hovering around in the background. Finally Mohammed al Gieter, as we had dubbed him (gieter = Dutch for watering can) went off to the toilets and came back with a full can of water. The men then washed their right hands with water from the can (no soap) and tucked heartily into the table full of goodies. Finally, the men’s first hunger sated, the women in the party approached and picked out some food to eat (with unwashed hand). We were duly impressed with what we had seen and were thankful to Mr al Gieter and his party for having given us insight into cultural practices which were so different to our own.

Joke providing commentary on Mr al Gieter

Port Campbell harbour

Culturally enriched we drove on to the Twelve Apostles, our next stop after Port Campbell. Now, we know that there aren’t twelve apostles in the sea off the Great Ocean Road. In fact, I counted 7½ apostles, and that’s generous because 1½ of those are just stumps. Yet the spiel for tourists fudges this marvellously, even claiming other stacks outside the Twelve Apostle area as being part of the group. I think they would not have had any loss of tourist numbers if they had stuck to the original name for the group: The Sow and Piglets. On our last visit to this area, we had been able to descend to the beach. However, tourism has dictated that a huge car park, helipad, kiosk etc should be built on the landward side of the road, with an underpass to a series of strategically placed lookouts, all along tiled, paved or board-walked paths. To walk to these lookouts was about the same as walking down Swanston Street in Melbourne, jostled by crowds of people. At the lookouts the available space was hogged by dozens of people taking pictures of natural beauty successfully obscured by smirking and gawping family members. The view was great, but we very quickly tired of the company. Just as there was a lull in the crowd and we could appreciate the view, chukka! chukka! chukka!, the next red helicopter roared past to give tourists their quick five-minute look at the rocks from the sky.

The action of the waves at the Twelve Apostles was impressive. So it should be. They were, after all, winning.

Standard tourist shot of the 12-ish Apostles, or Sow and Piglets.

Then you turn around to get some more of the 12-ish apostles in the frame.

No 12 Apostles, but definitely 1200 tourists!

Before this Grey Nomad could become a complete Grey Curmudgeon, Joke whisked me back to the car and we forged on towards Apollo Bay. Ahead of us was the stretch of the Great Ocean Road which winds through the Otways. We negotiated this section at leisure, finally descending into Apollo Bay in the late afternoon. 

Looking down the valley towards Apollo Bay. Out of the Otways at last!

For our last night in the caravan we were not going to find a free camp, but enjoy the comfort of electricity and hot showers. So we checked in at the Big4 Pisces Caravan Park, which was a series of terraces on a fairly steep hill. Three months ago I would have taken one look and told Joke we would go elsewhere – too steep and narrow, but now we just drove in, booked a spot and set the caravan down right where we wanted it. We had learnt a lot about handling the caravan in the last three months.....

Our last caravan spot for this trip was in Salmon Street.