A Solo Travellers Mind

The post festivals blues hit for me pretty hard, even with the festival being such a fail, I was still battered from lack of sleep, mild dehydration and sleeping in a tent on the floor, so my pre road trip day was spent sleeping on John’s sofa, and resting my little head. Laura took her rest day with a different approach and went into town to purchase some items, something I couldn’t bring myself to do.

On Tuesday morning, Laura headed out to collect what would be out home for the next four days. We’d hired someone else’s 4WD with a rooftop tent for our exploration of Victorias Coast line. She came to collect me, and off we went. Our first stop was Aldi, where the week’s food was purchased, and I nearly wet myself. Our first day of driving took us through the village of Torquay, along through Anglesea, and Aireys inlet finishing in Lorne where we set up camp at big hill camp ground. We stopped at Anglesea beach to take a little walk, with an overcast day slightly spoiling our views. Popped into Aireys inlet to see its lighthouse, and of course took photos at the famous “Great Ocean Road” road sign where I nearly pulled a muscle acting like a fool. Before heading to camp we checked out Erskine Falls rapids, where I assume there are rapids when the water is running but for us it was more of a a pretty stream, and some cool rock formations, a win either way in my opinion. Camp was easy to set up, surprisingly so, and the evening ended with us cooking up a treat of buttered chicken and vegetables in a Bombay potato kinda style, getting a solid 9/10 from us. Still semi recovering from our 4 days of heated drama, we called it a night in an attempt to get some high-quality shut eye.

The next day we got up early doors and headed to Erskine Falls, a relatively highly rated waterfall in Lorne. We made breaky in the car park and then headed on the trek down many stairs so see the falls. Our second stop of the day was Phantom Falls, where we took a mini hike through the national park before arriving at what was actually a cliff because there was 0 water flowing. No regrets, it was still cool. We spotted at Teddy look out and many others along the road as we made our way towards Apollo Bay. That drive was probably the prettiest sights we’d seen so far, with the coast line being complimented with blue sunny sky’s. Our final stop of the day was Mariners Lookout, a view that ended up being one of my favourites in the trip. That night, we set up camp at Parker hill camp ground in Otway National Park. This evening was spent eating butter chicken pitta breads, talking with some middle aged men we had become acquainted with and watching vomit leave the mouth of a friend after 1 too many, don’t worry no vomit entered the tent, it did however unfortunately go on someone’s two day old north face coat (seriously heart breaking stuff). Being a friend who doesn’t drink all that much does make me a wonderful babysitter in these situations!

The next day, after sleeping off the night before, we headed towards Red Woods Forest and Hopetoun Falls. Two incredibly beautiful spots in the Osprey National Park. Red wood is a big forest full of red wood trees, some of the tallest type of tree in the world, taller than the Eiffel Tower. Hopetoun Falls was a pretty magnificent waterfall nearby that most definitely didn’t disappoint. The rest of the day was spent driving down towards Port Campbell, through to Peterborough (the Australian version of course) where we set up camp at a local carven site, deciding our last night could be a night of luxury with hot showers! We spotted as some viewpoints along the way. However, after another big day, we decided to set up camp and see the rest of the hot spots the next day on our drive back towards Melbourne. A decision that ended up working very well for us, as Friday came around and we were gifted with blue skies and sunshine!

Our last day of site seeing included the Bay of Islands, a very cool lookout where we met two dutch motorcyclists, who we subsequently ended up accidentally stalking (everyone does the same stops lol), and eventually stopped to have a quick coffee with before we headed in our seperate directions. We also stopped at The grotto, maybe our favourite stop of the day, as well as Lock Ard Gorge and London Bridge, before finally seeing the 12 apostles, which although pretty, was semi underwhelming as there’s just six apostles now at a push. The drive back to Melbourne was a long one, taking a grand total of 4 hours, getting stuck in traffic as well as needing to stop for a toilet emergency after I drank a carton of milk and subsequently reaped the consequences of the IBS/Lactose intolerance that I’ve been dealing with lately (its great fun!).

My final day in Victoria was spent in Melbourne, saying goodbye to my friend that had so kindly let me crash on his sofa, on and off during this trip! Before having breakfast with another friend who’d I’d not seem since my Bali Christmas some years ago. It was then time to fly back to Sydney and return to Newcastle with the future of what I would be doing for the next few months truely up in the air!