Great Ocean Road(ish)

Next morning we packed up from Princetown and headed off towards Melbourne, unsure whether Melbourne would be reached that night or another stop would be required along the way. The intention was to follow the coast pretty much the whole way, however just after visiting Triplett Falls, I missed a turn. We ended up coming to a sign saying no caravans etc. at an intersection so thought we had better stay on the road we were on for the moment, however it turned out that the sing was actually referring to the road we were on, meaning we were supposed to have turned onto the cross street. The outcome however was definitely a road we weren’t going to turn a caravan around on so we continued on. This was a lucky outcome for us as it turned out as we ended up travelling about 30km straight through the Otway’s along a winding track that made the Nannup to Balingup road look straight. While we rarely got above 30 km/hr and added about an hour to the journey it was worth every extra minute and kilometre. We were extremely surprised to find a rain forest so far South as we had no idea it actually existed.
Eventually we managed to get ourselves back to the coast with only a little of the coastline actually bypassed. The only town we had passed by was Apollo Bay. Continuing down the GOR we found that the topography, while no less magnificent, was starting to change markedly. We had plenty of time to take in the scenery as we seemed to be stopped every kilometre or so as major roadworks were being undertaken through this stretch. It appears that a number of landslides have occurred either side of the road causing major damage.
Eventually we reached Lorne for lunch, by which time I think the kids were about ready to start eating the headrests off the car! At this point we were still tossing up whether to stay the night somewhere nearby or continue on, but I think to choice between a night-time set in Melbourne where I could set up while Liz was inside having a cuppa with her cousin Sharon or an additional set-up and pack-up along the road was fairly easy for Liz. So off we set once again.
As we left Lorne we once again hit the issue of me trying to drive and keep an eye out for the sights along the way as I missed the turn onto the GOR and headed up a small side street. his didn’t seem to be too much of an issue as I had the GPS on to keep an eye on the road conditions and it was showing a number of upcoming streets leading back down to the coastal road. At each one however I found that no road existed and I would have had to drive through someone's lounge room if I was to follow the GPS’s directions. Therefore we once again set off on a detour, which resulted in us having to deal with about 40 odd kilometres of sweeping valley views. Again the benefits of driving without any real deadlines of exacting destinations was proven as this would have been enough to almost get me divorced in the normal course, but became a very pleasant detour in this instance. A number of tracks later and we found ourselves at Airey’s Beach meaning that it had taken us about an hour to go not far – but as I said a pleasant hour and well pleased I had taken the wrong turn.
At this point we started to consider whether we should just jump on the freeway and head straight into Melbourne, however Liz had really wanted to see what Bell’s Beach was all about so I ignored several calls (mainly from the kids) to get the drive over with and kept on going. Bell’s was interesting, but ultimately a little disappointing. I think our expectations were probably unrealistic however due to being used to the Margaret River area. From there we only had to tool through Torquay for Liz to have ticked all the boxes as far as point’s of interest went in that area and we were off on the freeway.
Finally Ascot Vale was reached which did indeed result in Liz getting to test the inside of a house for the first time since we left Esperance and me getting to set the van up in the dark. Watching the kids catching up with Grady and Iris was the most fantastic part of this night. After having nort seen each other for long enough that they didn’t really remember each other Max and Iris, and Harry and Grady, were paired off like long lost pals.