The Purple Penguin

So we have travelled on motorways, A roads, B roads, and C roads in Australia. We’ve also done sealed and unsealed (ie paved and unpaved) roads, as well as named and unnamed roads. All the roads.

We left Victor Harbour after a walk about the area. We found a nice bakery with very yummy doughnuts – they also did a ‘whale doughnut’ which is a huge flavoured doughnut. We did not get that one. Just plain ones. With coffee. From Victor Harbour we headed out to go around the coast. This meant going inland (yes, I know, but it did). We hugged the coast as much as we could and were making good progress until we found ourselves at the end of a stopped queue of cars, vans, campervans, and caravans. A long queue. Leading to a ferry we hadn’t realised was on the route (going inland began to make sense). So we backtracked a bit and took another road up to the A road and over the river, and back down to the coast. We didn’t see any cars coming from the ferry road, so not sure if the ferry was even running!

As we got onto the A Road for the detour I saw a lookout sign and turned quickly up it. May have startled Joe because he may have been messing with his phone. Teach him to pay attention. It overlooked the Murray River, sort of. Between the trees. The Wellington Ferry probably would have been more interesting, but that was a very long queue.

We got off the A1 and onto the B1 rather quickly and went back to following the coast around. To be honest it wasn’t that interesting a drive. There were some interesting marshes and pink lakes, but for the most part it was farmland and no overlooks to the sea.

We’d struggled to find accommodation for this section of the trip, so we had to head inland for our hotel. It was in Coonawarra off the A66 in the middle of wine country. You want to see wineries and vineyards and cellar doors and tastings, drive up the A66 – I think they are all there. The hotel is lovely, Coonawarra Units, looks like an old stable with lovely rooms and a lovely garden in the centre. I think most of the people staying were doing wine tours. That may be a place to do a longer stay! (Joe may disagree.)

We were so tired we just headed out to the nearest supermarket (IGA). We’d planned to get a cold meal or something we could microwave in our room but they had roasted chicken (they called them BBQ Chooks), so we got that and some salads which we had in our room. Very relaxed! Then the next morning we had a relaxing breakfast in our room as the hotel puts the makings for a light breakfast in the rooms. They supply coffee (instant), tea, orange juice, apple juice, milk, cereal, and bread, butter and jams. It was really nice to sit and have a quiet breakfast.

Today’s drive was better. We started out heading for Mount Gambier. I wanted to see the Umpherston Sinkhole (Cenote) – a sinkhole in Mount Gambier which had been turned into a garden in the 19th century, then redone in the 20th. We got there early enough that it was quiet with just a few people around and we had a nice walk down into the hole. It’s a beautiful spot.

We then decided to head for Port Fairy and go to any of the lookouts. Joe had named a couple the night before. We tried one but it was down a dirt road was that was narrow and all the roads to the side were closed due to fire danger, so we decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to continue. But then I saw the turn off for The Crags which I remembered Joe mentioning (though he didn’t remember it!) So we went down to that which gave us a lovely overlook. There also weren’t many people there.

We went through Port Fairy. Had thought about stopping to eat, but didn’t see much we wanted so we carried on. At Warrnambool we decided to continue on the Great Ocean Road. We had thought we’d turn inland and take a quicker road to the hotel, then come back out to see the bits on the Ocean Road, but instead we did it today.

So off onto the B100 and along the coast. It took a while to actually see the coast but when we did it was spectacular. For most of the bit we drove, you can’t get down on the beaches. There were a lot of bird prints and it looks like there may be little penguin nesting sites down there. We stopped at The Bay of Islands, The Grotto, London Bridge, through Port Campbell. At each stop it got more crowded, with more people. So by the time we got to Loch and Gorge the car park was full and we only just managed to get back out, so we didn’t see that. The Twelve Apostles was a zoo – bit less than the Gorge though as the parking was better organised with a huge overflow. But there were so many people going to look at the stacks that it was ridiculous and you could barely see anything. So we quickly went back to the car.

With the crowds we decided to head inland and head for the hotel in Geelong. I had said I’d continue on the Ocean Road, but Joe said no point, especially with the crowds. We would discover that the decision to see the Ocean Highway and the decision to turn off when we did were very good decisions indeed!

We drove through more rolling farmland until we got to Geelong and the hotel. Another lovely little motel, Rose Garden Motel. When we checked in the woman on reception asked us if we’d come by the Ocean Highway and when we explained what we’d done she said that was a good thing. Apparently a large music festival in Lorne (Falls Festival) has been cancelled and the Ocean Highway and roads around are blocked!