Tuesday, December 8th, Driving back from Port Campbell to Melbourne
Bob: I was certainly feeling tired when we arose for the day, and if we had not had to drive back to Melbourne to return the car and catch a flight home, I would have tried to put in a day of sightseeing with minimal driving. But as it was we did have to work our way back, so having the last of our cereal for breakfast we started driving first North and then Northeast until we intercepted A1, the main highway to Melbourne. The tertiary roads were paved but often rather bumpy and lacking shoulders, whereas when we joined the A1 we had consistently good, smooth pavement and wide shoulders, which give cars some room to maneuver and would make it much safer for bicyclists, among other things. The landscape we saw in the morning was remarkably green and lush although warnings of water restrictions were still posted along the road. Most of the land was given over to pasture land for cattle, sheep, or dairy cows, but some fields were used to raise hay and very occasionally we spotted some other kind of row crop or possibly a vineyard. Curiously, the scenery reminded us both of southern Wisconsin where my sister Lois lives, with its rolling landscape and the bucolic mix of pasture lands, farms and trees. The trees we saw in Victoria, of course, were predominantly eucalyptus although stands of pines were also planted, often as windbreaks to shelter the homes. Driving through one section of eucalyptus forest just after it had rained, we could even smell the pungent odor of eucalyptus oil in the car, which was a first. |
Monika: For our way back to Melbourne we had chosen the inland route, feeling that would be quicker and less stressful than trying to drive back on the Great Ocean Road. It had rained overnight, and in the morning it was still cloudy and overcast. We finished the last of the cereal and the milk for breakfast and set off rather quickly thereafter as we had packed most things the evening before. I had been surprised that I did manage to get all of my dirty clothes plus one of the beach towels into my suitcase. Bob packed the other beach towel, so we did not have to haul an extra bag with dirty clothes as has often happened before, only our two suitcases and two carry-on backpacks. At first we had to drive north towards the Princes Highway. The landscape was mainly grazing land with cows and sheep interspersed with hay making. There were a few row crops, but it seemed mostly for personal use or maybe truck farms. Everything looked very green and the whole area reminded us a lot of the state of Wisconsin in the U.S. |
Bob: About 11 o'clock we drove into Colac the Otway-Colac shire seat (American: county seat), and it was such a pretty little town that we stopped the car to walk around a bit. I enjoyed taking pictures of many of the old store fronts on the main street as we walked along. Many of the buildings dated from the 1900-1930s era and had the fancy brickwork or even some Art Deco elements that made them much more interesting to me than most modern commercial buildings. The downtown business area also seemed very vibrant; I did not see any vacant storefronts at all and most of the shops seemed to be bustling with activity. Monika even found a nice, fancy pair of black sandals for formal wear for only $20, so of course we contributed to the local economy and took those with. We also saw a used clothing and book store where we simply turned in some of our paperbacks; they were reasonably entertaining works of fiction and it seemed a shame just to throw them away when someone else could have the pleasure of reading them. In terms of packing, I suppose we came out about even on the exchange as the books were just about as much bulk as those tiny sandals Monika bought! |
Monika: Once on the Princes Highway, we stopped at the town of Colac. This is the shire seat of the Otway-Colac Shire and is just north of the Otway National Park. There were actually two roads that led down to the National Park and the Great Ocean Road and Apollo Bay. We stopped, because the town looked interesting. The downtown area had a lot of old storefront facades. All the stores in the downtown area were occupied and busy. The whole place had a vibrant, alive feel to it. I could imagine, staying here to start some of the walks in the Otway National Park. While walking, we happened to pass a shoe store, that had a nice pair of black sandals in my size for only $20. So on the last day, I managed to pick up a pair of sandals. Lucky me! |
Bob: The town square was anchored by an surprisingly large and ornate ANZAC memorial to local soldiers who had lost there lives in WWI, WWII, and other conflicts since. We thought that was quite an investment for a town of about 20,000 people. But there were also three other distinct signs of what I would call real civilization: free public bathrooms, a public water fountain, and a bandstand. There really aren't that many places in the world where public sanitation and supplying clean drinking water to passing strangers is given a high priority, and even fewer where free public concerts are regularly performed. In addition, I saw a sign for a community theatre group and we passed both a public library and a rather extensive public hospital complex, so in the end I got the feeling that I could get along very well indeed in Colac, Victoria. In fact, there were some motels on the edge of town, so you could use Colac as a central base of operations if you wanted to stay there and take day trips out to drive sections of the Great Ocean Road and parts of Otway National Park. We spent enough time wandering around the town that it was finally lunch time, so we had lunch at the Red Rooster on the edge of town before continuing on the drive to Melbourne. |
Monika: The heart of town was a pretty little park with Memorial to the Great War, a bandstand, and even a clock that showed the correct time! We finally returned to our car. By now it was 11:30, lunch time. Coming into town, we had seen a Red Rooster, an Aussie chain that specializes in chicken. We had the grilled chicken baguette before and decided it would be nice to have it again. Sharing some chips (American: French Fries) and a coke, we did indeed have a great meal. |
Bob: About 100 kilometers to the East, the A1 turned into M1, a motorway (American: freeway or Interstate highway). Ordinarily I think of freeway driving as more relaxing than driving two-lane highways, but in this instance the reverse was true. The amount of traffic increased so dramatically from the deserted two-lane stretches of A1 and the pace of the traffic increased so noticeably that I felt under considerably more driving tension that afternoon than I had in the morning. Getting to the Melbourne airport was, however, quite quick. I saw a sign for a RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force, I think) museum as we circled around the central part of Melbourne on a ring road, but after driving around searching for it fruitlessly for half an hour or so, we gave up and continued on to Melbourne Airport. I was very disappointed to miss that museum, but if we can by the Grace of God get back to Australia again maybe we will start in Melbourne, seeing that RAAF museum first off, and then explore the region of Victoria westward to the state of South Australia and the city of Adelaide. Once at the airport we had to circle around through the traffic but missed our turnoff to the Formule 1 Motel and then had to drive back toward Melbourne on the M1 one exit and come back to the airport again to finally get in, but we did make it in the end. There was a convenience store with gas station just around the corner from the motel and a McDonald's for snacks, so I was pretty happy to just park the car for the day and be done with it. Besides the McDonald's snacks, we finished up our rolls and cheese for dinner, which just left some of that wonderfully rich raisin bread and Australian honey to finish off, which we figured we would do in the morning. We repacked our bags, cleared out all of the debris from two weeks of driving from the car, and settled in for a relaxed evening of reading and working on the computer. After several days of overcast skies and intermittent rain while we were driving through some of the most scenic places on Earth, the skies cleared up and the sun started beaming down from a clear blue sky when we were stuck at Melbourne airport getting ready to go home. Life is just full of these little ironies, isn't it? |
Monika: After that it was on to Melbourne. We had another half hour of two lane road, but then we found that there now was a motorway built around Geelong. This one was so new, that our GPS did not know about it. It just kept telling me I was driving on a road. As we got closer to Melbourne, the lanes and the traffic increased. We stopped at a rest area just to stretch our legs and then forged on. At one point, Bob saw a sign for an RAAF Museum, so we turned off. We did see two more signs, that we faithfully followed, but after driving for several kilometers without seeing any sign of the museum or signs pointing towards it, and even the GPS did not have it as a Point of Interest, we gave up and headed back to the motorway. Since the plane to Sydney left at 10:30 it meant that we should be turning in the car around 9. So we decided to find a motel close to the airport. I remembered that there was a Formule 1 by the airport. Formule 1 motels are like McDonald's, you know exactly what you get and that it is reasonably priced. The GPS had it under its Points of Interests and tried to lead us to it. What I had not known, was that it was part of the airport complex. We had to drive past the terminals, then follow little signs to the motel, McDonald's, and a BP station. However, when our route diverged from the main airport road, I did not catch the sign and soon we were back on the interstate headed towards Melbourne. Bob was frustrated, but at the next exit we road the ramps and came back for our second attempt. This time we made it and got our room where we first rested a bit. After Bob had napped and felt up to do some exploring we went over to the McDonald's and bought two chicken wraps for dinner. That together with a last roll with the last cheese made a quite satisfactory evening meal. I had an additional large Latte, and everything was right with the world. We did go back to the car to clear out the accumulated debris, collect the stored maps we wanted to bring back with us, and chucked everything else into the rubbish bin. After that we settled in for an evening of reading and writing. |
| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Cruise around New Zealand | Map of Drive through Victoria | Epilog |
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