Adelaide to Melbourne in two days

Despite the exhausting past two days, we did not sleep that well, but had a big trip ahead of us. We had two days to get from Adelaide to Melbourne by car, something that I – like always – had underestimated. I just never think of those little breaks that you need to make for all kinds of reasons… refill water.. get rid off water. And it is those little breaks that I love the most. Because you always find hidden treasures, like extemely nice cafés or just a tiny chat with the locals.
To get going, we had a nice breakfast just around the corner of the hostel at a café we had spotted while waiting fo the fire alarm to be over two days before.

The whole drive was over four hours, stops not included. All the beautiful animals we had seen on Kangaroo Island, where now to be found on the street or at the edge of it. I have never seen that much roadkill and I wonder how a car must look like, that hit a kangaroo, wallaby or even a wombat. I still know, how my car looked like after killing two possums in one night on our drive from the west coast back to Dunedin – and that was not pretty at all. Unfortunately we did not see any live wombat.

We stopped to stretch our legs in a little town, that I don`t know the name of. It had beautifully sprayed/grafitti-ed towers in the middle, very clean toilets and water stations to get drinking water for free. It is – like it was in California and NZ – very nice to use a public restroom in OZ (at least in most places), because they are surpriseingly clean and there is always paper. You might even be crazy and sit down… but baby steps.

One of our next stops were the MacKenzie Falls. You have to walk a couple of steps down to get there. It was pretty and silent with not many people around. We did all the lookouts they have there and enjoyed walking a little and using some stairs for the first time this day.

We got closer to the Grampians. Not only could we see them in the distance, also did our eardrums pop. It is nice to finally see something at the horizont after a four hour drive. To get to Hall`s Gap, which is a little city in the Grampians and home of our YHA, you have to get to the Grampians Nationalpark, which is only accessible by a narrow winding street where there is a rocky wall on one side and a deep cliff on the other one. I tried to drive carefully, but could feel and hear Camilla getting nervous. To be fair.. it was very narrow. Luckily I am used to serpentines from home.

On our way to the hostel we made one more stop at a lookout to see the sunset over the valley. It was very chilly already and at one booth, a couple of people had sat down and watched the sun go down.
When we walked a little further, we ran into some more Instagramers, that had climed over the barriers and stood on the cliffs very close to the edges to take some pictures, getting instructions from the one holding the camera or phone. There was another couple even further away on another rock and in the very back – don‘t know how she got there – was a girl WITH A GUITAR. I just hoped she would not start playing and singing and spoil our sunset. I love music a lot! But I get very tensed, when I see someone with a guitar approaching a camp fire or well… a spot to watch sunsets. Call me the grinch.

Kangaroos come out at dusk… I think I wrote that before. We met one on the street that kept jumping in our lane for a couple of meters and then went off into the bushes. I was happy, I saw it just in time.

When we got to the hostel, which is a very nice modern building, we were welcomed by the owner, who was a very nice and attractive man in his 50s, we were hungry and tired. He only gave us the quick tour, because he knew that the only still opened restaurant would close the kitchen within the next 30 minutes. It was an indian restaurant. The food was great.
On the way to the hostel you drive past a park, where kangaroos meet at dusk. There were at least twenty of them and they were not afraid of the people passing by or watching them. When we came back to the hostel, we switched on the heater.
The Grampians are great for hiking and we found some nice loop trails, which were at least 2 hours. With an other 5 1/2 hours drive ahead of us, to get to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road, we decided to get up at 7 a.m. and do the shortest hike and then get on the road to Melbourne.

When the alarm went off, we decided that it was crazy to do a hike and drive for such a long time. So we slept for 30 more minutes and then got up early to get breakfast in town. Again, we found a nice place to eat and to sit in the sun. The Grampians seem to be very famous for riding motorcycles. There were heaps of bikers in town with their huge Harley-like machines and the wife on the back seat. We would have loved to stayed longer. This is a place you could easily spend a week and don‘t get bored.
Camilla had planned some nice stops on the way. We have come to a silent committment, where I drive and she navigates and reads the lonely planet to me so we can decide where to rest.

Our first stop was an old bakery in a side street in a small town. We sat outside, had a coffee and I had a little orange and poppy seed cake, that I really did not need, but that looked and tasted delicous.
Next stop was Cape Fairy, which is a beautiful little town by the sea with a harbour, beaches and some sweet little shops and cafés. We first asked an older man at the tourist information what to do in his town. He was so happy to tell us about the spots and talked so passionate about it… oh my soft spot for old people… I wanted to tell him that I will do it all, but we only had time for a short stop. So we walked along the harbour and to the beach and then back through the city.
From there were only short drives to the next couple of spots. We went to the Arch, the Grotto and the London Bridge, a rock formation that used to look like the bottom of London Bridge, until one day a couple of years ago, a part of it collapsed and now one really needs to know the story to understand the name.

Next came the famous Twelve Apostles, that aren‘t really twelve, but wow that place was busy. There are different lookouts and platforms you can walk around on, enjoy the view and take pictures from. It was too busy for us, so we only had a quick look and then drove a little further to the Gibson Steps, where you can walk the stairways to the beach and watch from there. We stayed there for a bit and then continued our travels.

We skipped one of the towns we planned on having dinner at, to be at Bell‘s Beach before sunset. That is the beach where Point Break was filmed, so we really had to have a quick stop there.

In Torquay – a surfer town – we found a nice pizzeria where we had dinner and relaxed a little, before going to Melbourne. All the people that came to the shop or passed by, seemed to know each other. And they looked all pretty and tanned.

I was exhausted from driving, because the Great Ocean Road is pretty, but is also long and very winding in some parts. We were happy when we arrived at Melbourne. The town was busy, busier than we had expected. But our hostel was in the middle of the city and it was a saturday night, so that was normal, I guess. As it was Saturday, we were able to park the car on the street. I would have to move it to a car park a couple of blocks away the next evening.

The hostel was nice, but our room was above the karaoke bar. Anyway, we were done for the day, so sleeping was not an issue.