Great Ocean Road (July 2006)
Unfortunately our caravan won’t be ready to collect from Dave Benson Caravans until next weekend (22 July 2006).
We were hoping to “break” it in by taking an extended long weekend trip to Warrnambool and then along the Great Ocean Road on to Melbourne. We had already arranged for a few days Annual Leave and had options to stay in motels or in the caravan.
So instead of being in our caravan, we will be staying in motels.
Diary
Day 1: 14 Jul 2006
It’s been a bleak Friday in the Riverland. The mercury has hovered around 10 degrees for most of the day and it’s been raining constantly. In some ways I’m glad we don’t have our caravan yet. We have packed our bags in anticipation of an early start. The forecast for the weekend is rain, rain and more rain! Murphy’s Law – whenever you plan to go away, the weather conspires against you.
Day 2: 15 Jul 2006
We departed Berri at 7.30am Saturday morning and it was raining. We arrived at Warrnambool at 5.00pm and you guessed it – it was still raining. We travelled about 700 kilometres for the day and it rained the whole day! The drive was quite exhausting having to factor in additional breaking distances between vehicles and being extra careful as to when to overtake.
Day 3: 16 Jul 2006
We had an early breakfast, filled the car with gas, and were on our way around 9.00am.
We can recommend the Raglan Motor Inn at Warrnambool as a good place to stay if you don’t have a caravan. Did we say it was raining? Well, it did – all day long!
We travelled along the Great Ocean Road and stopped at all the regular tourist viewing spots and took a few photos. Unfortunately the wet weather affected the quality of the photos that we took (rain drops, overcast background, etc.) but it was the middle of winter after all.
Having travelled through Port Campbell we reached the Ottway Ranges and were delayed for over an hour due to a tree falling across the highway. Once this was cleared, we continued on through Apollo Bay, Lorne and Angelsea onto Geelong.
We followed the highway to Melbourne and after getting lost crossing town, finally made it to our accommodation in Coburg around 6.30pm.
The accommodation at the Coburg Motor Inn leaves a lot to be desired. Our room did not have towels, the bathroom was very grotty, the shower head wouldn’t stay up and the water switched between being very hot and very cold.
We would not recommend this motel to anyone!
Day 4: 17 Jul 2006
Monday morning was very foggy and overcast – your typical Melbourne winters day. We took the train from Batman Station to Flinders Street Station and walked over the footbridge to Southbank on the Yarra River. Strolling on down to Crown Casino. After loosing some of our money at the casino, we caught the tram back to Coburg.
We went out for tea at the Drum Hotel and won back what we’d lost at the casino with interest. Our winnings paid for tea with quite a bit left over to splurge on shopping tomorrow.
Day 5: 18 Jul 2006
We drove down to the Victoria Markets Tuesday and spent a few hours looking through all the stalls. Diane picked up some bargains paid for from our winnings from yesterday. We returned to the motel by 3.00pm and decided not to stay for the third night and commenced packing deciding to leave after we finished tea.
We left Melbourne around 7.30pm and arrived back in Berri around 2.30am.
Exhausted but very happy to sleep in our own bed!
