The Great Ocean Campervan

Monday 11th April

After the exquisite luxury of Chez Johnson (our friends house) in Adelaide we have found it extremely difficult returning to the camper van way of life.

The weather here has taken a nasty turn for the worse over the passed week and the van has been pummelled every night by rain storms that last several hours.

Its like living in a giant bass box with an out of practice steel drum band on the roof reciting the same mind numbing tune for hours on end using extra large sledgehammers for drumsticks.

That, when coupled with the gale force gusts of wind that gently rock the van too and thro like an over enthusiastic wrecking ball and the leak in our roof that has created our very own indoor ocean waterfall, pretty much guarantees a complete lack of sleep.

We were informed that the town where we had stayed on Thursday was having the worst weather that it had seen in the passed 13 years, which was nice.

Having said that the Great Ocean Road is absolutely stunning, you wonder what all of the fuss is about at first, the road is pretty boring and when you reach the first town its not coastal and very nondescript.

Then all of a sudden you turn the corner and are totally knocked for six, quite literally words could never do justice to the transformation that occurs in front of your eyes at that moment, so I wont even bother trying.

Pauline and I just sat there, mouths agape for several minutes, Tyler on the other hand was still trying to win a battle on Pokemon and couldn't have given a hoot about rock formations or any other type of scenery for that matter.

So, in order to change his perspective we then proceeded to stop at every available scenic spot en route and drag him out for photos ops and to give him his dues he did eventually fain an interest.

When we reached the twelve apostles we were once again gob smacked, not because of the spectacle itself (which is very cool) but because there was a full car park and loads of people scurrying about doing touristy things, which up until now we hadn't seen anywhere in Oz.

We found a space and then proceeded down to the viewing platforms with the masses feeling a little put out, up until this moment Oz had felt like our own private island with the odd helpful tour guide to point you in the right direction.

Still it was well worth the walk and as we are currently only a few miles down the coast from it we may well go back again this morning for a quick look.

I am not sure if I had previously mentioned that our fantastic camper van is so cutting edge that it is equipped with a top of the range cassette deck, which up until now had either been used for listening to static on the radio or as a clock for those people that need to know when it is precisely 10:00.

Well now, thanks to a rather impromptu budget blowing splurge at one of the recent Op shops (1$) by Pauline, we are cruising down the most spectacular road in the world accompanied by Al Johnson and Frank Sinatra singing the greats.

Also, in other news, seaweed provisions are depleting quickly from the southern coastline of Australia after yet another successful fishing attempt by the smith family.