Travelling Victoria Again

We’ve been busy travelling since the last triple-post so without further delay here is the next part of our journeys: returning back to Victoria and exploring the Great Ocean Road.

Friday 2nd May: Mt Gambier to Halls Gap

Today’s plan was to head to the Grampians National Park. We weren’t sure what to expect because again it had been ravaged by fires over the summer, but we had a great day. The drive was long, but we stopped off in a couple of places to stretch out legs which was nice and before we knew it, we had crossed the border back into Victoria again! Our last state of this little adventure. Feels crazy to be back in the starting state again. We also had been toting up the KMs and we were excited to get a picture showing over 10000km only to realise it said 12km and had reset itself -.-

We headed straight to the information centre when we got to Halls Gap and the wonderful guy gave us heaps of ideas and advice. Our first hike was called the Wonderland trail up to the Pinnacles View Point. He said it was challenging but would take 3 maybe 4 hours. Well, he must be fit as a fiddle because it took us the 4 hours and normally we are faster than what the park places say! We did read that it takes 5-6 hours in a different leaflet which made us feel better. It was an epic climb with around 450m of elevation, some rock scrambling, some gorges, some wildlife and some incredible views. We were also serenaded by the wine and food festival which just happened to be on during our walk down. Not an easy one but so good, we will miss the rock scrambling that’s for sure.

By this time it was 6pm so rather than the brewery today we headed to camp and accidentally ended up on a gravel road with kangaroos so that was…fun…in the dark but we made it safely and it was a beautiful campground for the night.

Saturday 3rd: Halls Gap

After a snug night under the duvet we woke to a chilly morning start, made all the better by the super cute wallabies that visited us - one of them plonked itself down like a toddler for 5 minutes! We decided that one night in the Grampians wasn’t enough and so we booked ourselves onto a powered campsite for later in the evening.

Our day was spend exploring the rest of the Grampians. We drove the wiggly road out to the Zamstein Walk to see the Fish Ladder Falls and Mackenzie Falls, which were flowing nicely. We then drove back and called in at the Reeds lookout and Boroka lookout which both had stunning views over the Grampians but also showed the true extent of the wildfires.

To end the day, we called in at the Paper Scissors Rock brewery for a drink and then headed back to the campsite for dinner, washing, and a bit of planning. A super few days in the ranges!

Sunday 4th: Halls Gap to Portland

We had a super chilled day today. We drove from our campground to Hamilton Lake for lunch, it was absolutely blowing a gale, so we just had lunch in the van and bailed on walking around the lake for fear of blowing away!

Our next stop was Cape Bridgewater. We visited the Petrified Forest first which were some really cool rock tubes that genuinely looked like trunks of trees. Then to the blow hole, it was a stunning lookout but the day was super calm here so it didn’t really blow at all! The final stop was Tarragal Caves, these are limestone caves on the edge of a cliff they weren’t close to the sea but had been eroded over the years by weather. We had a lovely cuppa and some biscuits looking out over Bridgewater Bay before heading to Portland for the night.

We arrived at around 3.30 - quite an early arrival for us! We set up and went for a nice walk through town, there were some stunning old buildings, and they had a very English style. Sadly, most shops were closed at 3.45 so we couldn’t do a huge amount of exploring but it was a lovely walk along the water’s edge (despite the huge working port!) and allowed us to do our food shop for the week.

We got back to camp and chilled outside the van sorting some blog things and I (Chloe) decided to finally take a look at my cover letter and CV! We played some cards had a beer or 2 and just fully relaxed!

Monday 5th: Portland to Panmure

Our first stop of the morning was the gannet colony near Portland. We thought it would be a nice scenic drive by actually it took us past a ginormous aluminium smelter! The info we had read about the gannets was it was mainland Australia only Gannet Colony well we would absolutely disagree that it was on the mainland because it was on an island out to sea and we could only just make the birds out because of the zoom lens on the camera!

We drove back into Portland to see the lighthouse we had read about. We got there and thought oh that’s cute but not very impressive! However, we got chatting to a local who said we should check out Cape Nelson instead, we chatted with her for a good half an hour about things to do/see around Portland and along the great ocean road too. So with a new place to visit we left the Portland light house and headed to Cape Nelson, thankfully as she had told us it was much more impressive and had some stunning views out to sea and towards the cliffs!

Our lunch stop was at ‘The Crags’ you really get lunch with a view in a campervan, and we are loving it! The crags are some epic rock formations made due to erosion but the cliffs are pretty dangerous so you can’t get very close any more which was a shame.

Next stop round the coast was Port Fairy and Griffiths island. It was a lovely 3km walk around with a great vista out to see if and stunning sunny weather. We earned the ice creams (rhubarb for Chloe and Ginger for Mike) when we got back into port fairy.

Of course, Mike had been looking for breweries while being passenger princess and came across one called Noodledoof. It had heap of randoms beers but sadly we were there the day after an Irish festival so they had sold out of the crazy ones. We walked away with a blooming delicious can of Gin and Tonic and a can of Iced Coffee Stout being the good sober drivers we are.

We headed further down the Hopkins River to see a waterfall but we had little hope as there wasn’t much water around! The falls were surprisingly impressive not a huge amount of water but enough to make them very pretty. We loved the cows next to it and especially the one which was basically swimming in the water!

We had a lovely free camp in Panmure with a BBQ and a chat with a fellow camper entertained us for the evening with more tips for the Great Ocean Road tomorrow.

Tuesday 6th: Panmure to Joanna Beach

We kicked off the morning with a bit of luxury - a visit to the Deep Blue Hot Springs to make up for all the missed springs in the Northern Territory. Some nice hot water, and even a plunge pool, and we came away very relaxed. We nipped around the corner to Breakwater Beach for lunch and to watch the waves crash against the wave breakers.

We headed on to Allendale to visit the Cheese World, and while their cheese actually looked a bit boring we did help ourselves to a coffee, a protein caramel slice, and a delicious mars bar malted thickshake! Fortunately, the extra calories kept us warm as the Great Ocean Rain had arrived and promised to stay for the next day or two.

We called in at several coastal stops along the way: Childers Cove, Bay of Islands, Bay of Martyrs, Worm Bay, and Halladale point. The weather made the views moody with crashing waves, but we eventually decided it was too soggy to enjoy the rest of the coastline and so we drove down the wiggly Great Ocean Road to our free campsite for the night at Joanna Beach.

Wednesday 7th: Joanna Beach to Blanket Bay

Once again, we woke to the great ocean rain but we still made the most of our day, this time we went waterfall hunting in the Otway national Park.

Our first stop was a lovely 30ish minute meander around Melba Gully to Anne’s Cascades. I think we were expecting waterfalls like We had seen in Queensland but safe to say after the mere trickle across some rocks we quickly lowered our expectations!

We went to 3 different waterfalls for the remainder of the day before heading to the Cape Otway Lighthouse. The first was Triplet falls, when you read the sign at the start it said it was a set of 3 cascades. There was a large number of steps involved, and we did manage to spot a swamp wallaby, but they were very quick to hop away from us! The water fall was pretty impressive this time and I think the recent rain had helped, from the main viewing point you could feel the spray hitting your face, on a summer day it would probably be super refreshing, but today it was mostly just chuffing cold! The second was Hopetoun Falls, again only a few (200!) steps down but this was a much taller and wider waterfall more like what we expected to be seeing. It was pretty busy on the walk, but the steps meant you spread out well, so we did get it to ourselves for a bit of time too. The final falls was Beauchamp falls, only a short 5ish km gravel/corrugated road to get there but the hour walk to the falls so peaceful, and we even managed to spot the Otway snail - a carnivorous snail with a black and yellow shell. More steps led to the falls, not too much water but very pretty and nestled deep in the bush.

We headed next to a ‘must see’ of the great ocean road, the Otway Light station. It was only about 8km from our blanket bay camp ground. Turns out the lighthouse only opens on a weekend so it wasn’t open and you couldn’t even get vaguely close as you have to pay for it! We went for a walk to the view point where you can see the lighthouse in the distance. Didn’t really do much compared to the others but at least we didn’t have to pay!

The highlight of the day was at the campsite, after booking what we thought was a large site, we were very glad to be able to change slots as the one we had booked needed a very tricky reverse to get in! But the real reason it might be my favourite campground is because there were Koalas in the trees and, due to the blowing wind, they were pretty low in the tree as well. Don’t think wild Koalas will ever get old.

Thursday 8th: Blanket Bay to Portland

We started the morning with a wander around blanket bay and were lucky enough to spot another swamp Wallaby and some hecking cute Koalas. The beach was lovely but the waves were still crazy - we can absolutely understand why there are so many shipwrecks along this coast!

We headed along to Princetown for the Gorge Chocolate factory and when we were there stumbled upon the 12 Apostles Gourmet trail so that’s exactly what we spent the day doing! We had a delicious hot chocolate and fed the alpacas at the chocolate factory before continuing round to the apostle whey cheese shop for a tasting of their 13 cheeses and 2 gelatos. We went for a round of the white washed rind cheese which is like a super tasty brie. The next stop was Dairylicious Farm fudge where we did a fudge tasting platter, turns out bounty fudge and ginger fudge are delicious but we didn’t need 2 bags so just got a bag of ginger fudge!

The next stop was a super quaint little town called Timboon. We visited the ice cream shop for hot cross bun and a honeycomb scoop, the sweet shop where we got a little pic n mix for the car, and then to the butchers where got some lamb kofta and honey-mustard chicken for dinner. The final part of the gourmet trail was the Schulz Creamery. This had a surprisingly interesting history of the farm where it spoke about the 3 generations of the family and how they each dealt with the challenges and grew the business to what it was today. No surprise we were feeling pretty full by this point, so we didn’t get any of the bakery things, but we did have a malt milkshake and a decaf coffee both made with gold top milk!

We were staying in Portland tonight but headed back to the Great Ocean Road to visit the Grotto and London Bridge. The grotto was a little cave almost area where you can see the waves crashing up round and through the hole in the side, and London Bridge has actually fallen down so isn’t a bridge anymore and more of an arch but they were both interesting ways to see the erosion over the past few years!

We’ve almost rounded off our Great ocean Road trip (and campervan trip!). Stay tuned for the final Victoria post and last days in the campervan.