Erwin and Dorits' Endless Summer

14 apostles

Where the previous story ends, the “Great Ocean Road” begins. It’s the famous road along the Southern Ocean from Warrnambool to Torquay with some amazing natural wonders on its way. On the first 200 km on our journey we saw al lot of high steep eroded cliffs from the ocean. The most popular formation is known as “The Twelve Apostles”. Well, at the moment we counted 7, the other 5 must have gone on vacation.

At the most southern point we took a dead end road to a lighthouse, Cape Otway. This road is leading through a national park with a lot of eucalyptus trees. As this are the kind of trees where the koala hang out we spottet about 10 on our way.

koala @ Cape Otway

From then on the Great Ocean Road, as it leads  through the Great Otway National Park is much greener.  This coast line is called “the Surf Coast”, with nice little surf towns along the way. The first town we headed to was Apollo Bay. After we checked out this nice beachtown we did find a free camping site on our map of the National Park. It was named after the  waterfalls in walking distance: “Steavensons Falls”. We drove 30 km land inwards, away from the coast, partly unsealed road, which is always a adventure for it self. When we arrived at the nice peaceful grassy campsite in the forest, no one else was there. We enjoyed the beautiful nature and walked to the waterfalls the next morning as there weren’t any waves anyway.

Apollo Bay

campground, in the middle of ..

After that we got back on the road and the weather turned. The semi-good weather from the day before was getting worse.

Steavenson Falls

We had a two rainy days and drove to the next little town: Lorne. It had a nice beach to run and swim and again some free campsites nearby. We stayed here for 4 days, checking out the different campsites, only sharing them with kangeroos or some other travllers. Checking out the beaches along the coast, we noticed some surfers in the water. We went in the water and had a few waves in this place called “Fairhaven” a fews days in a row.

Almost on the end of the Great Ocean Road – were we still are, on the day of writing this blog – we were having a look at a notorius beach witch is a must-see and must-surf for every surfer passing by. Located near the very surf-minded town Torquay is Bells Beach. As we knew there would be more swell coming on monday we were on our way. Getting out was not a problem, but once in the line up big sets of waves were coming in. We survived it and very important, we surfed. Newspapers and internet were promising sunny weather and 4 to 5 feet swell. (1,5m). This is the hight of the back of the wave, witch means that the front of the wave (were you actualyly surf) can get to 3m+. After three days hanging around we are impressed of the power of the wave and will head further to Melbourne.

We also are very familiar with the quickly changing weather conditions at the South Coast, as we are, after three sunny days sitting in the rain again…

Our view over Bells Beach, camped there for a few days.

Exhaustet from driving a distance which could have been from Aachen to Lissabon in two days we were craving for some nice beaches,crowded promenades with little cafes. We headed straight to Streaky Bay. Everything else but what we wanted, so we kept driving heading to Adelaide. Another warm overnight stop on a carpark alongside the road, 150 km north of Adelaide near a place called “Snowtown”…;o)

The next morning we arrived in Adelaide and got blown away by a heat wave. 39 degrees in the city, we headed straight for the beach. The sea was as plane as a lake, but refreshing anyway. After one hot night we decided any tourist activities in Adelaide were pointless regarding our pace of a turtle which we adjusted to the heat.

We headed down south, to some mellow waves as the surf guide calls it. We drove 80 km through beautiful landscape and arrived in Goolwa. The waves seemd good, two surfers in the water, hot, we took our boards straight away. To our surprise even the water was warm and the first time we weren’t the only persons surfing in shorty’s and boardshorts.

To our exicitement of surfing after being in the car for ages, two dolphines joined us. They were playing around us not even a meter away from us. They were diving underneath our surfboards, droping in on our waves and made us forget all our previous days in the car.

Unfortunaltly the next day the swell was gone. We stayed one more day and decided to drive further to the south. Yesterday evening we arrived in Portland, and were shocked by the fact that it was cold and clowdy. We had forgotten the fact that we had driven for 600 km and weather might be different, even though you are still in the same country.

So today we prepaired ourself for a walk to a seal colony at Cape Bridgewater. We wore our long jeans and jumpers, but as we were walking for 30 minutes it got warmer and warmer and it turned out to be a beautiful day, luckily not as hot as in Adelaide.

After spending some more time at Scarborough and Trigg beach and got familiar with our new boards we headed south to Bunbury. One of Dorit’s former neigbours form the Gold Coast had a concert with his punk rock band called “Silver Lizard”. The next day we were invited for lunch and got some information of Tim & Jazz over the Margaret River Area, we were heading to that evening.

We drove to Yillingup, a village of 810 people with a beautiful reef on the shore. Most surfers seemd to be 65+. We went to a beach a little bit further called Smith beach also with a little reef. We had a couple of nice waves and could get familiar with surfing a reef, which we hadn’t done before. Just as we were looking at the ocean we saw whales jumping out of the water.

whales jumping out of the water

The next morning 7am somebody was knocking on our van. The Ranger of the National Park made us pay 100$ for illigal camping…:o( From now on we were much more careful when picking our sleeping spot.

forest dirt tracks

Margaret River is actually a very scenic destination with beautiful forests and a lot of wineries. Unfortuantly for us most beaches were only acessable with 4 wheel drive. As our van does not have this luxuary we ended up south pretty quick.

The south coast did not have much to offer for us, so we prepared ourselfs for the big journey across the Nullarbor (latin for “no trees”). We crosses the West / South Australien border after driving for 700 km (including 147 km straight). But there was more to come. Still 900 km to Adelaide. And guess what, we are still driving…..

After hours in the desert you would think, why wouldn’t they go for a swim or surfing? Do you know “Nicolle”? We read that this area of south australia is an important breeding ground for whales, sea lions and great white sharks. The scariest scenes in the film Jaws were shot here. We are happy to keep on driving even though it must be one of this hot days (38 degrees) in the outback. We are looking forward to see Adelaide (and some civilisation) and to find some surfable beaches for the “not so brave”.