Road trip – Page 6

Road Trip: Adelaide – Melbourne. Day 3.

In the morning of the third day we were not in rush, because we didn’t know when it would be the next time we have a chance to enjoy hot shower and other achievements of civilization. Oh yes, it was freezing at night again. When we were about to leave, we figured out, that we should have left the camping at 10 and it was about 11 already. What’s wrong with you, Australians? You are on holidays and you need to get up so early. Anyway, they let us out and we were rolling further.

The main thing we learnt that day, that slowing down won’t kill you and that power nap can save lives. Another thing we noticed, that the road signs differ in different states. We though we need to collect photos of them, but they pass you so fast when you drive on the highway.

We came to Victoria, where it is absolute must to drive a Great Ocean Road if you’re on the road trip. The road is really amazing – turn after turn, amazing views of the ocean with the nice beaches. However, the weather wasn’t getting any better. It was cool, cloudy and a bit rainy.

Reda took a photo of Luka, who’s taking a photo of Reda…

…how she is taking a photo of a lizard.

Here’s the lizard.

We stopped in the little town to have a lunch.

A couple of sparrows looking to snatch something the car park.

The beach.

If there is something you can climb on, some just has to do that.

Sea-weed-eared rabbit.

Plenty of people in popular places.

One of these places – 12 Apostles. Though, there’s only ten of them left.

We checked in.

I wonder, how they got there…

We started to look for a place to spend a night when it started to get dark. Right after you leave the main road, you understand that road signs don’t lie. We found this beauty nearly in the middle of the road.

Some people hold the sun in their hand, and some…

What a charming face…

We put our tent at the Aire river camping. The place is really good – roaring koalas at night, big spiders in he toilet and other camping fun 🙂

What he might be shooting?

The koala thought it might run away from everybody by climbing the tree. The thing it didn’t realized, the tree was at the bottom of the pitch 🙂

Road Trip: Adelaide – Melbourne. Day 2.

It is not so important what happened each day of our trip, but it is easier to remember and write about it day by day.
So, the first night was… freezing (naive us – we had no idea that it can be worse).

Even avocetes were freezing in the morning.

I always wanted to have a picture with huge creatures and objects like this. Like in American movies. You can imagine how we all shouted and break when we saw this lobster!

We also stopped to take pictures of much smaller creatures.

One batman (a scientist who is interested in bats) told us about Naracoorte caves. On our way we passed few little towns with signs saying something like “The Tidiest town of Australia 1993”. But we didn’t see any person there. Actually in Australia you can feel lonely or just alone almost all the time. Not so many cars in roads. Empty little towns. No people in trails. Not so many people live in Australia. And probably most of them just stay at home and watch TV. That would be the easiest explanation about emptiness everywhere.

OK, Naracoorte. They found some fossils in caves here. Seems like giant creatures used to live in Australia many many years ago. Like this giant wombat (it’s a real size sculpture!) – what a beast!

Claustrophobic feeling – a little cave for museum visitors.

This is one of my favourites – a stylised creature from stone age or something.

Plush koala-kangaroo and some other creature.

In the cave.

It is still pretty cool. Even honeyeater seems like feeling cold.

As soon as we stopped to take pics of this one, I didn’t see none of them: Reda, Laurius and mr. Egret.

Mount Gambier – town with the blue lake. Very very blue.

So blue!
We stayed in a nice expensive camping where we had hot shower, a little kitchen where we could get warm. And crows were making funny noise.

Road Trip: Adelaide – Melbourne. Day 1.

It’s been quite a while after our first longer road trip in Australia, but just couldn’t start writing about it. We were too busy, and quite lazy. But finally here’s the first post.

So, the first road trip from Adelaide to Melbourne and back.

[cetsEmbedGmap src=http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Adelaide+SA+5000,+Australia&daddr=-35.17095,138.83526+to:-35.32392,139.33136+to:Coorong+National+Park,+South+Australia,+Australia+to:Kingston+Se,+South+Australia,+Australia+to:Naracoorte,+South+Australia,+Australia+to:Mount+Gambier,+South+Australia,+Australia+to:Warrnambool,+Victoria,+Australia+to:Great+Otway+National+Park,+Wye+River,+Victoria,+Australia+to:Melbourne,+Victoria,+Australia+to:Adelaide,+South+Australia,+Australia&hl=en&sll=-37.103384,142.333374&sspn=2.904596,5.817261&geocode=FaoH6_0dCd5CCCkFZ5JwO8mwajHwp45iVDYDBQ%3BFXpV5_0dPHVGCCkfgO4GJim3ajGW6o3jLsTldg%3BFfD_5P0dIAdOCClriVwnpge3ajFA05xJVDYDEw%3BFTZz2_0dvBhQCCEAX7pFVTYDDw%3BFSUFzv0d7PtVCCmlR3WOnni1ajEw-45iVDYDBQ%3BFXIczP0dtJFjCCkLhE-WoLbLajEA0o5iVDYDBA%3BFbzEvv0duixkCClLaXLEBCaeqjHg0Y5iVDYDBA%3BFVJTtv0dFCR-CCmhxF-2yU3NajHg1aAwpHkFBQ%3BFc4XsP0dokaOCCEAqUIUpXkFDw%3BFT0Ev_0dpPWjCCmB_REPr0LWajHg54whdVYEBQ%3BFaoH6_0dCd5CCCkFZ5JwO8mwajHwp45iVDYDBQ&vpsrc=0&mra=ls&via=1,2&t=h&z=7 width=600 height=400 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=no]

Here’s our route. We drove along the coast to Melbourne and inland back to Adelaide. We did about 2000 km, but it’s just basically nothing on the map. You just drive and drive…

Little details and impressions from Luka’s notebook. It was drawn while going on the highway. We pass only a couple of cars, asphalt is old and very noisy. There’s a gap in doors and the wind is making a terrible noise. We jammed it with the only thing we could reach in the mess inside the car – a couple of socks. It’s inevitable when you pack 3 quite tall people and their things in the little, nearly adult Corolla.
Despite the car was already full, we saw a garage sale and went there. We had to show it to Reda, our joy and the inexhaustible source of junk. A pile of books, a bowl, a backpack and a big set of pencils, stamps and markers were tucked where ever it was possible. On the side road a guy with stylish hat was playing a guitar and selling mangoes. Oh yes, it’s the season of perfect mangoes now! All happy we left the city. Bought coffee for Reda in the little town, and some cookies, with too mush of soda. The baker must have been in love 🙂

We crossed the river by ferry. The river is like a road – with road, well, river signs.

We posed at the salt lake. It was a really strange feeling, if you were walking on the thin ice. But the sun was burning and everything was pink.

The snow of salt.

We didn’t go very far on our first day. We stopped at Coorong National Park – the place where a lot of birds live. However, we were not very lucky, as it was terrible windy there.

Laurius with the sand dunes and lagoon in the background.

It was really lots of birds there, just very far away. Black Swans.

And who knows what other birds. We put our tent under the bush where little Willie had his nest in. So, as you can expect, he or she wasn’t very happy. The wind wasn’t going down in the evening, so we just hid in the tent. There were only old people with there trailers resting around. But the funniest part is, that the toilet is about 2 km away from the campsite. You can never understand Australians 🙂