Melbourne and the Great Ocean Drive

In Melbourne, we were grateful to two people – Rob our concierge at the Radisson hotel and Jeff our bus driver on the Phillip Island tour. Rob gave us the low down on the free city tour bus in Melbourne, but more importantly he told us about a restaurant called Max in Hardware Lane where we had a two course meal and a complimentary glass of wine for $27 per head. We also got talking to the owner, Andy, who bought us another glass of wine each. The restaurants in Hardware Lane also provided free music from jazz blues bands and bongo drums artists. The street was buzzing and great for people watching. A great night indeed. After a fairly mediocre tour of the city the next day, we headed for Phillip Island in the capable hands of Jeff, our Gray Line bus driver who came to Australia from the Isle of Wight 40 years ago on the £10 package and stayed. For those who know him, he talked and sounded a lot like Noel Overton. On the way back from Phillip Island, Jeff gave us some good detail on the next leg of the journey from Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road.
Phillip Island - a place we will never forget (see picture). Sorry Trish but we must have been there on a good day. First we visited Churchill Island and met a lady guide of the original settlement house who was bemoaning the fact that they cannot get William Morris wallpaper and fabrics. So I was happy to say I could send her some from my workroom for her patchwork group which was really nice. Then onto Cowes where a lovely lady (who left Malta when she was 4) kindly stitched my torn jeans on her machine while I hid behind a curtain and she wouldn’t let me pay. Finally onto The Penguin Parade. We had paid extra for the Sky Box view which takes 10 people plus the Head Ranger who is doing the nightly count. We were provided with strong binoculars to watch penguins approx 33 cm high trying to decide whether it was safe to come out of the water and cross the open sand to get to the dunes and their burrows. Out/in, out/in until they get the courage to cross a beach they cross every day at dusk. Some are in groups of 10/12 and others in groups of 80+ - waddle, waddle, flop and eventually they reach the safety of the dunes to socialise by bumping each other and preening. We sat outside later under the moon and could not tear ourselves away, eventually walking up the path beside them and waiting for them to cross the path ahead as they have right of way. Unforgettable.
We left Melbourne by crossing the magnificent Westgate Bridge, heading for Geelong and the surfing beaches at the beginning of the Great Ocean Road. We stopped at Urquhart’s Bluff, had a picnic lunch at Kennet River and headed towards the 12 Apostles (see picture) at Port Campbell. These examples of wind and sea erosion were marvellous but for anybody who knows the south coast of the UK from Hampshire to Cornwall, they are not that special (don’t tell any Aussies that). From Port Campbell to Mount Gambia (our next overnight stop) there was too much mileage without any real scenic reward. However, in Mount Gambia we took a moonlight walk in a sinkhole – which is actually a beautiful garden developed in a small volcanic crater. We saw some interesting caves at Nelson (Princess Margaret Rose caves) and Naracoort, loads of vineyards but not much opportunity for tasting around the Coonawarra region and it was a long hard slog to Adelaide.
Adelaide is a lovely city, very small and manageable with a nice feeling of space. We didn’t realise that Adelaide crams all of its culture into just a few weeks, with a fringe and concerts from, amongst others, AC/DC, Whitney Houston and Tom Jones, all of which we missed because we did not know about them previously. However, we went to the beach at Glenelg and even went into the sea (see picture). Now we have left Adelaide and are journeying to Sydney on the India Pacific train, which takes 24 hours and stops at Broken Hill for a tour of the Silver mine – more later.