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Wednesday: Port Campbell to Lakes Entrance – 588km

Alright, day 4. Where do we begin!

Last night we had a great dinner and chat over coffee, chilling out discussing the highlights of the day and our next morning’s move before bed. Our sleep after this was… not so good. It was freezing and the vast layers of clothing to keep us warm barely made an impact on the 5degree ambient temperature of the night outside. Noor and Ross were regretting bringing only a summer sleeping bag (based on last weeks 40 degree temperatures in the mountains and Adelaide) and warmer clothing. However, the new day brought warmer temperatures of 30 degrees and with windows down and music cranked, made for some good road trippin.

We decided that we were pressed for time. Instead of travelling all the way along the great ocean road like we had planned, we turned around at Port Campbell and started our departure back along the way we had came checking out all the things we had missed on the way.

In our first sight seeing endeavor we stopped to see a blow hole and the thunder cave. Whilst walking along the “Shipwreck Coast” along the paved paths we saw plenty of sings warning us that the area was unstable. It wasn’t till we got to the lookout that we realised we had been walking on top of a massive cave that had been eroded underneath the surface 100m inland from the sea by the battering of the water. It was an amazing site, a deep hollow that dropped 40m to the sea level that was hidden amongst the scrubs. It only became visible once standing on the viewing platforms and some restricted areas .

The cliffs were spectacular, shear drops to the ocean below carved by years of erosion.

As we realised how much we were struggling for time it was time to push on. We stopped a couple of times for a quick photo and to relieve some of the car sickness that Pete and Noor were dealing with (checking out a few waterfalls and a grave yard in the mean time) as we made our way back to the start of the Great Ocean Road. It wasn’t long till we hit Torquay again for some lunch. This was a disappointment, the burgers & chips were hardly worth remembering or eating for that matter, but when you’re really hungry…

That was about it in terms of excitement of the day, except that our inverter died and blew  a fuse for the 12volt cigarette lighter in the car. We fixed that, but found that we can’t use the inverter anymore, therefore our source of Laptop Music is restricted to the life of the battery, which is reaching the end of its usable life also. The rest was driving. We were privy to a Melbourne traffic jam at around 5.30 which slowed our progress dramatically. During this time, we lost our tracker for about an hour because of the Melbourne tunnel.

Tomorrow we are doing the same basic thing as today, driving to Durras to have some relaxation from all the traveling before a casual drive back to the mountains. With this in mind we decided to spend the night in a YHA-Lakes Entrance for a good nights sleep rather than risk another cold nights sleep where the recorded temperatures were colder than we got at Port Campbell.

So thats us for tonight. About to have another coffee and chillout.

Looking forward to seeing you all in a day or so.

Related posts:

1. Great Ocean Roadtrip #3
2. Great Ocean Roadtrip #1
3. Great Ocean Roadtrip #2