It was Christmas Day 2018, all the celebrations had been complete and the Caravan was almost packed to leave – why wait…… we all jumped into Trailblazer and off we went.. The Road Trip had begun.

We had driven for about 4 hours before deciding to pull over at Willalooka rest stop, we were the only campers in the grounds but no surprise, given it was the eve of Christmas Day :-).

A bright pleasant morning greeted us and after a nice warm shower, our destination was locked in for Warrnambool, but not before a breakfast stop in Naracoorte – the locals were in for a shock as “tradie Bree” made a statement. With our bellies and car filled up, GPS set and the music on we were off, but where were we going…. not what we expected, trust the GPS I said and then…. we found ourselves going down a single bitumen road that appeared to be in between farmers property.

Warrnambool has some great local sites with plenty to offer for the entire family, we have been fortunate enough to have been here previously and captured the moment-in-time. During our time in this lovely town we stayed at the Hopkins River BIG4, which is pet friendly, this park was a 5 Star from the family as it had everything you could ask for, not limited to but included jumping pillow, outdoor swimming pool with slide, indoor pool and spa, games room with TV and PlayStation, tennis court and mini golf – both of which are included in the nightly cost. It is a little out of the immediate town (5-minute drive) but highly recommended for sure.

Warrnambool is not considered part of the Great Ocean Road, but it certainly is inviting to stay here should you want to travel eastwards along the GOR. We set up the caravan and jumped into the car to have a quick look around the coast and town, on returning to the park Emily could not help herself but want to go into the pool while dinner was being prepared. Tomorrow we are heading down the Great Ocean Road.

Today’s Sites visited included

• 12 Apostles
• The Razorback
• Loch Ard Gorge
• The Grotto
• Port Campbell (for Lunch)
• London Bridge
• The Islands

Our next stop (or base) would be Swan Bay (Greater Geelong Region) for a couple of nights at least before heading back west along the Great Ocean Road in the new year. This area of Geelong is a must-see for any traveller, close to a hidden secret as you have many coastal / bay towns to go and visit, if you like coffee’s – get in the car travel to one of the many towns and park yourself outside the coffee shop while the wife and kids go shopping.

Some of the Sights while staying at Swan Bay were

• Queenscliff (went to the local Markets here and the walk along the jetty was very interesting as the pic shows the many fishing rods positioned on the jetty, with no reels)
• Ocean Grove
• Barwon Heads (known for the famous Golf Course and for the shipwreck graveyard off the coast)
• Geelong (a seaside town with many little quirks along the boardwalk, including a border collie that went for a swim)
• Melbourne
• Geelong Adventure Park

After a couple of relaxing days wandering the coastal towns, we have decided to head into Melbourne and experience the CBD New Years Eve party and fireworks off of the rooftops of the buildings. This particular day started around 1100am shopping at the Essendon DFO, finally arriving at the South Wharf DFO around 400pm to shop a settle in for the long haul. We walked to mid CBD to dine at the Grill Steak Seafood restaurant, it was a lovely meal and we really enjoyed the start to the night. Jumped onto the tram to take us back to the car and find a spot along the Yarra as we welcomed 2019 with a bang…

HAPPY NEW YEAR
What to do on New Years Day, the weather keen kind we headed to Victoria’s largest water theme park – Adventure Park @ Geelong. This is a fantastic fun park for all ages and desires as they have water slides, lazy river, carousel, chair lift, kids splash park, mini golf, and many other smaller activities all included in the entry fee. Slip Slop Slap and we had a blast all day long, being tourists we also bought lunch which was on average $10 – $12 which included a large drink, very reasonable prices all day. Our family rating would be a 4.5 / 5 splashes.

Our Family Adventure continues heading south west to the famous Torquay, known for the world surfing brand Rip Curl along with the Rip Curl Pro stage, being Bells Beach. Of course we had to stop at the surf DFO and then spent some time watching the surfers at Bells Beach.

Down a little lane along the coast, we stopped for lunch at Anglesea, passing a couple of paragliders not too long till we hit the official start of the Great Ocean Road. Just after the memorial arch on the way into Lorne the traffic came to an immediate stop, we crept for the next Hour about 1.5kms, let’s say that Lorne was packed due to their music festival as we crawled through the lovely town. We didn’t stop here though so we powered through to Kennett River where we enjoyed an afternoon refreshment, spotted a Koala and a couple of parrots, next stop Apollo Bay.

Apollo Bay, this would be our base for the next 4 days while we took in the local and surrounding sites. I booked this a year ago and had some concerns around the “Pet Friendly, recreation park” but to our surprise it was very clean but basic. While we didn’t actually have plans I had some idea’s of what we should do – remembering I had plenty of time when I booked this holiday. The sites we visiting while staying at Apollo Bay we great, we had to move the caravan and stay an extra site, these included;

• Hopetoun Falls (after driving offroad for about 40 mins we made it)
• Beech Forest
• Beauchamp Falls (good 40 minute walk to reach the falls)
• Trees Adventure – Yeodene Park (tree climbing, zip lining, cargo net shuffling, all on a day where it was 46 degrees)
• Platypus Lake Elizabeth Tour (so peaceful and relaxing, a little cool but what do you expect at 600am, we saw about 10 platypi but they were all around 5 – 20 meters away and the guide suggested they were being shy today), still a great experience.

After a perfect couple of days at Apollo Bay we took our time to get to the final location along the coast of Victoria, this included a lunch stop at Port Fairy then onto Portland for an overnight stay @ Henty RV Camping Area (free). Another great little location to setup the caravan, peaceful with grassed areas and toilets.
Portland has great World War 1 history and the ship port is still used today to transport pine woodchips to Asia, the local seals also get in on the action waiting for the fisherman to offload their catches. We will have to go back to Portland as we just ran out of time.

Breaking up the drive home we opted to spend a couple of nights in Mount Gambier, we have been before but the girls were very young and could only remember bits n pieces. It was all about the sinkholes and feeding the possums at night.

Overall our Great Ocean road adventure was a family holiday with beautiful coastline towns, experiencing it in the caravan like we did only made it that so much better. Yeah at times, there is some frustrations with teenagers wanting their space but you work through these and the discussions we had on the road were priceless.

Our family score was 3.5 / 5 (I thought it was at least a 4 based on the beauty).

Till our next adventure!