ATGANI was eventually granted, with great difficulty and expense, a berth on the Spirit of Tasmania FIVE months ago.  Even then, it was no sure thing – we had a ticket to come back from Tassie weeks before we had a ticket to go there in the first place.  Consequently, ever since leaving South Australia the pull of Tasmania had been getting stronger.  But…to rush would be a crime, so we trundled into Victoria and decided to take our time along the Great Ocean Road.

According to most reports, Victoria has been spending heavily on infrastructure, but it sure hasn’t been spending heavily on regional roads.  The deterioration in quality was immediate and palpable.  But we had to take it nice’n’easy anyway because it’s hard to get a big van around a wind turbine propeller.  Golly, they’re big on the back of a truck.

Port Fairy has a pretty harbour cum marina on the river protected by a breakwater which also creates a windy foreshore bush trail which was vaguely interesting – and we saw a penguin, albeit at a distance.  That led on to Port Campbell which was smaller than we’d imagined but had great surrounding walks so we could look down on the town and marvel at how anyone ever managed to get a ship in here.  This is really the start of the GOR and so we went to see the “Twelve” Apostles.

The coastline is amazing and pretty busy with people all over the place, flying drones in no-drone-zones and all taking selfies.  So we joined in.  I particularly like the way that apostles keep falling down into the ocean or land arches collapse creating new apostles – the number 12 is entirely fluid.  There were lots of other rocky structures being battered by the waves and the road offers ocean glimpses all along the way but the driver’s attention has to stay strictly on that road – pretty twisty with a van on the back.

Apollo Bay was our next stop and we stayed on a headland at Marengo looking out over the ocean with a pretty heavy sea rolling in.  Shortly after we’d set up, a large group of teenage boys, wrangled by teachers and guides, started putting up about 15 two-boy tents which they eventually managed, despite breaking off at frequent intervals to play footie or cricket or frisbee or to just generally scuffle.  They were on some form of school camp and even had the treat of spending a couple of nights in wind and rain.  Very entertaining for we onlookers sufficiently removed from the melee.

Tracy had requested pictures of a koala which we thought was a big ask.  Turned out that she knew that there was a “colony” nearby and so we, with low hope of success, did as instructed.  Amazingly, we found a couple and even saw one move rather than just sleep.  Quite exciting really and I, at least, felt quite clever.  I might add that Lesley spotted them – I’d looked but not seen (apparently called a boy-look).

After a week of this, in weather both fair and foul, we turned off the coast to stay (once again) at Glenwarra near Moriac.  We were here for two reasons – it was pretty close to Geelong for an early morning departure and our host Peter, a motor mechanic, had agreed to service the hardworking Landcruiser.  Thank heavens he did – the front disc pads were within nanometres of being down to the metal and that’s not the way to start off around Tasmania.  So, new pads all round and another disaster averted.  ATGANI needed wheel and brake attention too, but if you think getting a car serviced at short notice is difficult, it’s impossible for a van.  But luckily, we were able to book ahead in Launceston a couple of weeks hence.   

Our daytime Spirit of Tasmania voyage meant we were up at 4.30 to get on board.  All pretty painless in the end although driving through what felt like the backstreets of Geelong in the dark was a bit fraught and there appeared to be no “ferry” signage on the route that Google gave us.  However, we lined up with hundreds of other people (and caravans) and prepared ourselves for a bumpy voyage under threatening skies, all designed to drop us in Devonport at the end of the day so we could find a camp, again, in the dark.  What could possibly go wrong?