I took last week off work, loaded up the family, my folks and the in-laws and headed west for a holiday. It turned out to be a fun week!
Our first destination was Ballarat in country Victoria. We arrived around 10.30am and headed for Sovereign Hill, an old mining town. This has been turned into one of those living museums with costumed people everywhere, horses pulling stage coaches around the town, police firing rifles at local unlicensed miners and people everywhere panning for gold! Even we managed to pan about $5 worth!
We spent around 4 hours in Ballarat, ending with me finding a quick cache behind a giant billboard. Our next stop was Hall’s Gap in the Grampians National Park where we stayed the night in a cabin in a great little holiday park. When we arrived at the cabin, it was surrounded by kangaroos! After take-away and a bottle of red for dinner, we all the hay.
The next morning we awoke to pouring rain and more kangaroos. We headed up to the MacKenzie Falls about 20km from Hall’s Gap. These were stunning. We climbed the 280 steps to the bottom of the falls for a quick photo session (and another geocache) before climbing back up again. Josh managed to climbed all the stairs, Deb battled!
We then headed south to Warrnambool on the coast. Along the way we stopped in Hamilton, a large country town of… well, nothing. They did have delicious pies though which we scoffed for lunch. We also stopped in Port Fairy for 20 minutes to see if there was any fresh seafood available, but it was too late in the day.
Our Warrnambool cabin was even nicer than the one in Hall’s Gap! There was loads of space for Josh to run around and for us to relax. We went out for dinner to the local club and I managed to ‘force’ down a 400g Porterhouse steak with veg! And, of course, some more red.
Deb & I took the kids home at around 9pm, leaving the oldies with the “pokies” (gambling machines similar to one-armed bandits without arms).
The next day’s drive took us along the famous Great Ocean Road. One word – magnificent! The Bay of Islands, London Bridge (which fell down in 1990), The Arch and the 8 (remaining) Twelve Apostles are something to behold. Even in the bitterly cold wind and rain.
We also stopped in Allansford at Cheeseworld. We visited the museum and shop and bought some delicious flavoured cheeses.
Our last night was spent in Apollo Bay. The accommodation here was OK but didn’t compare with the previous 2 nights – it was dirty and cold and they hadn’t even turned on the gas so there was no hot water! And we had to make our own beds! Not a very friendly welcome!
The last day we drove up the coast to Bell’s Beach, home of the Bell’s International Surf Competition. We had lunch in Torquay including some delicious cake from a local coffee shop.
I don’t remember the rest of the trip home ‘cos, with my belly full, I fell asleep as soon as we drove out of Torquay!
Below are some photos of our trip. From left to right: Panning in Sovereign Hill, Sovereign Hill, Sovereign Hill, Climbing down the steps at MacKenzie Falls near Hall’s Gap, MacKenzie Falls, Port Fairy sunset, Bay of Islands, London Bridge, The Arch, The 8 Twelve Apostles, The 8 Twelve Apostles, Apollo Bay harbour, Wild Koala
