Cruising the Coast, Catching Koalas & Criminal Conversion

Thankfully I didn’t have nightmares about Wolf Creek and woke up feeling refreshed and relieved I wasn’t going to have to dash anywhere (I seem to have had a lot of early mornings recently!). I went downstairs and found Niamph still looking slightly green, but getting ready to go to work (I can’t imagine how much she must have drunk to still be hungover more than 24 hours later!). Christie came down next and we had a cup of tea together, whilst he told me all about the day he had ahead of him at work.

When Matt materialised, I made him a cup of tea and because he had the day off work, we came up with a plan – seeing as it was such a sunny day we’d go for a drive along the Great Ocean Road! Cool! We headed off out and before long were on the famous stretch of road. It really was rather beautiful, once the road went parallel alongside the sea. We stopped at Bells Beach (it’s famous for something to do with surfing, but I am not sure exactly what) and watched some surfers catching some waves below us, although despite the sun, it looked a bit cold for me!

A bit further along the road, we came to a little town called Lorne, which looked beautiful. It’s a popular spot in summer with all sorts of activities along the front (including a new million dollar mini golf course that they are currently building!), but being winter, it was quite quiet. We had some lunch in the Kaos Kafe and it was fantastic – I had a delicious smoked salmon sandwich whilst Matt had ‘green eggs and ham’ (which reminded me of a certain five year old back home who likes that story – you know who you are!).

Back on the road, we followed the twists and turns, enjoying the superb views of the ocean, until we came to a random turn off for a holiday park – I didn’t know why we’d stopped until I saw the sign; ‘Koala Cove’! Matt had set himself the mission of showing me ‘real’ koalas so I could tick it off my list of ‘real’ animals I had seen. It was so cool. We drove along the road, looking up into the trees and eventually we pulled over, hopped out and there one was – perched way up in the tree top. It didn’t do much, but at least it was a real koala! As we looked around we saw a few more, all high up, but real nonetheless! So: real live koala – tick!

We carried along the Great Ocean Road until we came to the Ottway National Park, where we turned off the GOR and headed towards the Ottway Fly. According to the internet it was just off the GOR, but in fact was over 40km away, along some very narrow, windy roads and through the rainforest (we even passed an overturned lorry which had gone off the road and crashed into the trees – it must have done so a long time ago because it was very much rusty and dilapidated), but eventually we arrived. When I was in Melbourne in March, I had won a prize for listening to a talk from Safari Johnno – it comprised of a variety of things including a tin of beans, but amongst the other bits was a free ticket to the Ottway Fly. This ticket had remained in my folder of things and I had chanced upon it when sorting out my bag in Sydney, mentioned it to Matt and we decided to go as it was something a bit different and we had a free ticket! It turned out to be more or less identical to the Illawara Fly that I went to with the Stangers a couple of weeks ago – it must be run by the same company. The main difference is that it is much smaller and so there is less in the way of boardwalks and bridges to walk over, although there was one really tall tower with a spiral staircase. The view from the top was quite different to that of the Illawara Fly, as despite being relatively close to the GOR, because the drive took us on such a climb up from it, the result was that we were way above sea level, so all to be seen in every direction were trees! It was still cool though. Another major difference was that they had a kind of mini bush-walk through the trees with some slightly dubious-looking fibreglass dinosaurs hiding behind the tress – they were rather amusing and we had a competition to see who could do the best dinosaur impersonation.

When we eventually got back to the car, we decided that we should start heading back to Melbourne, but this time we’d go along the main roads, rather than the GOR. We set the TomTom and started on our way. After a bit, Matt was getting a bit tired and so I offered to drive for a bit – this was a bit illegal as I don’t actually have my driving licence with me and even if I did, it’s the old paper licence and you’re supposed to have the new one with the photo. I figured we were not on the main highways, so there were hardly any other cars around, so the chances of getting pulled over were slim, plus if I was, I could just go into ‘bumbling Brit’ mode (apparently I am quite good at that and as such my skills have been likened to those of a typical Hugh Grant character on several occasions by several different people!). I was still super nervous, particularly as the car was somewhat bigger than my own (it’s a Rav 4), although I figured I had gotten all excited at the prospect of driving the Stray bus in NZ which was much, much bigger than this!

I started driving and it wasn’t as bad as I thought as we were going along quiet roads through the bush, plus I was being super careful and going super slow (well, just marginally under the speed limit anyway!). I was right about the lack of other cars; once I started driving, it was absolutely ages before we saw another vehicle. Soon it became darker and the additional danger factor occurred to me – animals leaping in front of the car; this made me drive even more carefully and I realised that I seemed to be subconsciously holding my breath for lengths of time! I was able to chat and drive, but was concentrating super-lots on the road!

Then seemingly moments after the light had started dipping, we were suddenly plunged into complete darkness and all I could see was what was being lit up by my headlights, they were the only form of light. My side mirrors reflected blackness, as did the rear view mirror – in fact I couldn’t even see the mirrors themselves as they too were black, so the black casings merged with the black reflections. So it was all black. Black, black, black. Nothing but black. I noticed the road had turned from tarmac to dust and then it occurred to me – Wolf Creek. This really was Wolf Creek-esque. Damn that film! I was then able to appreciate why the film is scary. I pointed this out to Matt, who agreed, but thought it was quite funny that I was now finally scared of the film! I saw the funny side too and we laughed about it, although vowed not to accept help from any strangers should we break down!

Once the tarmac came back, I felt a bit better and before long we were nearing some street lights. We decided to swap back over once we were on the highway. That seemed like a good idea. The highway kind of crept up on us, so I said I’d stop at the first services we came to. That also seemed like a good idea. Then I saw some flashing lights up ahead – police! Arrrggh! Matt laughed and said it was ok; they only put the lights on when they have pulled someone over or were chasing them, which meant they had their hands full and wouldn’t bother us. Sure enough he was right, but I went past the parked police car looking as innocent as I possibly could, just in case! Phew; made it! Seconds later, I saw another set of flashing lights up ahead – they were doing the same thing, so again I went past, bang on the speed limit, trying to look as innocent as possible. Phew; made it again! Then seconds later, I saw yet another set of flashing lights up ahead – knowing the drill now, I ensured my speed was appropriate and drove past looking as ‘butter-wouldn’t-melt’ as possible. Phew; made it! However, on glancing back up into my mirror a couple of seconds later, I saw the police car switch its flashing lights off and pull out behind me! OMG!

The fear of the Wolf Creek moments I had experienced earlier was nothing to what I was now experiencing! Panicking, I pointed out what I had seen to Matt, who then also started panicking, but at the same time we passed a sign for the services, saying they were 2km away. So that was it – I had to make my way as fast as possible, covering 2km without speeding to the services, in order to swap drivers, without getting stopped by the police. It felt like a race. A 2km race at 100km per hour should not take very long. It felt like it took forever, all the while I was keeping an eye on the police car whilst trying not to look suspicious! At last the turning to the services, I indicated and pulled in, parked up and leapt out of the car as fast as I could, ran around to the other side to jump in, whilst Matt slid over into the driver’s seat! Looking around for police; the coast was clear! Phew we made it! We had to sit there for five minutes to calm down – I really did feel like a criminal!

Matt drove the last bit of the journey home and it was with a great sigh of relief that we walked through the door! We told Niamph and Christie about our brush with the law – they thought it was hilarious. I was relieved to have survived my first experience of driving in Oz; without running over any kangaroos, without being Wolf Creek-ed and without being caught by the police!

We had dinner together and then settled in front of the tv for a bit, with a few beers, to chat and watch Masterchef and some other random shows. All the fresh air and drama had taken it out of me, so it wasn’t long before I crashed flat out!