The Journey So Far

Posted at 6:00 PM, Monday, April 14, 2008

Greetings to you all from Lorne, Victoria. We are staying in Avarest Cottage, a privately-owned house which I thoroughly recommend to all you Aussie readers. Three bedrooms, two with queen-size mattresses that still have their springs intact, a nice kitchen, cozy living room, and direct sea views for $115 per night. We have had adventures in accommodation along the way, and I must say it was a tremendous relief to arrive at the house and find it exactly as described on the website.

We drove for seven mostly monotonous hours through southeastern South Australia. Mile after mile of scrub and scrawny gum trees. We drove through Meningie and were quite shocked at the low water level in Lake Alexandrina. Luckily, we've had rain in recent weeks, so we can only hope that some of it reaches the lower Murray River area. By the time we reached Allestree Holiday Units outside of Portland, it was "time to brush our teeth," as Nadav put it. We had our first accommodation surprise here. There were two bedrooms, but not room for four adults and two children. We six ended up sharing one queen-size bed and two bunk beds. Otherwise, it was quite a friendly place to stay: just across a quiet road from the beach, nice-sized living space, decent kitchen, good bathroom. A good deal for $90 for the night.

Sunday was a long LONG day. We spent the morning seeing some of the sights in the Portland area, particularly the spectacular coastline at Cape Nelson State Park as well as its famous lighthouse. From there, we drove to the scenic town of Port Fairy. It wasn't until 3:30 p.m. or so that we finally hit the Great Ocean Road we'd traveled to see. In quick succession, we stopped to view the Bay of Islands, Loch Ard, and Thunder Blowhole. My mother-in-law Judy has been keeping a blog that includes many gorgeous pictures of our trip. By the time we left the Blowhole, it was already 5:30 p.m., and I was becoming concerned about making it to our campsite by darknesss. So we bypassed the most famous site of all, the 12 Apostles, with the intention of getting back there today. Hah! We spent sixty finger-biting minutes making our way through the twists and turns of the dark and spooky Otway National Park, and by the time we finally reached our destination we had all decided that we didn't want to do the drive twice the next day. So we are now just about the only tourists in the history of the Great Ocean Road not to see the 12 Apostles. At least there are nearly 19,000 available images of it on Google, so it's just about as good as being there.

Lest you think I am jesting about the impact of the places we did manage to visit, you should know that they were absolutely spectacular. The kids didn't want to get out of the car, but when they did, they literally jumped up and down. The scenery was magnificent, and well worth the trip.

At 7:15 p.m., we limped into Bimbi Park for the night. We had been looking forward to staying here, because it was located right in the middle of the Otway National Park and sounded quite charming. Charming it is, but rustic in the extreme. Bobby, the boys, and I shared a bunk house, which turned out to be a room with two bunk beds and no curtains. Not even a welcome mat to wipe our feet, so that within minutes the floor was covered with a thin layer of sand. Bob and Judy did better with a small but lovely cabin. Another big surprise was that there was no drinking water available. The camp relies on untreated spring water, which must be boiled in order to be safe for drinking. Hot water with your dinner anyone? The signs over all the sinks informed us that bottle water was available at the kiosk, but by then the kiosk was closed. The restroom facilities were state of the art, but you had to pay $1 for the privilege of taking a 3-minute shower.

Would I recommend Bimbi Park to others? I think so, provided you arrive while it's still daytime and are prepared for the sparseness of the facilities. Certainly, it is among the cheapest places to stay in a very pricey area.