Healsville

We woke up early after a half decent night of sleep. We hang out at the campground in the morning to do some much needed laundry. We had not run out of clothes yet, but we figured it would be wise to take advantage of the facilities here since we didn’t know exactly where we would spend the night.

By 10:30 am we were on our way: we had one more stop to do on the Great Ocean Road: Gibson’s steps. This lookout has steps that go all the way to the beach and you can walk up to 2 of the Apostles. We trekked down this beautiful beach to reach the 2 gigantic rock formations and it was worth every step: this coastline is just majestic, and I couldn’t get enough of it. We even put our toes in the water (which was frigid by the way).

After that final look, we backtracked a bit on the Great Ocean Road (where they are so nice to remind you on which side of the road you should drive) then we went a bit more inland toward the Yarra Valley and Healsville, where we would spend the night.

We drove through hills and valleys and eucalyptus forests: no koala sightings so far, but we did see dolphins yesterday, I completely forgot to mention.

On the way there, we stopped at a local winery/brewery we stumbled upon, and sampled their brews – well David did, since I immediately became the designated driver. Australia has very strict rules about drinking and driving, and we are not taking any chances (driving on the other side of the road is enough excitement). And speaking of that, today I sampled driving on the highway: and I’ll tell you, the 2 weirdest things are merging into the far left lane and remembering to pass on the right…the left lane is for the slow moving vehicles duh! The nice thing is that Aussies so far seem to really stick to the speed limits, so that makes it a little easier (I hope I’m not going to jinx ourselves now).

After the excitement on the highway, we went back to country roads, which are much more enjoyable and relaxing…until you get to the Yarra Valley road to Kinglake: from there it was white knuckles all the way. Holy cow that road was narrow: on one side there were upcoming vehicles, and on the other the valley, as in with no shoulder. I was very grateful when the road widened again, and I was even more grateful that we rented a car instead of a campervan.

We finally arrived at the wineries that David wanted to visit, but of course we were too late so we’ll have to come back tomorrow: at least we know exactly where they are. This area reminds me of where I grew up and the wine country around Torino: all rolling hills covered in vineyards as far as the eye can see. Tomorrow we’ll explore a bit more: besides being close, we really needed to go find a campground for the night.

The first caravan park only has cement slabs (and that makes it a little hard to pitch a tent) so we went to another one just up the road and got ourselves a camping site. After setting up camp and eating dinner (pre-cooked meals are really not all they are cracked up to be) we went to town and treated ourselves to dessert: we shared a delicious chocolate cake, Dave had a glass of wine and I had licorice tea made with licorice root: and that flavor brought me back to my childhood, when I used to eat licorice root as a treat (my sister will probably be the only one reading this blog that will relate).

Came back to camp and got ready for the evening: it’s raining and we are silently praying that it will remain a drizzle and will not turn into a downpour…the thunder doesn’t make it sound too promising.