In a solid attempt to catch up with the time difference I
went to bed by 7 pm last night and managed to stay in bed until 5 am. I think I
am caught up. Of course here it is fairly dark until 6:30 am, so I had time to
drink three cups of coffee and have a leisurely breakfast before I left my
guest house at 8 am. I had a few kilometers to walk to the place where I was picking
up my van, but made it there just before 9 am. Unfortunately I had been
scheduled for checkout at 10 am, so I had yet another cup of coffee and read and
re-read the basic info about the rental before I had my personal induction into
the Toyota van that will be my expeditionary vehicle. It is nicely set for camping,
but it seems I will not be able to just pull off the road anywhere to spend the
night, given that the police frowns on such behavior.
I went back to my hotel, loaded my stuff, and off I went to
visit my only in-country friend so far (the aunt of a friend, who had invited
me to lunch at her flat). This time I cheated by renting a GPS unit, so I managed
to get to her place without getting lost; Melbourne is in some respects a
European city, with all sorts of twists and turns in the roads, so getting there
with only a paper map would have been a challenge indeed.
Lunch was great. Sally and I discovered we had both visited
the same countries over the last few years, so we had much to talk about. We
also pondered about what is the best way to go into retirement, if at all. In
between I got a few good pointers on places to see in eastern Australia, and
about the wisdom of not driving at night, when wallabies and kangaroos jump
unexpectedly on the roadway. Alas, all good things must come to an end, so after
an hour and a half of delightful conversation I had to say goodbye to my new friend
and get on the road. I feel a lot better knowing that someone knows where I am (or
am supposed to be).
Getting out of the city was slow work, but eventually I
headed southwest toward the rough coast of southern Australia. My goal was to
take The Great Ocean Road, and follow it to the part of the coast dubbed The
Twelve Apostles. The vistas along this twisty coastal road are breathtaking,
but the going is slow. It has many similarities with the central California
coast, with the difference that the California coast has been warped over the
last million years, so wave-cut platforms have been uplifted to form terraces
where the road is relatively straight. The mountains in southern Australia appear
to have been stable during the recent geologic past, so the slopes are long and
precipitous, and the coastline behaves like a twisted noodle.
I drove until about 5 pm, at which point daylight started to
fade and prudence suggested it was time for me to stop at a campground along the
Kennett River. My camping needs are very basic, and I got a discount because I
was driving a Spaceship Australia van. Nice! My friendly hostess also suggested
a dusk walk along the riverside, as a good way to spot some wildlife. I was
shooting for a koala, but was delighted when I saw my first kangaroo! He was pretty
big, but hunched over the tender grass looked more like a giant furball. On my
way back I thought I heard a koala, but it turned out to be an Australian
Brushtail Possum (or something that in the dark looked like it). Unfortunately
for my wildlife sightseeing, many of the interesting marsupials are night creatures,
and nobody could ever accuse me of being a denizen of the night. Yawn!
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