From Lorne to Lavers Hill

From Lorne to Lavers Hill

Day 3

Wednesday 4 February 2009.


We woke fairly early but couldn’t leave the caravan park in Lorne till around 8.30 am (after the office opens so we could recover our key deposit). The couple from Brisbane (Tony and Von) in the camper adjacent came over before we left and gave us about $30 worth of excess food that they would have to dispose of before flying back from Melbourne later in the day – very generous. The couple have offered to put us up for a day when we come down past Brisbane and Von runs a hair/beauty salon and has offer us a haircut – very generous, although since it was directed at me I fear my hair might look a bit sad and unstylish to a professional hair stylist like Von.

We continued following the Great Ocean Road route, which is very scenic but only a single lane with extreme bends and blind spots. Kim found the winding road and extreme bends leading to Apollo Bay fantastic riding – very hard to watch for me (a fellow rider in a 4x4camper following). She kept the speed up through the corners but unfortunately we were soon slowed down by other traffic and she found it tiring from then on and we started making stops for cups of tea and general diversion. Some of the diversions were koalas in trees on the side of the road and a killer whale popping up from time to time along the Great Ocean Road.

Kim is still building up her physical condition for the trip and started to ache (mainly back) quite a bit so we decided to stop at Lavers Hill rather than continue on to our general target of Princetown (a further 50 kms). While she probably only travelled about 100 kms riding, it was hard riding and would have involved a lot of concentration. Kim slept an hour or two in the afternoon and fell asleep around 7.30 pm reading motorbike magazines (the March/April edition of Road Rider – a good Australian Publication).

We are camped at a small (no tiny) caravan park at Lavers Hill – it is so cheap that it is virtually free and includes the basic amenities.

They have an undercover barbeque at the caravan park and I wanted a lamb chop or two to go with the three remaining sausages from our fridge. The local shop wanted about $20 a kilogram for some very poor examples of mutton so I just couldn’t buy them – too used to eating our own sheep and not paying for meat I suppose. I had gone for a bicycle ride for that illusive chop so I used the opportunity to burn off a bit of energy by continuing on and riding up Lavers Hill on the alternative route back toward Geelong cross country – great fun but started to realize I was unprepared physically or practically to go far so gave it away after 10 klms – I have had to call Kim or Kieran (my son) for a pickup on a few previous occasions when unfit and was too ambitious and I really could do without the embarrassment.

We enjoyed our 3 sausages between us with some side salad before Kim fell asleep with her motorbike magazine. We are having a good time and finding plenty of practical things to do around/in the camper & trailer to keep us occupied.

We have no mobile internet coverage up here so this posting will not be real time.