After nearly 5 months of travelling together, sleeping in the same room and sometimes even the same bed, my compadre Rory is finally leaving me. His girlfriend is coming to visit so we are parting company for a a few weeks until we meet again in New Zealand. This weekend was a bank holiday in Australia which meant both Rory and I had a few days off work. Our housemates had both gone gallivanting around the country and we didn't fancy another weekend in Melbourne so we decided to go on a little adventure. For quite some time now we have been weighing up the idea of travelling along the the southern coast of Victoria but just never got round to it. I managed to chalk up over 60 hours last week so I was practically swimming in money, compared to the last few months anyhow, and Rory's impending departure meant this would be his last opportunity, so we gathered together the essentials and headed towards the Great Ocean Road.
The Great Ocean Road is a 200 odd kilometre stretch of road between Torquay and Warrnambool on the south coast of Victoria. The B100, as it's known on the map, was originally constructed by the government to provide soldiers returning from WW1 with employment. I read somewhere that the great ocean road provides one of the most picturesque drives on the planet and I'd have to agree.
We spent the morning winding along the coast and taking in the scenery. I've already witnessed Rory behind the wheel of a hire vehicle, so in the interest of public safety I decided to do all the driving myself. Constantly concentrating on avoiding death made it very difficult to take any photos, so I though I'd leave Rory in charge of all camera operations. After about an hour we pulled over to take a break . It was at this point that I discovered my sidekick had managed to take about 100 pictures all of which containing at least half a shot of either a windscreen wiper or a wing mirror. He was relieved of his duties immediately.
We eventually made our way home and dropped the rental car off. I'd just spent two days in nobody's company but Rory's and when I dropped him off I realised how much I'm going to miss the little fella. Despite the fact he can't take photos, he really is a great friend and he'll be sadly missed while he's away. I just hope for his and his girlfriends sake he doesn't hire any motorbikes.
Due to budget restriction we were unable to book any accommodation so we were forced to sleep in the car. To make things a little more comfortable, we popped to the bottle shop and got ourselves a crate of beers before settling down for the night on the beach front. We sat laughing and chatting away for a good 4 hours before eventually falling asleep and 8 hours later we woke up to find the ocean in front of us. It really was quite spectacular.
