The next day was the day we picked up our camper van. We hired one from a company called wicked campers who cover there old vans in graffiti. Once we picked up our van we headed out to a shopping centre to buy some bedding some food (included the amazing Vegimite Cheesybyte which we ended up polishing off 2 quite big jars off in 2 weeks) and set off to our first stop for the night, Anglesea. We stayed in a pretty nice campsite cooked up some food and decided to name our van, Jeromy Alan Rogers was the final decision or little Jezza for short. After Anglesea we set off for our next stop Lorne and we were now officially on the Great Ocean Road. Lorne was a lovely little place so we decided to stay there for 2 nights, that was however after we found a nice campsite. We had been told about some free campsites that are located in national parks and decided to check one out. After about a 45 minute drive through forest we found it, it was basically just a bit of a gap in between the trees, there was no one there and the toilets were not even worth describing. We felt like we were in the setting of a horror film so quickly drove back to town and payed to stay in a really nice campsite by the beach. We spent most of our time at the beach, not getting in the sea as it was pretty cold but was nice just to sit and relax for a bit. We also decided to go to the cinema to see Black Swan. The cinema was an amazing building which was about 70 years old and we were told has stayed pretty much the same. All the light fittings, the seats the carpets...this place was awesome and the film was pretty good too. After Lorne we drove to Apollo Bay making a quick stop on the way to see some koalas in the wild. We saw 3 quite close up and 1 even had a stretch and a yawn, quite possibly one of the cutest things I have ever seen! When we arrived at Apollo Bay we didn't feel like doing much so had some food and I taught Andrew how to play cards. The next morning we were planning to stop at a few smaller places along the way as we had so long to do the Great Ocean Road but after passing through quite a few tiny little places were there was pretty just a couple of houses and a petrol station we decided to head straight on through to the next biggest place, Port Campbell. We had a great night here, our campsite was again right next to a beach so that night we decided to share a take away pizza from this great little Italian restaurant and eat it at the beach with a few beers. The next day was both horrible and hilarious at the same time as I managed to get myself quite ill and we had to take a detour to the doctors, we did however get to see the sunrise before we left which was an amazing sight. After our detour we headed off to see the 12 Apostles which is a series of free standing rocks in the sea, they were pretty impressive but after the day we had had we were pretty keen to just take a few photos and head on to our next stop of Warrnembool. This one of of the biggest places we had stayed out on our Great Ocean Road trip and we got a pretty nice site again right by the beach. We decided to take advantage of the BBQ's that are everywhere in Australia and cooked up some burgers. We had a wander around the town the next day and set off to our next stop of Port Fairy. They had the nicest camp site we had stayed in although the town was tiny so the next day we drove out to a place further inland called Creswick to play some mini golf and do a pretty cool maze which we got lost in for about an hour. We stayed in Creswick for the night in an interesting campsite run by a man with no teeth but lovely none the less. The next day we ventured back to Geelong and finally got ourselves another Hungry Jacks, we had missed them on the road although the amount of burger rings and cookies we ate made up for it. We had just the one night here before heading to the other side of Melbourne to check out Phillip Island.
We stayed for 2 nights at Phillip Island in a really nice campsite and finally had some good weather. We put our picnic table out to keep our spot at the campsite and headed down to the beach and had a wander around this really cute little town. We then headed back to camp to find that someone had taken our picnic table and placed it nicely by their tent and surrounded it with chairs, we found this hilarious and left them a friendly note although we were considering a less so friendly note, table stealers! The next day we went to Amaze'n'things! or Amaze'n'tings as we called it, awesome name, for some more mini golf, this one was much more epic than the last however and we even managed a few holes in one and a bit of cheating! After demolishing nearly a whole tub of cream cheese and crackers we headed down to one of the bays for a walk and saw a tiny penguin hiding under the walk way. We then drove back down to the beach got all cosied up in the back of the campervan opened the door and watched the sunset. Now both feeling sick, most likely from the amount of cheese we went back to camp opened some beers and had our last night in little Jezza...sad times! We left pretty early the next morning, said goodbye to our good friend Jeromy at the depot and got the train back to Melbourne.
We stayed in a really nice place right in the city with a cool roof garden where we spent most of our nights. It was Andrews birthday so we got dressed up and went out to an awesome little Italian restaurant hidden away down a back street. It was a strange place and looked like a sort of college canteen from the 70's with wood chip walls but the food was amazing. We couldn't decide what to have so the waiter gave us a big plate with 3 different types of pasta, some of the best pasta I have had in a long time. After we went to a cute little bar over the road for some drinks before heading back to the hostel. The next morning we went for a good fry up then visited the aquarium, Andrew is strangely terrified of fish so was shocked when he said he would like to go. The penguins were the best bit we watched and laughed at them for ages and even went back for a second look on our way out. We then took a walk along their south bank and had a little nap in the sun by the river. We were running a bit short on money by this point so decided to get some frozen lasagne and some beers and spend the night getting drunk on our roof garden. Our last day in the city we went to check out some of the art galleries and had a look round some of the shops we also randomly saw Mark Watson. We spent the night back at the roof garden again with beer and lasagne. We stopped for another fry up the next morning then caught the tram over to St. Kilda. This hostel wasn't as nice as the others and we preferred being in the city really but the weather was great and it was nice to be by a beach. We even had a quick dip in the sea although the water was freezing! We found a really nice bar on our way back with a couch outside which we remained in for the next 3 hours drinking jug after jug of beer. The next day we found a really cool area in St. Kilda which reminded us a bit of Shoreditch and the brick lane area so spent the day here and came back on the evening for some drinks. Our last full day together we spent chilling out really. It rained a lot in the evening which put us both in a bad mood, the fact that we would not be seeing each other for a while again may have added to this. We found a really nice little restaurant to spend the evening in and hide from the rain, we had some amazing pizza with some beer, not full from this we then shared a massive sandwich, still not full we shared a dessert and had some coffee then headed back to the hostel to pack.
My flight was at 6 in the morning so we took the tram back into the city at about 12.30am and spent the early hours of the morning at the airport eating our very last Hungry Jacks. Andrew nicely waited at the airport with me until I had to get on my flight to New Zealand. We said our sad goodbyes and off I went. These 3 weeks were definitely the most fun I have had traveling, I left looking forward to New Zealand but also looking forward to coming home.
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