Sunday, 16 April, 2017
Today we get on the road with the ultimate destination The Barossa Valley and beyond. Julie is doing the driving and our first destination is to be the Great Ocean Road. I thought Julie would turn off towards Apollo Bay, Nope. Then I thought she would turn off to Forrest which is the most direct way to the Coast, Nope. Instead we ended up in this place.
This is the first stop on a route called:
The people at this cheese factory obviously have a sense of humour with the name and:
The visit turned out to be a real winner. They gave us tasting of 11 cheeses, some of which we really liked e.g. their Bleu was stunning. We then decided to have a cheese platter for our road snack.
As we left we bought some of the Bleu Cheese which we enjoyed for quite a while on the trip. We took off and went to the next stop on the Gourmet Trail:
The guys were not that impressed so did not stay long but found a little treasure outside.
We decided we had enough gourmeting for now and head down to the coast. That is where our problems began. As we arrive near the 12 Apostles, there are people and cars everywhere. We park and have to walk well over a kilometer to get to the visitors centre and then the 12 Apostles.
Julie walked back to pick up the car while we waited at the Visitors Centre.
We drove onto Loch Ard Gorge and things got much worse. We were directed into a car parking area to the right. After fighting like fish upstream we got to the end with no parking spots available. We drove out again fighting fish from our original direction. All up we were in there about 45 minutes with no gain whatsoever. We decided to give up on the Not So Great Ocean Road and went back in land, thereby missing out on Loch Ard Gorge, Port Campbell, Bay of Islands etc. Google them!
But we did end up at another place on the Gourmet Trail that obviously quite pleased Hugh.
We stopped at Port Fairy for a quick look around and a coffee.
We then drive onto our final destination for the day, Portland Victoria. We are staying at an Airbnb place and drive straight there but have trouble finding the correct driveway. Eventually get in and the people are really nice. The place where we are staying is like a big barn next to their big house. Turns out the barn was there first and they built a living area to reside in while the main house was being built. It was perfect for us with two bedrooms, a big lounge etc.
We told the guy about our adventures today and he said words to the effect, but not the letter of: “You weren’t so stupid to go along the Great Ocean Road on Easter Sunday?” Yes, we were.
These nice people had booked us into a restaurant for tonight. Naturally, Julie walked there but I drove the three of us.
The following are some of the dishes that we had.
Our Airbnb Hosts were also eating there that evening, showing up around a half hour after us. We have a bit of a chat and go back to the ranch to end our eventful but not totally successful day.