Australia Holiday - Melbourne to Angelsea

Heading out of the City - 2nd November

Bit of a rip here - the Anglesea Surf Beach

Moving Hazards

We picked up Yaris 3 from Hertz in Melbourne and headed out of the City in the Geelong direction. By the way, we were offered a free upgrade to a larger car. No thanks, we will wait for a Yaris was our swift reply.

Our change of routing meant we were now competing for the road and accommodation with people escaping the Melbourne Cup. Cup Day on Tuesday is a Public Holiday and non-horse racing lovers take a bridging day (or a sickie) to make it a long weekend. Apparently Cup Day is renowned for its drunken ladies in short skirts, perhaps we should have stayed on? – cue sound affect – slap from TW!

We headed down the M1 past Geelong to Anglesea on the Great Ocean Road. The Great Ocean Road was built by returned servicemen from the Great War. Must have been hard work but was much more productive and rewarding than sitting in trenches up to their necks in muck and bullets. The road winds its way westwards along the South Coast from Torquay. We stopped at the Anglesea Tourist Office and the retiree volunteers manning it recommended a nice B&B which had a vacancy. It turned out to be the Granny flat in their home! They also gave us a good tip – the Golf Club was the place to see Kangaroos and get a good feed. After a wander on the surf beach we headed for the links and true enough found kangaroos were munching the fairways, seemingly unconcerned by the passing golfers. Quite a few of them had a little Joey with them taking a ride in the pouch or standing close by. Not sure what the penalty is for hitting a roo but apparently they are accustomed to it and it does not make them jump. Dinner was in the Golf Club lounge. Large picture windows gave great views of the course and the magnificent gum trees, oh, and more kangaroos! The kangaroos on the course have names and some of them were chosen to pick the Raffle prizes – the names not the Kangaroos themselves – a Kangaroo has very short arms! We nearly won a prize. The couple who bought the ticket page before ours were big winners. What we would have done with the prize, a Meat Tray, I have no idea. Our hosts won a prize naturally.

Good feed though, Merlin Steak on a Greek salad with roast potatoes. Our hostess turned to playing the Pokies, told her not to be home too late, he-he. Hope she did not lose the $100 we paid for the nights accommodation. The B&B was very comfortable, a nice two storey house surrounded by gum trees in quiet country road. Really getting in to this Australia business after bit of a dodgy start.