Squires World Tour 2013: The Great Ocean Road!!

Buying a car in Oz is a very similar process to buying one in the UK. You head to the dealer, they feed you a load of entertaining rubbish about "how the price of the car is so cheap that they don't actually want to sell it to you" and how "she'll go all day, get you to Cairns and back without even changing the oil" and even sharing their insights on your chances of reaching Cairns in a 4000 dollar car "you bloody well won't get out of Adelaide for 4000 bucks!".

When asked about the service history, high mileage, strange noise coming from the exhaust and general condition of the car the reply was "listen mate, I reckon you'd be an idiot not to buy this car, you are worrying about nothing, it's a Falcon Wagon! Made for Australia, V6, 4 litres, rear wheel drive, get it in ya!"

Needless to say, we bought the car (mostly because it was called a Falcon and the stereo and air con worked!)

After a trip to Clarkes Rubber (to buy a mattress, honest) and a quick trip to the local target for some camping chairs and bedding we were ready to head off.

The journey from Adelaide to the start of the Mt Gambia pretty much at the edge of South Australia and Victoria is around 300km, we took a couple of days, sleeping in the Falcon in free campsites along the way and stopping in cool coastal fishing towns. The views and sunsets along this stretch of the Limestone Coast were amazing.

Heading from Mt Gambia towards Warnambool for the start of the Great Ocean rd is another days leisurely driving, stopping off at various little towns such as Portland and Point Fairie to follow the town walks and see some spectacular coastal scenery.

Once in Warnambool we stayed for a couple of days and camped near Hopkins Falls ( the widest falls in Australia ).

When car camping in secret car parks or campsites you come to rely on swimming pools and surf beaches for showers. This means that you are always on the lookout for spiders, snakes and other monsters that lurk in sandy un cleaned changing rooms in the back of beyond. It was in one of these changing rooms that Gemma met her first Wolfy Spider about a hands width across, grey and furry and absolutely convinced it would win any battle with a flip flop. Dave bravely ran away.

The Great Ocean rd is.... GREAT! Words can't do justice to the scenery, suffice to say that you could easily spend 2 or 3 days travelling along the 200km or so just to see the sea stacks in different lights. We were impressed by The Bay of Islands more than the 12 Apostles as it was a lot quieter being further away from Melbourne.

On finishing our journey we hooked up with Kym, Donald and Fyonn Munro in a little town called Somers on the Mornington Peninsula, an hour south of Melbourne. We were treated to Fish and Chips on their nearly deserted beach. We were told tails of swimming with dolphins right off the beach ( we didn't see any much to the dismay of Donald, we reckon its cos they could smell the Pomes in the water), went to a rock concert, drove round the Melbourne Grand Prix circuit (as they were setting it up) and were introduced to Ozzy rules footie by attending a Nab Cup game in Melbourne. We saw a Koala in their backyard, battled a giant Huntsman Spider in the Cubby (it resisted being sucked up by a Dyson and ran straight at Dave), built a giant sand sea defence and generally had an amazing time. Big thanks to you guys !!

Heading along the coast from Melbourne round towards Sydney next!