Surfcoast Victoria and the Great Ocean Road

This weekend I went to the home of surfing in Victoria; Torquay (on Saturday) and when I got off the bus I thought I had died and gone to heaven (although my bank balance knew it certainly hadn't). The place is just wall to wall surf shops . The Surf City Plaza (a large shopping center dedicated to only surfing stuff) is like a factory outlet for the Victorian surf industry. Then next to that you have the Rip Curl office headquarters and somewhere further round the corner the Quiksilver headquarters. They both started life here in the late 60's / early 70's. Rip Curl started making wetsuit's for surfers to stay out longer in the colder (than the rest of Oz) Victorian waters. They also continue to make some of the best suits around, and what better place to bag myself a bargain Rip Curl spring suit for those warm Queensland waters? Nowhere else hopefully, so I did! Quiksilver started by making boardshorts, and now make everything except kitchen sinks. Whilst in surf city I also visited the surfing museum here, which is apparently the largest one in the world (and probably one of the only ones). They had a seriously funny series of boards with letters from a son who was away from home and to his father. This was the first of six . As I sat on the beach for the rest of the afternoon I realised that I could very easily spend some serious time here. It has all the good bits of Margaret River but not as isolated and is less than an hours drive to central Melbourne. So, I have submitted my CV to Rip Curl and am awaiting my date for interview!

The next day it was another early morning. I went on a tour of the Great Ocean Road. Originally I had planned to spend a week along this area of coastline (which was easy with the car I would have by that point, but that didn't happen, so this was they only choice I had). The coast line is aptly named the surf coast and the amount of beautiful, perfect, peeling waves was unbelievable. Our first stop was Bells Beach (one of Australia's most famous surf beaches and home to the Rip Curl Pro competition where the world's top 44 guys on the Championship Tour compete every Easter to ring the legendary Bell trophy). When we pulled up the waves were small (by Bells standards) but it sure was perfect, a sick peeling point break - I was literally unable to contemplate ever leaving without testing it out, it was like love at first sight. The sun was shining and the thought of leaving without going out made me feel really sick. In the end I had to tell myself of all the amazing surf that was to come when I got up the east coast and that if I really wanted I could always come back here later on in my trip (only have to go about 2,000 km's out of my way!). Getting back on the bus, and after another brief photo op, we made our way towards to the start of the Great Ocean Road. The scenery is stunning and the road follows the shoreline with winding corners and sheer drops nearly the entire way. Along the way we stopped off at Cape Patton observation deck and then for lunch at Kennet River where we saw wild Koala's and Parrots. The Victorian Koala is a different species which is larger than its Queensland counterpart (which is the traditional small and grey variety) and a dark brown color. I got some pretty awesome pictures as the one I found was not sleeping (cos they normally sleep like 22 hours a day) and decided to change positions just as I got my camera out. We then stopped off in Apollo Bay, a pretty nice bustling little town further up the coast. We then made the trip inland to Maites Rest to take a walk around one of Victoria's natural rainforests. The 32 degrees outside was markably cooler and moist in the rainforest which I had heard was the case, as obviously all the moisture is held in. Then it was back on the bus and on our way to the 12 Apostles, which were not as spectacular as I had envisaged but at least I could tick them as done on my to do list. This was probably because of the weather being very overcast, which meant that taking any stunning pictures was very unlikely. I had originally booked to go on the sunset tour (so you are at the 12 Apostles as the sun goes down) but it didn't run due to lack of numbers which was probably a good thing in the end as the sunset that day would have been nonexistent anyway. Before making our way back to Melbourne, we stopped at Port Campbell National Park to see some natural caves it was here where legend has it a young shipwrecked couple sheltered to survive many years ago, the general pleasantness of the spot and play a spot of frisbee. Then it was then time for the long journey back via Colac.

Its labour day (bank holiday) in Australia today. All the shops and bars are closed, only those not owned by Australian's (e.g. Macca's, KFC, Subway and Starbucks) are open. The Commonwealth Games has transformed the face of the city and its all restricted areas, "official" bus lanes and people with short shorts, white trainers and pulled up white socks with ID tags round their neck who it turns out are competitors (and their support teams) walking around siteseeing. What sport they do we can't guess as they all seem to be short and fat or tall and skinny, but then the real elite athletes are probably training and concentrating on the job at hand rather than getting their holiday photo's. Invariably due to this influx prices are going up and its time to leave.

I thankfully fly to Sydney this evening, Melbourne has been cool but its begun to drive me round the bend. I don't want to spend any more time in a city. I can only put this down to the fact that I came to surf loads and also that I live in the middle of the countryside at home. The past fortnight has consisted of pretty much no beach and thus no waves. Which is why I plan to spend as little time in Sydney as is needed to buy a car (and do the proper Sydney on the way back down).

Before I go though, as anyone who has travelled like this before will agree, the experience is full of up's and down's. There are days when you are so stoked and happy and everything seems to go right, the weather is great, you've met cool people or they are just generally friendly, you don't spend too much money and you don't feel hungry. Other days are just hassle, stress and everything and everyone just seems to be against you. The ideals you held before you left don't go to plan you feel as though you have no control over the trip, that it is in the hands of others. Ideally, the good days far outweigh the bad days. One excellent day (for me it is when the sun is shining, surf is good, food is in your belly and you have your own transport) can outweigh a few bad days (for me when I am stuck in a city, its costing me loads of money, you are in a dorm room with a bunch of idiots, miles from a beach and having to rely on public transport to get around). The key is to limit your exposure to these bad experiences. I have met many people since leaving the UK, all doing things a different way. Who needs to spend 36 hours on a bus when you can fly there in 2 hours? Not me! I may be a 'backpacking' surfer but that doesn't mean I don't like a nice hotel, or decent transport. Sometimes its nice to catch a bus but in those instances, no way. Some people will be what I call "proper" backpackers who spend as little money as possible by staying in the cheapest hostels, not going out anywhere nice and travelling by bus. Some just do all the organised tours and can't explore things at their own leisure. Some just get drunk every night and sleep all day and then lie around the hostel, seeing nothing. Some keep themselves to themselves, are on a mission to see and do everything and move on. Then some are a mixture of all of these, who are usually the best people you meet. All you can do is raise a beer to the goodtimes... live every day as it comes... but most importantly i suppose you've just got to be you and be truthful to yourself.