The Unfolding.

I'm feeling a lot better now after some well deserved sleep.

And now let our story begin...sorry, my story. HAHA!

It all started off in Melbourne, where I picked up my travel partner, and our first stop was close to a camp site which was close to Apolla Bay that my Couchsurfing host from Melbourne had told me about (very nice couple by the way) and it was free, which made it a big bonus.

I figured it would be best to leave Melbourne some time after 9 in the morning, try to beat the morning rush, how I was wrong. The traffic was a nightmare! It moved, but it was just so bloody chaotic!

Once we were out of Melbourne, we start heading to Geelong and decide we should buy our supplies there since it was the biggest city along the coast, which meant that there would be a Coles or Wolly's where we could buy some food at a decent price. We have lunch down by the beach, and then continue our journey down to the camp site. And the drive down there was a just beautiful, a lot of quiet towns where, and if I had a butt load of money, I know I could retire there in a nice villa. Or just a little shack, either one would work out I think...well, it all depends, but that's another story, and I have a few years before I need to worry about that kind of stuff.

Moving on!

We find the camp site and pitch up the tent (travel partner got the tent) and started preparing dinner. While we were talking, I heard something climbing on the tree next to my car, and since my travel partner had never seen a possum, I figured what better time than now. I use my little magnetic light and shine it on to the tree and to our pleasant surprise, it wasn't a possum climbing in the tree. It was a koala! First night out and we see a koala 3 meters from the car! How awesome isn't that?! Two other travellers from Belgium come over to look at the koala and start having a little photo session with it. And one of the Belgians did something I would never of dared to do, and that was to pet the koala. They can be pretty vicious if they need to, but this one was pretty relaxed, and so we all got to pet it. To do this in a zoo isn't the cheapest thing, and it's time limited. So being able to pet and hang out with a wild koala is a pretty special thing.

After a while, the koala got tired of us annoying it, so it climbed down the tree and climbed up another one 2 feet away. Interesting reaction, no?

We go to bed and then haul ass to The Grampians the next morning.

Oh! I was under the impression that this trip had no "time-limit", and I was proven wrong when my travel partner (I'll call her Dutchess, cause she's from Holland, and D for short). D decided to tell me (when we were on the highway out of Melbourne) that she had a plane booked to go to NZ in 7 days time from Melbourne, which, for me, took my plan by the collar and held Desert Eagle to it's head and pulled the trigger until the gun went *click*. Great days.

To get to The Grampians, the best - no, the scenic way is via the Great Ocean Road. Very famous, and super touristic road here in Oz which everyone needs to drive along. I couldn't agree with them more. If it's good weather at least. We had semi dodgy weather, which made it not as Great as it could of been. Along the way there's an attraction known as the 12 Apostles, but it's more like 7 or 10 Apostles, didn't really count, I just know that some of them fell over. Old age you know. If you were around to hang out with the big JC, it's no big surprise you would fall over 2000 years later. You are forgiven.

They weren't all to impressive. I thought they were going to be MASSIVE rocks out in the ocean. Sure they were big, but just not as "wow" as I had expected. Hmm...weather had a bit to do with it all as well. The beaches along the way were pretty sweet too.

Get to Warrnambool where we get a flight ticket for D to fly from Adelaide back to Melbourne, and check out some of the sights there. Nothing too special, cause yet again, the weather was pretty crap. Start to head north towards the Grampians and decide to take free hot shower at the visitors center in Dunkeld and also crash at some rest area.

Next morning we head into the actual Grampians, which was super frustrating. Cause D was on super tight budget, which I didn't know about either, so camping out at the campsites was limited to one night and only two days of short hikes. Pretty sweet hikes, but short ones nonetheless. Bit a drag but I had fun either which way. Where we were camping, we met some pretty cool dudes who were pretty into climbing and bouldering, they also invited us into their circle around the camp fire, which was pretty nice. Oh! And they made popcorn! Score!

Wake up, and I decide I wanted to climb another hill/mountain before we leave and I had been told of a Mt. Hollow which was meant to be pretty awesome and it was. It was pretty freaking awesome! Did some bouldering with the guys we met at the camp and some other small rock scrambling which was a lot of fun. Also, one of the climbers had a fisheye lens which got me pretty jealous....bastard. To his credit though, he had a Nikon, but oooohhhh boy, if he had a Canon. Well, let's just say he's lucky he had a Nikon. :P

All in all, I think the Grampians were the best part of the trip for me. Do some scrambling, hard up hill climbs, and amazing vistas. A good adventure.

After the adrenaline rush from the bouldering, we go back to the car and head on over to Horsham to refuel and make our way to our next stop: The Naracoote Caves. And upon leaving the Grampians, we ran out of fuel. And after some math, the car had done about 260km before it ran out. Mega gay. Luckily, I was prepared and had a jerry can with 10L of fuel in it, which by my calculations would take us 83km. Oh, but on flat highway stretches, we did 300km. And when I drive with the window down I smell petrol, but when I roll it up, I don't smell it. So that tells me I have fuel leak somewhere. Going to the mechanic on Wednesday to have it checked out.

Naracoote Caves aren't anything special. Semi cool, but nothing mind boggling. Hmm...the one "fun" thing that happened there was when we were going to pay for the camp site. It cost 21 AUD for the two of us for one night, which is a good deal considering it had hot showers, flush toilets and power outlets. Great setup in short. We only had 20.75 on the spot, so we go back to the car with the envelope and say that I would go back with the full 21AUD. I didn't. In morning I decide to pay, and D refuses to pay her half because we would be able to get away with it, and I claimed that Kharma would come around and kick some ass if she didn't. Still says no, so I do the following: Take a new envelope and write the following (approxiamately, can't paraphrase it) -

"To whom it may concern,
We stayed here for one night and use all of the facilities and had a pretty good time. However, my partner in crime doesn't want to pay her half of the 21 bucks, and since I'm semi-poor, I can only afford to pay my half. Have a good one, enjoy life and I'm sorry! /Ollie."

Yeah...weird, I know.

After laughing about that, we start heading back to the coast to some ponds which were meant to be pretty awesome for snorkeling close to Nelson. Buy an ice cream and start looking for the ponds. They were amazing! Limestone based ponds which made they super clear, with a deep blue colour at deeper depths. Freaking amazing! And that's with the photo of me jumping into the water. I setup my camera to shoot at 4000th of second, just to make sure I get "frozen" in the air. I love my camera!

Camp out close the lakes and then make our way to Mt. Gambier where there's a lake that changes colour, and a cave garden. Both impressive sites.

After some driving, we decide to crash at camp site in the Little Dip Conservation Park. Rough roads which really messed up my car. Big time.

I thought that the engine was getting louder, but I couldn't really say if it was. D couldn't hear a difference.

The campsite was ok, nothing too special, but the really nice thing about it was that there were heaps of trees around where I could put up my hammock and just chill out. Quite literally. It got pretty cold pretty quick. But just nice to lie there looking at the sun setting through the trees.

On our way out, the engine got REALLY loud and the cooling system stopped working as well as it did previously. So I decide to make a mechanical stop in Meningie where I would let the car cool down and see what I could do.

The exhaust pipe was split. Completely. Not cool at all. After some thinking, I think of way of making a splint using epoxy glue and tent pegs. A passer by sees me and tells me there's actually a tape for that purpose. Walk over the local hardware store, and there it was: muffler tape. Buy a pack and start rethinking everything. It said if there was a major problem, I should use a coke can to fix it. Luckily I just drank an energy drink, but I crushed the can. Go to the rubbish to see if there's anything else there. Score again! An un-crushed coke can waiting to be cut to pieces.

I drive half the car up onto a ledge, hoping it would give me enough space to move around under, but nej, it was going to work. I left the car there and pulled the jack out (this is after 20 minutes of struggling trying to get my big ass under there. Once the car was jacked up, I was more afraid of it breaking and landing on me, which, simply put, would suck a lot. I couldn't get the coke can to stay put, so I had to use steel wire (after already having tried this, but poorly done, and semi used the tape a bit) I do it properly and get the engine running to heat up the exhaust (that's how it melts and sticks together) I frantically wrap the tape around and hear how it all starts getting really quiet. I felt like freaking McGyver, but in truth all I did was read the instructions. Now the exhaust pipe is rattling around, so I'm going to try to solve that today.

The drive from Meningie was a very scenic one. A place where you could get lost with your camera. But since my car can only pull off 300km and doesn't have roo bar, I didn't want to do any night driving there. So we just plowed our way through.

Make the final way of the trip to Port Willunga where I had a couch waiting for us, but before we could get in, we stop off at the Victory Hotel to visit our hostess. I have a well deserved beer and a chicken schnitzel with pepper gravy sauce. It was yumma dum dum! Oh, small bowl of salad with feta cheese in it! After 7 days of rice and tune or spaghetti with tuna, this was a real treat for me.

We finally went to the house and there we were greeted by a super happy Italian and Argentinian girl. Very warm welcoming!

Been here since...Wednesday and enjoying it! Going to the mechanic on Wednesday to have the engine tuned up and hopefully find the petrol leak patched up. Oh, I was leaking oil as well, and I was afraid it was going to be really expensive to fix, but it was only 44 bucks and 5 minutes labour. Pretty mint!

Yesterday, D went into Adelaide, and I had planned to sort out as much stuff as possible, but after having successfully called Hobart JB Hi-Fi to retrieve a receipt to get my speakers switched, I felt pretty content with that, and just hung out by the beach and did some snorkeling. Met a guy who was part of the Australian SAS 12 years ago, really cool dude, and then just headed home.

Life, in general, is pretty sweet. You're going to have some downs. And then some moments where you just want to end it all. But the best moments are when you plan to do a heap of stuff, realize you really don't want to do it, and just do something completely different which makes you happy instead. Those moments are...precious.

Now, I'm going to hang up some laundry, try to fix my car and then go to the beach for some sun and fun. Laters guys!

Here's a visual on my drive.


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