even with companies like wicked campers and stuff like that, you have to be at least 21 to hire out, and it has to be for at least 5 days. however, there was one veryyy sketch place we found where you only had to be 18. so of course we went with it, and soon enough casey, lauren and i found ourselves in melbourne on a friday afternoon, hiring out a campervan for the weekend. casey and i got there first because lauren had to fly standby from brisbane, so we decided to go get the campervan and pick up some supplies while we waited for her. so we got all the paperwork filled out, got all packed up into our campervan, and jumped in the front seat ready to go... and couldn't get it started. embarrassed, we went back into the rental place and asked how we were supposed to get the vehicle started. the woman replied, the clutch of course, it's on the far left-hand side. the clutch? that's correct. the campervan is manual. so casey and i got back out into the campervan and stared down where, sure enough, there was a stick shift and a clutch on the far left-hand side.
obviously neither of us know how to drive manual, so we once again found ourselves in quite the interesting situation. frantically, we started calling some friends to try and get ourselves a quick over-the-phone lesson on how to drive a manual. finally matias answered his phone, and when we told him our situation, he warily began to explain how one drives a stick-shift. mid-lesson, however, he stops and says, "listen you guys, i really don't think this is a good idea." not disagreeing, we decided to go back into the rental place and ask them to just take the campervan back and get a refund. however, because it was so last-minute, it would have been considered a cancellation and we wouldn't have gotten a cent of our $400 back. so a decision had to be made; either we were out $400 and were going to have to just figure out something else to do in melbourne for the weekend, or we were going to suck it up and casey was going to learn to drive a manual.
well, obviously we chose the second option, so we get back on the phone with matias, explain to him the situation, and he begrudgingly gives us a lesson on how to drive manual. very very veryyyy nervously we finally decide casey is ready to exit the parking lot, and we drive out and into a larger car park next door, at the central west shopping centre, in the town of braybrook, the sketchiest suburb in all of melbourne, i am positive. we spend the next three hours, still waiting for lauren, driving in circles around the car park in braybrook, practicing starting and stopping, slowing down, etc. finally, lauren arrives, we tell her the situation, and she is extremely nervous, as we all were at this point, but of course goes with it. feeling confident(-ish), we go to aldi for some supplies; bread, pb&j, some breakfast bubbles, milk, chips, cookies, and a few boxes of goon.
finally ready to head out on the road, we begin our journey toward our destination for the night: geelong. we arrive before dark, but not before realizing that although we have a bed to sleep in for the night, we have no where to park it. there are no open caravan parks in geelong, but even if there were we would have to pay for them, and that kind of defeats the purpose of the campervan. sooo we drive drive around for a while, stall in the middle of an intersection, and halfway up at a hill at a stoplight, casey has a couple meltdowns... and then finally we find ourselves at a dead-end road on a cliff over looking the ocean, in the parking lot of a church. perfect. we park the breezer, get out to stretch our legs, bathroom break, and get started on the goon.
by this time we were all absolutely exhausted by our travels we decide against making the trek back into town and have our very own bonding sess in bed. did i mention that the back of the breezer is a cage? that's funny... the campervan is really only for two people, which is why it is so cheap, so there are no seats/seatbelts in the back, just the bed, which we folded up during the daytime for seating for lauren. i, of course, had to sit up in the front with casey to navigate/keep her calm so lauren sat in the back, in the cage, like a locked-up feral child. not a big deal, but pretty key looking back... so anyway, we're chillin in bed, drinking our goon, when cars start randomly coming to park on cliff st. over looking the ocean. who knew church parking lots also doubled as make-out points? needless to say, we had some interesting visitors that friday night...
the next morning we woke up extremely early, as we were all a little bit anxious about the day ahead, and a little nervous that we had a ticket. however, we did not so not to worry. we had some breakfast bubbs & pbj for breakfast, then walked down the hill to a park where we got to wash ourselves a bit. then we packed up the breezer and went back into the geelong to give ourselves a little walking tour. we had some coffee at an adorable little cafe on the beach, went to cunningham pier, and then made a little trek to the national wool museum where we, luckily, met some kind old men who gave us the most amazing directions for the great ocean road, and to whom i will be eternally grateful, as we may not have made the journey without them. after talking to them we were excited to get on our way, so we got back into the breezer and headed off for our next destination: queenscliff.
queenscliff is an adorable little colonial town consisting of all old people and war museums and memorials. we walked around checking out all the history, which we don't get at all on the gold coast, the white picket fences, and B&B's... it was adorable. we stopped at the courtyard, an adorable little cafe in a garden, for some sandwiches and coffee, and then back to the breezer and off we went... we drove through the bellarine, vineyard country overlooking port philip bay, through more adorable towns and scenic sights like point lonsdale, ocean grove, barwon heads... we got stuck in a little bit of traffic in torquay, a surfing town of the famous bells beach where surf brands like cult and rip curl originated. turns out the traffic was because of a bicycle race that was going on that saturday afternoon, so that was terrifying driving on coastal highway trying not to kill any cyclists.
we continued on thorugh anglesea, aireys inlet, and somewhere between there and lorne we came across some remains of the victoria bushfires that have been raging on down there pretty much the entire time i've been in this country. the fires were contained, but it was terrifying to see, and so sad. plus all the cyclists had to bike through that nasty smoke, which couldn't have been good for them. our next stop was lorne, another surfside town that reminded me of coolangatta beach on the gold coast. lorne is the home of eskrine falls, which was our next stop. however, to get to eskrine falls, you first have to drive up the steepest hill i have ever seen in my life, on which we stalled and began rolling backward into oncoming traffic. terrified, casey somehow got the car turned around and we rolled down the hill forward, at least. after a small meltdown, we realized that matias had not covered driving uphill in his lesson, so we called our friend natalya, who freaked out and then explained that in order to drive uphill you have to be in the lowest gear possible. good to know. she also informed us that after we had talked to matias and a few others the day before, everyone back at school was terrified for our lives and we needed to check in more often so they knew were still alive. check.
okay, so we finally made it up the hill, however, when we got to great otway national park to turn down the road to eskrine falls we realized that we would be doing a little off-road down the second steepest hill i have ever seen in my life. no big deal. we made it to the falls; it was gorgeous, reminded me of fern gully. made back up the hill no prob in first gear, and continued on our merry way along the great ocean road.
we didn't have any more stops to make before our final destination for the night, so we were pretty excited that we just go to drive for a little while and enjoy the scenery. little did we know that the entire drive from lorne to apollo bay would be ocean highway aka the hilliest, curviest, scariest roads in the entire world, over looking a cliff down to the ocean the entire way. and of course, because that wasn't exciting enough, we got attacked by a biker gang heading up to queenscliff, more of the cyclists who were coming from god-knows-where... but we did pull over randomly on the side of the road for a quick breath and saw some wild koalas. don't exactly get to see that every day, eh?
well, needless to say we finally made it to apollo bay, and were faced yet again with the ordeal of finding a free, probably illegal, but sketchy enough place to sleep that we wouldn't get fined or murdered. we pulled into a "caravan park" which eerily resembled a trailer park, but we were too sketched out to do anything else so lauren went in to talk to them about prices and such. she came back out to converse with us, but by the time we went back to book a spot, they had just given away the last one. sooo they directed us to a campground, which turned out to be half the price and sooo much better. and it just so happened to work out apollo bay music festival was going on that very weekend, so we picked the most bumpin' night of the year to spend the night. perfect. we had to scale this giant hill to get into the actual town, but it was so well worth it, so much fun. partying on the gold coast is a blast, usually, but there are so many american and tourists that it can get kinda old pretty fast. it was fun for once to be the only americans at this australian bar. so much fun.
the next morning we got up and had the standard breakfast bubbs & pbj breakfast, and then had to gas up at the petrol station, get some coffee, and we were off to our next destination: bimbi park and the camp otway lightstation. we saw some more wild koalas, but we had to pay to go to the lighstation, so we snuck in the back way up the great ocean walk. we still got to see the lighthouse and the cape otway, so all people trying to rip off innocent tourists can suck it. our next stop was the otway treetop walk, about 30 minutes out of our way. however, when we got there we had to pay as well! so we just enjoyed some iced coffees at the otway treetop cafe, and then went back on our merry way.
next stop, princetown and the twelve apostles. however, when we arrived in princetown we were a little surprised that all the town consisted of was a convenience store/petrol station/cafe. we went in to get some snacks, and asked if we were in the right place. we were not, we had to drive a little bit further down the road, thank goodness because the twelve apostles was our last and biggest stop of the trip and it had been talked up so much that i would have been incredibly disappointed in what princetown had to offer us. eventually, after stalling on a blind corner into oncoming traffic, we made it to the twelve apostles, which was gorgeous, and filled with asian tour groups, always a treat.
after the twelve apostles, it was time to head to port campbell, the port campbell national park, and off of the great ocean road, back up toward geelong. i must say, it was not such an exciting drive through the farmland/countryside of victoria, but we sang some taylor swift and play a rousing game of sex, drugs and rock n roll which kept us busy for a while. not to mention the twelve maps i had on my lap to ensure i was navigating us in the correct direction. after a few hours we finally made it to the town of colac where, coincidentally, some of the fellows we had met the night before in apollo bay were from. we made a pit stop at macca's for a snack and then continued on to geelong.
by the time we reached geelong we gassed up again and realized that we still had an hour or so of sunlight, so we decided to continue on to melbourne, our final final destination. however, we once again had nowhere to sleep so by the time we did some scary scary driving around the cbd of melbourne (did i mention it was scary?) we accidentally pulled over into the parking lot of a beach in st. kilda where, wouldn't luck just have it, there about five other campervans just parked in various spots. we went over to talk to a few of them to ask about the situation, and they said they had been sleeping there for a couple nights already and hadn't gotten fines or had to pay anything so, perfect! we pulled up and joined our homeless friends. indeed, we may have just made a lifestyle choice.
the next morning we woke up on the beach, again, washed ourselves, had some brekky, and took a little walk along the beach to a cafe, and to decide what we were going to do with ourselves for the rest of the day. we decided to take the campervan back to braybrook, and then take a bus back into the city to do a little exploring until our flight at 6:30. when we make it to the city we decide to walk to lygon st., as that is where our study abroad advisor told us we absolutely must go when in melbourne. let me just say, i was not impressed. however, we did have some delish lunch, which, after pbj, chips, and breakfast bubbles for three days, probably anything would have been more appetizing.
for our next and final adventure of the weekend, casey insisted that we find the dan o'connell (her dad's name) hotel on canning st. so we walked for about 700 miles, asked all kinds of people, and thought for a very long time that this was a very made up place. however, we did find it, and then needed very badly to take the tram back into the cbd, as lauren had left her mobile at the pharmacy we stopped at when we first arrived to town to get directions.
when we finally made it back, we stopped at a cafe across the street for some beverages, and then headed to the train station where we had to catch a skybus back to the airport. sat at the airport just long enough to become exhausted, drank the rest of our leftover goon, hopped on the plane, and home we went back to the gold coast. what an adventureee
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