.:Aino in Australia and in South-East Asia:.: Family holiday part III -Road Trip-

Here it comes the 3rd and the final part of the superb family holiday…
Where was I? O-yes… I woke up the next morning without a clue of the time or the reason that actually had woken me up. Maybe subconsciously I still remembered the flight to Adelaide, which was the start of our coming road trip in South Australia. I rushed to the living room to discover that I would have less than 15 minutes time to get myself organised and hop on a cab to pick up my family on the way to the airport. Believe it or not, I made it on time and my parents were not even that angry to me :) …only few pretty “direct” voicemail messages from my mum.

Marko had flown to Adelaide already with earlier flight, after having little trouble to find the right airline company. Although missing the flight he was supposed to be, he still made it to the next flight and so we all met happily again in Adelaide airport.

The first mission after our arrival was to rent a car. After getting quotes from 5 different car rental companies we drove away with silver Subaru Outback. My only request for the car was that it had air-condition, but I should have had another one: FULL

INSURANCE! I will get back the latter one later.

As the weather was warm (+31) and sunny our first stop was naturally by the water. We had some Mexican food for lunch on the wharf in a place called Santa Fé (the food wasn’t as great as in my fav Santa Fé in Helsinki). After, we went for a walk on the beach and up we go again…

For this part of the holiday I didn’t have

pre-booked anything. The whole idea was to drive from Adelaide to Melbourne in 5 days and experience the beautiful coastal South Australia and have a stop-over where ever-when ever we felt like one… well one thing I discovered after the first night; - We were not the only ones!

At 7pm we started to wonder where to stay that night and after the first doomed attempt to get a cabin from a caravan park we discovered the dreadful truth that the whole city and surroundings were fully booked till end of the month! After 25 useless phone calls to different motels/B&B/caravan parks etc. I really started to realise that the next night would most likely to be spent in our Outback Subaru, until I rang this one caravan park somewhere in Clayton. A helpful man promised to organize 2 vans for us that night, without linen or towel though, but I was more than satisfied to have a bed and roof on top of my head!

In that point we were still unaware what was about to happen… Clayton was about 1,5 hour drive from Adelaide and soon we all discovered the new meaning for the words “middle of nowhere”.

It was already getting late and the sun had gone down hours ago. Every 5 kilometres there were signs warning kangaroos and other outback animals, but no road signs regarding Clayton. Suddenly we saw a gigantic kangaroo jumping and crashing on the right side of our car. It all happened so sudden and there was nothing Marko, who was our driver could have done. For one second everyone stopped talking. And then: What happened? What hit on us? Is everybody alright? Where is the animal? Is it still alive?

After recovering from the first shock and the fact that everybody was ok (meaning the people) we venture to get out of the car. No sign of the roo, so guess he get of with a fright as well. The car looked fine except the one missing part on the right hand side on top of the back tyre. (Great explanation, eh?)

Kangaroos are so stupid. You barely see them during the day, but when it gets dark and when they see some sudden light they instinctively run towards the light and BANG! This is the result.
The first night of our road trip and we got hit by one. What a great start!

Eventually we found our way to Clayton and the place we were going to spend our night. A place totally middle of nowhere and people staying in trashy caravans that looked like the ones from the 80’s. No bed covers, blankets, linen… and this yucky rotten smell. Just one night I repeated in my mind as I falled asleep.

The next morning we woke up early and continued our trip towards the vineyards in Mclaren Vale. This time we actually found a decent motel, which included even a spa with disco lights. That day we visited few other small towns close by and one wine tasting, yummy.

On the third day we continued ‘the amazing world of vińo’ and started the morning with a tour in Fox Creek’s vineyard. We said good bye to the Mclaren Vale and drove

away with a box full of red.
That day we had to do some serious driving to keep up in our schedule. We drove by the salt lakes, saw the tackiest tourist attraction in South Australia ‘Albert the giant Lobster’, and again had major problems to find accommodation.

Day four we decided to take more relaxed. As it was again sunny day we decided to spend half of the day on the beach. As my mum was still recovering from a sun burn

and went exploring the ‘not that exciting’ city of Portland, the rest of us went to burn our skin some more on the beach.

The next stop was Warrnambool, a bigger city and the starting point to the Great Ocean Road. We stayed there the night, saw some penguins and get annoyed with flies that seemed to be everywhere in that city. Later that evening we went out for a dinner in an Italian pizzeria and visited a funfair, returning to our accommodation with many price teddies.

Day five was definitely scenically the highlight of our road trip. It was time for one of the ‘100 things to see before you die’ The Great Ocean Road. The temperature kept on rising that day and from 8am the thermometer was up to 38 degrees. On our way we also witnessed bushfires that causes some serious damage every year around Australia. The Great Ocean Road runs 241 kilometres between the cities Torquay and Allansford. The scenery was breathtaking and no wonder that most of the car advertisements are shot there. The only downside of the great experience were hundreds of flies that kept on harassing people, plus the heat was almost unbearable when it got up to 39 degrees.

We drove that day all the way to Melbourne, because again we had a trouble to find accommodation on the coast. Also some people (not mentioning any names: MUM) was on a rush to hit the shops in Melbourne the first thing in the morning.

Our road trip was almost completed and excluding the encounter with a kangaroo everything went great. The biggest thank you goes to our driver Marko!

But no rushing… Im not finished yet. Saturday we spent shopping around Melbourne. Checking out the Queen Victoria Markets, where the last souvenirs were bought and visiting the huge outlet stores that the city is known for. We also had a nice dinner “the last meal together” by the Yarra river and admired the Christmas windows at David Jones’ which were still repeating the X-mas of the Wombat (so cute)!

The next morning it was time to say good bye to Marko who stayed in Melbourne and fly back Sydney. We also got to hear the dreadful news about the lease car. It figured out that our cheap deal didn’t include the full insurance and therefore we had to pay AUD$1,900 (1,155€) excess fee. Later we found out that even our travelling

insurance wouldn’t cover it. My father was thrilled!

Sunday, the final day my family being in Australia went by so quickly. The whole 3 weeks have just flown by and the hardest part was still to come; saying good bye… Before that we had a great lunch in Darling Harbour together and watched some more videos from our trip and ate lot of cakes :) The best holiday I have ever had and all the memories from our adventurous trip will make me smiling many years to come.