OZ-Travels 2018-2019, Stage 7: Apollo Bay VIC to Adelaide SA - 750km

Stage 7 Apollo Bay VIC  to Adelaide SA - 750km 10.5 hrs with 3 stops

We departed Apollo Bay early in the morning to get a jump start on the big travel day ahead. Our last really long travel day for a little while. It was very slow going for a long time as the road out of Apollo Bay is super curvy. We had to stop about 1 1/2 hours in as car sickness got the better of me. After tossing my cookies a few times Mic stopped to get my anti nausea meds (Gravol) out of one of our storage containers. He just happened to stop by a beautiful horse in a pink blanket that demanded to be stroked. Couldn’t resist even feeling awful. Well 1 x Gravol and 10-15 minutes later, I was feeling almost human again. Love that stuff!! Can’t buy it here in Australia sadly. We purchased our stash in Panama after being sea sick on our cruise ship for all of Christmas Eve last year. This stuff is magic :-)

Crazy roads with lots of country still with only 1 lane in the middle of bitumen. SA certainly doesn’t seem to have the roadworks budget that VIC does. It was a slow trip as a result, but we finally made it into the outskirts of Adelaide before 5pm and wound our way through the Adelaide Hills and down to the beachside community of Seacliff Park/New Brighton that would be our home for the next 5 days.

We found our house easily. It was a cute 2 bedroom/1 bath house with a small secure backyard for Kobi and

Lani. There was a nature Gully across the street for walking and the beach was a hilly 1.5km walk away. We quickly unpacked and walked the kids to the beach. It was so windy and cold!! But beautiful. We descended down the cliff on a zigzag walkway and walked along the pedestrian esplanade. A glass of wine at the Seacliff Beach Hotel and back up the cliff we went with our tired dogs. The forecast for the next 5 days was a mixture of slightly warmer temps and clouds, rain and sun, but still so much cooler than we have endured in a very long time. Thank goodness for reverse cycle air and the gas fireplace in the house.

The next morning we took Kobi and Lani on a super long walk to Glenelg Beach (over 10km round trip!) The pedestrian/cyclist paths along the ocean are amazing! And the beach is beautiful, flat and hard packed. You can go forever in either direction. The beaches are dog friendly and allow off leash at certain times during the summer months so the kids had a blast running and swimming (fishing for Lani). When we got to Glenelg we had a nice treat, the World Surf Life Saving Championships were in full swing. We were a able to see lots of the competition over the next couple of days. There were participants from all over the world. Even Egypt was in some of the finals!! And of course Switzerland too :-)

We decided to go into downtown Adelaide for some shopping and sightseeing. LuluLemon was on the top of our list as I had completely underprepared for all the cold weather we were having. I needed some warmer clothes :-) Many outfits and way too much $$ later, I was all kitted out :-) Now the only thing we are missing is a pair of Uggs, a beanie and mittens, lol! A stop by Nespresso to stock up on more coffee was next on the list. Mic very smartly insisted we bring our Nespresso coffee machine with us on the trip. Such a great idea!!! We had ordered a big box of capsules before we left but were already starting to run a little low. Well that was easily fixed including all the new holiday flavours, yum! We had a late lunch in the Rundle Mall and then hurried back to our car before our parking time ran out. A stop by the grocery store and BWS to stock up for the next week and we were all set.

Every morning Kobi and Lani got a really long beach walk. Mic and I then took ourselves on some great bike rides and runs along the coast. It’s true what they say about Adelaide being super bike friendly. There are so many bike lanes and purpose built paths for bikes. There are so many choices in riding too - flat, hills big and small, city, country - anything you really want. No wonder the Tour Down Under is so popular with everyone. We just might try to catch the end of it on our way back around. We talked about doing the McLaren Vale wine area loop on the bikes but then thought better of it knowing how much we love wine and would want to stop and visit the cellar doors, lol :-) One of our rides was a 60km ride down the coast to Great Haven. It was a blast on the way out but we quickly realised why as the wind was blowing a gale all the way home. We felt like we were climbing some of those big hills pedaling into the wind. We stopped 15km before home for a little reprieve from the wind and had lunch on the beach in Henley at a cute Italian Restaurant, Stella by the Ocean. We shared a gluten free pizza and some salmon carpaccio with a couple of Coronas and we were good to ride home :-) The wind steadily picked up all the way and we were sandblasted from all the sand. In our mouths, eyes, ears...you couldn’t avoid it.

So we opted for a 10km cliff side trail run in the morning along Marino Rocks Cliffs before a drive into wine country. Boy did we need the wine tasting after this run! It was an epic run along the cliffs on a combination of trail and stairs and stairs and more stairs and then some more stairs after that. Oh wow, were my quads, glutes, calves and everything else going to be sore after this! Sadly we didn’t bring the camera so you will just have to visualise some of the steepest and longest stairs up and down you could imagine and they never stopped! We earned our wine tasting after this :-)

We drove into the Adelaide Hills with Shaw and Smith at the top of our list to visit. The winery is beautiful! The girl

that served us was from Tahiti and had moved to Adelaide to do a Masters in Wine Marketing and Viticulture so she could travel the world eating and drinking under the label of working, lol. We tasted a flight of 5 white wines paired with some wonderful snacks and cheese. Vi, our host was incredibly knowledgeable. She knew everything about the wines we tried and the how and why of pairing with food. This is some of the nicest white wine we have had in Australia. The grapes are all hand picked from the vineyards around the cellar so they don’t use any preservatives as the wine doesn’t have to travel anywhere, and oh yeah, because it’s so COLD therefore the fruit has no time to ferment or spoil. OK, so there is something positive about cold weather. 4 bottles purchased for later and we were on our way. Our next stop was Nepenthe up the road. The cellar door assistant turned out to be a Podiatrist that had just graduated from school and working the cellar door to get by until he found a job. Needless to say his passion and knowledge about the wine was limited, but the wine was really nice all the same. We sampled a sparkling as well as Riesling, Sav Blanc, Chardonnay and a new wine to Australia, Veltliner. It’s a beautiful dry white wine which has origins in Austria. This region of South Australia is trying to produce this style of wine with vines from Austria for the first time. There are a couple of vineyards that are trying this in the Adelaide Hills. 3 bottles purchased of sparkly, Riesling and Veltliner for later and we were off to our last vineyard, Hahndorf Hills Winery. Hahndorf specialises in Veltliner wines and the other vineyards that are trying their hands at it buy their grapes from Hahndorf Hills. We tried 4 different types of Veltliner at Hahndorf Hills from dry, aged, to a touch sweet. Nothing in this region is really sweet as it doesn’t get hot enough here to produce a sweet grape, ha ha!

Hahndorf Hills Winery is famous for it’s chocolate pairing with wine. Sadly we were too late in the day and missed out on the chocolate :-( but we still enjoyed the wines. Yes, you guessed it, a few more bottles of our favourites for later and off we went in search of food for an early dinner.

We drove into the cute German Style town of Hahndorf and Mic picked us a German restaurant where we sobered up on Bratwursts and chicken wings. The wine connoisseurs choice of champions. It was also perfect “feel good” food for a cold day.

That was all the adventures we could fit in this visit. Still have the Barossa, McLaren Vale and Clare Valley to save for next time :-)

Next stop - Crossing the Nullarbor

OZ-Travels 2018-2019, Stage 6 - Pambula Beach NSW to Apollo Bay VIC- Great Ocean Road

Stage 6 - Pambula Beach NSW to Apollo Bay VIC- Great Ocean Road, 780 km in 10 hours  45 minutes incl 3 stops.

Stage 6 was and will be one of the longest stretches of driving we are doing on our trip. The first part through the south of NSW is curvy and slow, then you have a nice faster highway leading into the Melbourne outskirts and past Geelong , along the Great Ocean Road, it gets slow and winding again but so spectacular. Lani and Kobi did amazing again and surprisingly no one including Sherry got Car sick. After almost 11 hours of travelling we were happy to arrive in Apollo Bay. Sherry and I were so excited to come to the Great Ocean Road, looking forward to ride and run along the coast and see the 12 (8) apostles. After unpacking the car we had an extended walk with the dogs at the beautiful beach down the street from our house and a stroll through the main street of Apollo Bay.

We choose Apollo Bay because it sits in the middle of the Great Ocean Road and gave us an easier opportunity to explore the 165 Km long Coast line. For our accommodation we opted again for an Airbnb. The renovated old cottage was only 2 blocks away form the beach promenade, and was perfectly set up with a small kitchen (no dishwasher), 3 bedrooms, full bathroom, a laundry room with washer,dryer and 2nd toilet and living room with a fire place and a reverse cycle Air.
The backyard was fully fenced and secure for the dogs, with a wooden deck and grassy area, and undercover area with a barbecue.
In the front of the house another covered area lead to a not fully fenced big yard.
The owners provided wood for the fire place, which we happily used almost every evening.
There are shops and restaurants close by, which is a big plus.
Overall great accommodation, awesome value. We would book this Airbnb (Moore House) again.

After the first night and good sleep in, we went  to Sandy Feet for breakfast. Food was good and

despite very busy on Saturday morning we didn't have to wait too long. Great also that the dogs were welcome to the outdoor sitting area. We went for a long walk to the marina, where Lani enjoyed herself in the cold water chasing fishes.
We went for a 30 km bike ride along the Barham River towards the hinterland. It was very scenic and enjoyable ride climbing through the forest, despite the cold temperatures(we Townsville people are used to warmer temperatures).
We enjoyed our front yard that late milder afternoon playing with dogs, sipping glasses of Champagne offered by our Airbnb Host (Thanks for that:-)) and waiting for the sunset.

Day 2 in Apoollo Bay was finally a warmer day (30 degrees, Yeah). We always wanted to ride ourbikes on the Great Ocean Road but we wanted to do it as safe as possible. We decided to ride from Port Campbell towards Warrnambool  and back. Just a 50 km ride for today as we still wanted to go and see the Loch Ard Gorge and the 12 Apostles, which we did after a late Lunch in Port Campbell. It was surprising how hard it was to find a place to eat lunch after 3.30 PM. In fact there was only one.
We spent the rest of the late afternoon visiting and walking to the Gorge and to the Apostles, What amazing scenery:-)  Nature is such an amazing artist, sculpting and remodeling! Absolutely stunning!!

Apollo Bay presented it self again in cooler temperatures on day 3. Some rain forecast for the

afternoon. Today's plan was to do a trail run. We drove by car to Cape Otway where we visited the Lighthouse. The Cape Otway Light-station is the oldest and most important lighthouse in Australia, it was built in 1848 to prevent shipwrecking. The light station is at the most Southern Point where the Bass Straits and Indian Ocean collide. It is well known as very treacherous waters and many many ships have sunk here.We climbed to the top of the lighthouse over 90m. The view was spectacular!

After sightseeing, we ran towards Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Walk trails. The scenery along the Trails are stunning and despite the many up and downs we truly enjoyed the 12 km out and back run.
As you can see we keep our travels quite active. (always a great way to justify our eating and drinking :-)

Day 4 -A freezing morning kept us in bed a bit longer- We kept it a fairly active day with 2 longer beach walks and a 6 km run (legs were bit sore from the trails yesterday) and relaxed the rest of the day. We started to pack up the car for an early start in the morning as we have another 750 km drive awaiting.

We rewarded ourselves with a nice Dinner at Chris's Beacon Point. The Restaurant is nestled on the
hillside of Skenes Creek, with a panoramic coastal view just 5 km from Apollo Bay. They specialize in Mediterranean food. The ambiance, food and service were amazing. If you're visiting, make sure you come for a treat.

Next Stop, Adelaide

Nature is absolute amazing, isn't it? If you like the pics leave a comment!