Sunday March 23, 2014

A late start today 10:00.  It was a little cool this morning and once again we were chatting to fellow campers about our trip.  A couple of the little kids were feeding the cockatoos this morning.  These are noisy, screechy birds, but very cool to see them.  They are almost as common as pigeons are in the rest of the world.

I have seen such an abundance of different birds here.  I really need a book on birds for Australia to be able to name them all.  There are a lot of parrot like birds, one that I particularly like is bright red and blue and it has a nice sound.

Today’s ride was undulating to start with,  it was a little cool and was forecast for rain. We came across this Memorial site for the Great Ocean Road.  Would you believe that the building of the Great Ocean Road was created as a \”Make Work\” project for returning service men from the First World War.

As we were coming into Anglesea we spotted this house on a pole.  It is actually one room on the pole and the rest of the house is connected by a walk-way.  You can rent this place for your vacation.

When we got into Anglesea we were told that if we wanted to see Kangaroos we should go to the local golf course as they are one of the ‘hazards’ there.  We were deciding whether to head out to the golf course when we were stopped by a car and were asked if we were Ralf and Jacky.  Our warm showers ‘host’ from Mount Gambier had arrived back in Anglesea earlier than expected.  Our plan was to continue on to Torquay but we stopped and chatted to Sandy and Kirsten for an hour.  We were so pleased to have met up with them.  We wish we could have spent longer with them, but we needed to get to Torquay.  Sandy and his wife are planning their own touring rides and Sandy is building their bikes.  He said it is cheaper for him to buy the component parts and put them together himself than to buy the bikes in Australia.

There was a good climb out of Anglesea and then a straight road with a great wide shoulder (a full lane width) all the way into Torquay.

We are staying at a Great Ocean Road Trust campsite and got a discount. We always ask for a discount for being carbon neutral.  Sometimes they give us one other times not.  They usually have to put it down as something else in their computers, we got a Backpackers discount this time.

It is a good site with an enclosed kitchen that has all the pots and pans we need.  Of course when we got into the kitchen someone had left dirty pots in the sink.  I had to stop Ralf from washing them.  However, he did manage to organize the cutlery drawer!  Ralf intends on leaving everywhere we stay cleaner than he found it.  That is his mission in life, I think.

Tomorrow a rest day.