TEAM AFRO LOG - It's esCarpade - not STAR TREK Ross..
Sunday 16 Oct 2011
Alarm was set last night for a 6am start, but who forgot to change the phone time from Queensland to Eastern Summer Time??
Ross woke with a glint of sunshine through the curtains. Looked at his watch saw that it was 6.30 and panicked, jumped out of bed, called others to quickly get up. He then looked at the alarm to see why it didn’t go off and saw that it was only 5am, said “Sorry boys go back to sleep I am an hour early” Then he realised he had made a chronological error and changed the process again and told all to get out of bed-now!
Packed the Snot Rocket and set of to Port Phillip Bay for breakfast.
Wonderful food was set for us. The bay is also the marina for Geelong, lots of fancy and expensive boats were moored there.
Ross drove. Breathe Tested and sent out.
As we left the parking area a convoy of 3000 or more bicycles were crossing our exit.
Left Geelong and out into the highway. Today the road was a reasonable amount of sealed road at the start... After a few short detours along local roads we found ourselves in the Ottoway National Park.
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As it had rained the night before there was no dust but the roads were wet and a little greasy. Caution was mandatory.
Following all route instructions were managed to get along quiet well.
Our navigator Laurie was getting better at calling the reference points and we\ were all getting good and looking for and finding the various point of instruction.
On the very first day of the Escarpade, the marshal told us not to instinctively follow the car in front as it could be very possible that they may be lost and you too could get lost.
Sorry to say at one point along the road wee were following the Booger Mobile and at a certain reference point Laurie sad “Turn left at the next roundabout over the bridge” we saw the roundabout, but Bogger Mobile continued straight ahead, we trusted him and well he was wrong so we also went a short distance along the wrong road too. A lesson learnt here, that is - Do your own navigating!
We had the experience to stop at and look at the famous Victorian surfing beach “Bells Beach” We looked, took some photos and left.
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| IS THIS THE ONLY TIME ROB WILL GET NEAR THE FAMED BELL? |
As I said before it rained last night and some of the rain created some larger pools of water on the road.
Ross at one point drove through a hugh patch of wet dirt and water causing the whole car to be sprayed with brown dirty water. The boys were not amused.
After a few hours we finally arrived at Warrnambool Winery for lunch.
As we walked up to the restaurant, we asked others who were leaving,” what the food like?"
(remembering yesterday’s poor effort)
We were told hot roast beef and vegies and gravy-, we didn’t believe him, but as we entered the restaurant we could clearly smell the wonderful aroma of freshly roasted beef or pork and vegies, yum that was a promise that we were looking forward to.
After lunch Darren at the helm on both sealed and unsealed roads through the Warrnambool Valley and local area.
The wonderful green and pleasant scenery was very easy on the eye and truly was a pleasure to see.
Part of the journey required us to drive along the famous Great Ocean Road. This is really a fantastic piece of roadway built after the 1st World War.
This road was part of the Australian Government’s effort to boost the economy and was specially built so the men returning from the war could get jobs.
The scenery along this road of the Great Australian Bight and through the township of Lorne. This secion of road was truly magnificent.
As usual there was assortet banter on the 2 way radio regading road conditions and potential hazards (a necessay thing in this type of driving!) At a point somewhere along the road in the afternoon session, one the vehicles following us called over the 2ay radio asking if they could pass us, not a problem and at a safe point along the road we slowed down and let them pass, another car also passed, as the second car passed, the driver accelerated and caused a great shower of road dirt and stone to fly up at us. We did not appreciate this at all and over the radio told them so. (This car now now named 'Speed Racer")
A short time after this as we turned off the sealed road, we came across this ('Speed Racer') car off the road and half on its side and in the swamp. A little natural justice we thought.
As we could not pass this car we decided to go direct along the bitumen road to the Apostles.
This took a little longer than we thought.
As we got there the sight of the fantastic rock formations (the twelve or so Appostles) standing in the middle of the Great Australian Bight was absolutely fantastic.
Of course we stopped and went along to the observation point to see this wonder from the best possible view. Ross being Ross decided it wasn’t cold and took off his shirt and ran around the windy condition stating he wasn’t cold. (There is photographic evidence but I will not scare or scar you with that image)
"Poor Japanese Tourists!" we thought, not the sight anyone wants especially in the afternoon.
Oh look out; the Japanese Tourist approached Ross to get their photo taken, Ross of course said no worries, bet they were saying silly Aussie….(Only if they knew!)
It was windy but many photographs were taken. Sadly as time was against us we had to leave sooner than we probably would have liked to.
The Apostles are free standing rock formations left over after the ocean had eroded the land and smaller stones or rocks away. One of these rock formations was so eroded that about 15 years ago it fell into the ocean.
Leaving the Apostles we scurried onto to Warrnambool. A speedy check-in and no showers and snappy dress up for a “Night at the races” theme dinner at the Warrnambool Dog Racing track.
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| And this is only the start of the theme nights ... there ar many more crazy costumes from TEAM AFRO to come |
Met and saw a lot of fellow Escarpade who had also dressed up.
Darren had already made sure we had our dog- to match what he though our look or personality.
It turned out that we had been driving our little friends around since the start after they had endured the trip to Melbourne on their own. Makes you wonder what else in the costume bag , doesn't it?
We were all dressed a bookmakers and even if I do say so myself we looked rather dashing and daggy at the same time.
Had tea and came home with the courtesy \shuttle bus.
All prepared for sleep. We all agreed that there would be no need for lullabies at all tonight.
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