3 months in and ticking off the 3 “G’s” – Grampians, Great Ocean Road and Mt Gambier

Three months on the road and a little over 8,000km’s in we’re still very much flying the “rookie” flag. But there’s also a heap of things three months on the road has taught us.

1. Overall I would definitely say the biggest thing we’ve learnt is that it’s harder work than what we thought. While we aren’t at an office 5 days a week it’s by no means time off. There are always jobs to be done, repairs and tweaks to be made. When those things don’t need to be done its either packing up or setting up from one place to the next. The payoff however when you discover that beach, or get to the top of that mountain, discover that wildlife right next to you, or turn on to that unknown dirt track is much, much more than we ever thought.
2. Canvas is the devil’s torture device. If we had our time again I think we would definitely rethink a canvas camper to do this trip in. If it rains the night before or morning of your pack up add another 2 hours of pack up time to your day to wipe it down so that it doesn’t soak everything inside the camper. Same if it’s cold and you have condensation – which is pretty much every morning as we are heading into winter.
3. Whatever little things annoy you about your partner back in “normal” life, becomes ten-fold in van life. Confined space brings out my best side said no one ever!  
4. Stocking up big time on $5 bottles of wine when passing a town which has a Liquorland or other large chain is well worth it, and saves you spending $30 and up on the same bottle in smaller regional areas.
5. Similarly, we’ve learnt the importance of stocking up big time when passing a Coles or other massive supermarket. Small and regional convenience stores have an average cost of about $6 per item which really destroys your budget.
6. Telstra is king when it comes to reception and data strength. In our trip so far I can count on one hand how many Telstra blackspots there have been. Optus on the other hand isn’t as reliable but tends to pick up where Telstra doesn’t. Having data devices on each network ensures that we’re covered as much as possible.
7. We’re becoming more confident in our set up so that we’re relying less on caravan parks and using them as a treat.
8. Like most families, we have a weekly budget for our travels. We’ve found that if we spend the majority of the week staying in freedom camps and national parks that we can stay drastically under our accommodation budget and in turn treat all of us to a couple of nights at an Air BnB. I said in a previous post it feels that this is cheating the van life but it works for us and we all recharge with a few nights of having space.
9. Speaking of budget, so far we’ve barely spent anything on activities. Before heading off I thought that the majority of our weekly budget would be spent on tours and activities. But so far we’ve done only 1 tour, and paid for a couple of entrance fees. Australia is an absolute playground of nature that with hikes, drives and wanders that we rarely feel the need for any mainstream tourist activity.
10. We’ve learnt that zipping up the door to the annexe at all times is critical. So far we’ve had a massive kangaroo and a possum (plus who knows what else we haven’t seen!) come into our annexe and start helping themselves to food when ducking out quickly to use the toilet in the middle of the night and leaving the door unzipped. I now know how those guys in Jurassic Park felt when the dinosaurs learnt how to open doors.
11. Very proud to say that we’ve mastered the process of bucket baths. Still doesn’t come anywhere near a good hot shower but gets the job done.
12. In a similar vain, any form of water immersion counts as a wash – whether it be a dip in the sea, pool, hot tub or even heavy rain.
13. Fighting in a camper is so much harder than at home. You don’t have another room to escape to or busy yourself with while things cool down, and nature of the beast is that the kids witness fights and arguments more than you would normally.  Daniel didn’t want me to write this as he thought it would sound like we were always fighting. Fights are normal (or at least I hope so!).
14. There is nothing which brings more joy than watching your kid grow in confidence and easily making new friends at each new stop. When I see this I am reassured that we are absolutely doing the right thing for them.
15. After 589 games of “I’m thinking of an Animal” 20 Questions you can pretty much pick which animal everyone is thinking on the first go.
16. Adding any kind of vegetation to 2-minute noodles immediately turns it into a healthy, nutritious dinner.
17. Corrugated dirt roads are only good for drowning out screaming kids (and whinging spouses)
18. Winter is the best time of year to travel. Places are quieter and easier to get into, fires are allowed and most of the time you have places all to yourself.
19. Gas cookers make for great emergency heat when off the grid (use caution though!)
20. Ladies – stock up on wire free bras before you set off. Camping washing machines have systematically killed the wire in all my bras making them very uncomfortable, so wire free ones have been a van life, lifesaver.

Our biggest painpoint is still our set up – it still takes way more time and effort than what we would like – causing so much exhaustion and stress in the process. The actual set up of the camper doesn’t take too long, its packing up and setting up all the “stuff” we have. Every stop we chat about what we can do or get rid of to make it easier and always come up short – at the end of the day it’s our house and entire life at the moment not just a weekend trip away. Again in hindsight we probably should have bought a different camper to take on this type of trip.

FROM LIANA:

After spending a while back in city life we were itching to get back out into the wilderness so from Melbourne we headed to The Grampians. I’ll admit, I had never heard of The Grampians before last season of House Rules where one of the house renovations took place there and the landscape looked pretty amazing. And surely only the best places start with “The”.  A bit of time on Google and a route was planned.

We had booked a week at Halls Gap Lakeside Holiday Park. They offered a fantastic deal of book 7 nights and pay for 5 so it was an absolute steal, cheaper than some of the National Parks we’ve camped in. Although in a week we still never found the lake the park was supposedly on the side of, the park didn’t disappoint. They had a woodfire heated pool which would rival some luxury hotels I’ve seen, and heated to 37 degrees it became a daily afternoon stop. We loved the park and absolutely fell in love with The Grampians and were going to stay another week had it not been for the park’s availability.

Our camp was surrounded by wildlife – emus, deer, ducks and hundreds of kangaroos. The latter of which taught us #10 of our lessons learnt above. While sitting around the fire one afternoon I chuckled to myself remembering when we first came back to Australia and on one of our first hikes in Kuringai Chase a kangaroo jumped across the path up ahead. Blink and you missed it speed. At the time we thought we were so lucky to have spotted a kangaroo so close, and now we are quite literally living with them. We barely even mention when we see them now because they are so normal to us now.

We’ve gone from one hiking paradise to another – there were so many hikes to do here and not enough time and stamina to take them all on. In our week there we pretty much took on a hike every day. We took on Sundial Peak with amazing 360 degree views. It was a challenging hike but gave you a taste of everything…lake, bush, rainforest and picture worthy rock formations. We smashed out the easy Bullaces Glen and Venus Bath hikes – the latter which was truly stunning but typically my phone decided to pick that moment in time to crap itself. We attempted the Hollow Mountain hike and got somewhere close to halfway to the top when the track went around large boulders with very narrow paths and very steep drops on the other side. We bottled it and blamed the kids!

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The weather for our week in The Grampians was pretty much cold and rainy the entire time – perfect mountain weather and made us appreciate the woodfire heated pool even more. We got good value out of our waterproof hiking gear that’s for sure!

Our favourite hike by far was the 7.5km hike from Zumsteins to Fish Falls and Mackenzie Falls. Yet again I omitted some key facts to Daniel (who said honesty was the key to a relationship clearly wasn’t married to a Brit) and only told him it was a 2 hour round trip hike, and let him add up the distances when he saw the park board. This hike definitely went to the top of our list of favourite hikes – taking you deep into a valley which is exactly what your imagination pictures of a lost world. A couple of stunning waterfalls thrown in as well just for good measure. Walkways and bridges over the water made it an exciting walk for the kids as well.

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People often ask us how we manage to do so many hikes with the kids. Kaia for being so young really does remarkably well. She’s walked the whole way on every single hike and never been carried once – and most of these hikes have us catching our breath (not that either of us are the picture of fitness by any means). Now that’s not to say there isn’t a fair share of moaning which goes on. It’s usually a combination of bribery (when you get to the end you can have some chips!) and games to get us back to the car in one piece. We’ve invented a chasing game trying to pinch the other’s bottom which is working quite well at the moment; it not only keeps her entertained but covers ground a lot faster as well. I’m also not going to lie, I’ve left her on the trail a few times having a whinge but she soon catches up not wanting to be left alone too long. Ryder is happy enough in his carrier (who wouldn’t be) as long as there are plenty of snacks. It usually means he uses his Dad’s neck as a picnic table which gets covered in sultanas and chips.

When we weren’t out hiking, we discovered that The Grampians is also a 4WD playground. So far on this trip we haven’t had a chance to stretch our off-roading legs. As we’ve spent a lot of time on the coast it hasn’t really been the right location for this kind of activity – we figured our time on dirt roads would come as we headed into the Outback so we weren’t too worried. On one of our first days where we didn’t have a clear plan for the day and just decided to head out exploring. We turned down the ominous sounding Mount Zero Road and discovered endless 4WD and offroad tracks. Man did we have a blast. Driving full tilt through mud puddles, up and down massive dirt hills and just getting lost. We spent hours over the week mucking around all the tracks. However a little adventure on the Chinaman’s Track put a swift end to our off-roading. The name Chinaman’s Track will forever be remembered by the Actons. I’ll let Daniel have the glory of recounting his heroics but I’ll just say that we learnt a good lesson about off-roading in the pouring rain – especially on the side of a mountain.

As I said, we truly fell in love with the Grampians and would have easily spent another week there. From the trip so far I would say it’s been our favorite stop and is top of the list to come back to. But for now it was back on the road – doing Daniel’s favourite pastime and travelling back on ourselves to get to the start of the Great Ocean Road.

The Great Ocean Road is obviously high on any Australian road trip list. For a road this famous, I didn’t realise that it was actually relatively short at only 243km. Perhaps we’ve just become too accustomed to road life that this no longer seems like a long distance.  When initially talking about it we thought it would take us 2 weeks to cover the Great Ocean Road, and while you could easily fill that time in the area it’s not due to distance.

From the Grampians we could have just driven straight down and connected to the Great Ocean Road, but of course we wanted to do it properly and in its entirety so we drove an extra hour and a half back the way we came to Torquay where the Great Ocean Road officially starts. We were camping 2 nights in Cape Otway National Park which if you are looking at a map of the Great Ocean Road is pretty much bang in the middle. I actually chose to camp here because I’d previously read that this National Park was one of the best in Australia to spot koalas in the wild.

The Memorial Arch forms a beautiful symbolic entrance and start to the Great Ocean Road. It feels a little “theme parky” at first but actually it’s an extremely interesting tribute to the WWI servicemen who built the road after returning from the War. The road itself is the longest war memorial in the world.

We stopped off at Kennett River to spot some koalas in the wild and it didn’t disappoint. Within seconds we had found some. Where the novelty of kangaroos has now worn off, koalas still have us squealing in delight. Kennett River has a massive population of koalas which are native there so you are pretty much guaranteed to spot some…unfortunately all the tour buses also know this. Driving to our campsite we spotted many more in the trees so the Great Ocean Road definitely gets a big tick for delivering on this promise.

We were the only ones camping at Blanket Bay so we had the firepit and beach view all to ourselves. The next day we smashed through our hit list of things to see so we could enjoy an afternoon by the fire. We started off at the Cape Otway Lightstation – promoted as the most significant lighthouse in Australia. Clearly it’s this title which makes them think its ok to charge $20 per person to go take a look. They’ve even gone to the lengths of building massive walls around the entire area so that there is no possible way you can even glimpse it without paying the fee. We sat in the car park, did a Google image search of the lighthouse and felt satisfied that we had therefore ticked it off the list. We moved on to Mares Rainforest Walk which we blasted through in about 10 minutes – not sure what all the fuss is about with that walk. We ventured further into the park to look at Hopetoun Falls and The Redwoods – the latter of which was pretty amazing. No picture I could ever take will do the tranquility of the place justice. Definitely worth the round trip. From there we went into Apollo Bay for some barbeque supplies (read: drinks) and were blown away by what a tourist trap that place was absolutely rammed with buses of tour groups.  We couldn’t wait to get back to our little private beach.

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The next day we had a massive day planned to get all the way to Mount Gambier which just going straight on its own was a 4.5 hour drive. But the main attractions of the Great Ocean Road were all on this half of the road so we knew we’d have lots of stop offs before we got to that night’s camp so our aim was to be on the road no later than 8. Completely ambitious given that on most occasions we’re pushing 10 by the time we’ve set off. However, it seems that with no power comes no faffing. No toast to make, no TV to watch. Had it not been for a one-hour battle trying to collapse the ensuite pop up tent we would have made it too. It was lucky there was no one else at the campsite otherwise they would have had to wake up to an adult throwing a child’s tantrum. Barely past 8:00am and all toys had already been thrown out of the cot. We were off to a cracking start to the day. Camping – 1. Actons – 0. Luckily the day did improve from there.

Surprisingly, the Great “Ocean” Road actually cuts inland for quite a large distance, but once you return to the coast it’s one impressive sight after the other. After his tantrum that morning Daniel felt he had a bit of ground to recover to for once, he was happy to oblige every single stop. First stop was Gibson’s Steps and then on to the famous Twelve Apostles. The walk to the Twelve Apostles lookouts was an easy, pram/wheelchair accessible 1km path, taking you around different viewpoints over the icon. Fantastic to get another famous landmark ticked off the list. Although the Twelve Apostles is one of the most well known Australian sights, I have to say I was more impressed with our next stop at Loch Ard Gorge – an amazing little walk down to a gorgeous grotto beach, along with impressive rock formations and caves. Loch Ard Gorge had a number of short walks of a few hundred meters each allowing you to explore the shipwreck story which gave it it’s name. Absolutely loved this stop.

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From there we carried on to London Bridge which is a natural rock arch formation. Interestingly, the formation used to be attached to the rock on the shoreline and you used to be able to walk all the way on top of the arch, but in 1990 it collapsed detaching it from the shore. When it collapsed a couple of tourists were trapped on the arch and had to be rescued. We made a quick photo stop at Bay of Martyrs before gunning it all the way to Mount Gambier. Day 2 on the Great Ocean Road (going east to west) is definitely more beautiful and interesting than the first. I loved that all the stops were set up with really short walks meaning it was quite easy on time. We were worried that all the sights would have really long walks to get to them which would have limited what we could have gotten to see but it really wasn’t the case at all as most of the attractions can be seen from the car park. Great Ocean Road – tick.

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After crossing into our 4^th state – South Australia – we got to our stop for the next few nights in Mount Gambier. Given the name, we were expecting a monumental mountain to appear as we were driving in, but the highest thing we could see was nothing more than a hill. We had bigger things to worry about as it was getting dark and we still had to set up. Mount Gambier is known for having many volcanic features, so there were a few things which I thought would be interesting to check out. The hill we were laughing at – which was indeed Mount Gambier – is actually a dormant volcano which overlooked a number of crater lakes. We did a 5km Mountain Trail which took us to the top of Mount Gambier where Centenary Tower stands to commemorate it being the first place in SA to be sighted by Europeans. The rest of the loop took us around the emerald crater Valley Lake – a truly magical walk which definitely changed our opinion of the “little hill”.

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FROM DANIEL:

The approach to the Grampians was absolutely stunning. Halls Gap was a beautiful little mountain village with plenty of camping grounds and holiday accommodation (which we’ll definitely be staying in next time). Awesome campsite a little way out of the town with fantastic facilities. This has got to be one of my most favourite stops on the journey so far – and as you know I’m a pretty harsh critic. Lots of awesome hikes and drives as well as some great (and some not so great) off road tracks. One of the nights we treated ourselves to a meal out – a rare treat for us indeed with our budget and our kids. We decided on the local Indian restaurant which turned out to be an amazing meal. Plenty of wildlife with kangaroos kicking about all over the place. Was quite shocked when after returning from a late night toilet trip I opened the tent to find a 10-foot kangaroo digging in to the remnants of Kaia’s birthday cake. Fortunately after a short polite conversation and me holding the door open for him he decided to find a meal elsewhere and hopped out.

Not something you see every day but Kaia has retold the story of the kangaroo eating her birthday cake to everyone she has met since so good story value.

As mentioned, some great off roading which the kids thoroughly enjoyed. We did however take things a little too far when returning from a day out we decided to have a last jolly on the Chinaman’s Track. As we quickly discovered the trail led up and over the mountains with some steep ascents and descents which were worsened by the torrential rain. This led to one of the scariest moments of my life so far when trying to climb a particularly steep ascent we got stuck about halfway up along the cliff edge and began sliding dangerously close to coming off and the wheels doing nothing but spinning. Not being a big fan of heights I was sweating like a turkey on Thanksgiving morning not having the suitable equipment and being in the middle of nowhere it seemed like a real possibility that we would be stuck. I chucked the family out of the car for safety and channeled my inner Jeremy Clarkson and gave Elsa (the car) everything she had. With some serious revving I managed to make it to the top of the hill and couldn’t wait to get the hell off the track. Lesson learned, make sure you know what you are getting into when taking on these off road tracks especially in wet weather. Returning to the camp I decided a swift pint was in order so stopped off at what looked to be a local mountain pub and was home to the world’s most miserable barman who looked like a bulldog sucking a wasp.

Like Liana definitely a place I would have loved to have spent more time here and one to come back to again.

On to the Great Ocean Road, although a stunning drive the name is slightly misleading as large sections of the road is inland with no ocean to be seen. The coastal parts were indeed breathtaking with plenty of stop offs along the way. For me I found the history of the road the most interesting. Stayed in a National Park for some proper bush camping where we had one of the most spectacular pitches looking out on to the ocean and surprisingly for the first time on this trip we fell asleep and woke up to the sound of crashing waves.

Next stop on our adventure was Mount Gambier – can honestly say I’ve never heard of the place but turned out to be a great spot for a couple of days. Did a couple of volcano hikes and checked out some sinkholes. The hike of Mount Schank volcano was a definite highlight – me being the fun police I nixed doing the crater rim walk given it was pretty narrow all the way around and very windy. Didn’t get what all the fuss was about the Blue Lake or why it warranted us going around the whole thing – every lake I’ve seen in my time has been blue.

It’s starting to get very cold now, with the temperature at night consistently being close to zero degrees. Come to Australia they said. Its permanently hot they said…