Day 3: Wallace > Ballarat > Lorne > Great Ocean Road > Ballarat > Wallace

I sometimes fear that I am losing my short-term memory. I hate to even say it out aloud, but it’s starting to make me nervous 🙁

It’s all to do with this whole “blinkers and wipers on the wrong side of the steering wheel” thing that is going on with the rocket … er, the MG. I’ll talk more about that later when I get to that part of today’s story.

That’s if I haven’t forgotten, of course.

We met Trudi – the lady who runs The Old Wallace Shop B&B (which will henceforth be as “TOWS” to save me keystrokes) – and Derby her husband/partner/significant other/handyman last night when they popped in to stoke the fireplace, not realising that we were here.

OK, so I know that all probably sounds a bit weird, but one of the endearing things about this particular B&B was that Trudi is known to pop in and ensure that the fire is going and lights are on, and we really do appreciate it.

Anyhow we got to chatting and probably the last thing that she said before she raced off to salvage her (and Derby’s, I assume) dinner was that I should throw a couple of extra logs on the fire before I go to bed, and “if” – which I think meant “when” – I get up in the middle of the night, presumably to take a tinkle, I should throw a couple more logs on to keep it going all night.

I actually found it a bit presumptuous to think that just because I am not as young as I once was, that I have to get up ten times each night to have a tinkle and that it would be the perfect opportunity to stoke the fire.

In any case, I faithfully threw some logs on when I went to bed, but as providence would have it, once I closed my eyes they did not open again until about 6.00 am with no nocturnal tinkling required.

So I got up and checked the fireplace to find that it was stone motherless cold. Not even any glowing coals that could be used to kick-start it back to life.

So I got in touch with my inner pyromaniac, and with the help of several matches, half a box of those handy-dandy kerosene-smelling firestarters and the best part of a newspaper, I got it going again. By the time that I had achieved all of that, the girls had both showered and dressed, and MBW had started cooking breakfast (bacon and eggs and mushrooms – yum).

So I raced in for a quick shower and by the time I came out all dressed and beautiful, breakfast was on the table.

I joined the girls to an in-flight conversation where MBW was telling Maddie about how something “… can take a while to heat up …”, but that “once hot, it’s really hot.”

I obviously figured that she was talking about me, albeit an awkward conversation to be having with your 19yo niece … only to find out that MBW was actually talking about the frying pan and that is why the bacon was extra crispy this morning.

C’est la vie …

Breakfast, dishes, snacks packed and into the MG and we were ready … er, I was ready to head off to the Great Ocean Road for the day. While I waited out by the car for the girls to finish whatever it was that they were doing, I played a little game of “Where’s Wally” with the locals.

If you think about it, there was something quite ironic about playing “Where’s Wally” in Wallace. Or maybe that’s just my sense of humour??

I was keen to see how many of the elusive 187 Wallace-ians I could spot. There was a dude driving up the road in a tractor who got a wave – that’s one. There were a couple of ladies walking past TOWS – that’s 2 and 3. There were a couple of cars drove by – that’s 4 and 5.

And then there is Trudi and Derby – that’s 6 and 7. Only 180 to go …

It was a gloomy start to the day with clouds and a good chance of rain.

Anyhow, we were expecting a big day with almost 7 hours of driving expected, so rather than driving the obscure backroads we detoured via Ballarat – only 15 minutes up the road – to fuel up the rocket. Fuel around Wallace is almost 40c/litre dearer than in Ballarat, so it seemed like a wise investment to get fuel in the bog smoke.

It turns out that when I popped the fuel cap and read “minimum 95RON unleaded fuel only” – which is normally another 20c/litre on top of the cost of unleaded anyway – it was lucky that we did go into Ballarat.

It turns out that the MG really is a rocket, because it needs rocket fuel to run! I think that I’ll have to ask MBW to refer to me as “Rocket Man” from now on.

So right back at the start of this post I commented about my memory – do you remember?

While I know that my memory is getting bad, I was really pleased that when we departed from TOWS this morning I remembered that the blinker is on the left, and the wipers on the right. I was ever so pleased with myself 🙂

We got fuel and pulled onto the highway to head down to Lorne to start the GOR drive.

I realised that I should have washed the windscreen when I was in the servo, so I decided just to use the cars washers … so I flashed the headlights and turned on the blinkers before realising that the washers are on the other side 🙁 Bugger.

On the way south we passed this massive wind farm – I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like this before, and the wind turbines are just huge.

We made it to Lorne – our start for the GOR – at about 11.30 and had a walk around and a coffee to keep us going.

Once we left Lorne we were on the GOR heading west towards Adelaide, and the views from the stopping points were simply amazing.

If you squint, you can possibly see Antarctica!!

The GOR is one of those things that we have always wanted to see, and we drove some spectacular roads with ever-changing scenery…

We stopped for a quick lunch at Melba Gully, a nondescript little park cleverly disguised as a nondescript little park.

After fuelling up our bodies, we headed towards the 12 Apostles – a breathtakingly beautiful site that simply cannot be captured in photographs.

From the 12 Apostles we went on to see Loch Ard George …

… the Arch …

… London Bridge …

… the Grotto …

… and then finally the Bay of Islands.

All spectacular scenery and something that we can now cross offer our bucket list.

It was a huge day, and this is what it looked like:

Now some of you may have been following on since the start of our trip (#BringMaddieHome2021) and if you read the previous post you will recall that yesterday I stopped being a COVID test virgin, with that bad woman at Ballarat taking my innocence with a 20 foot pole and a cotton bud at the end.

Well, it seems that every cloud has a silver lining, and this afternoon I received the wonderful news that I tested NEGATIVE, so I am (well, should be) allowed to return home and spend two weeks in home quarantine with a couple of my favourite people in the whole world!!!

So that about wraps it up. There are so many other things that I could tell you but we spent 11 hours in the car and I’m starting to feel very weary, and ready for bed.

Tomorrow is a drive up around Daylesford and back into Ballarat, but the forecast for tomorrow is looking very wet … so I might start the day with a sleep in.

Ciao

#BringMaddieHome2021