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Welcome to our Great Ocean Road Roadie - Part 1
I feel like I've been a bit quiet over here on the blog front since I reached my goal of 100 daily blogs in a row and then Luke posted a 2023 wrap up so I kinda wanted to give that a bit of light on here too, then it was Christmas, and then we finally went off on our road trip to the Great Ocean Road and it was great. I'm so happy we went, the wildlife, the nature, the peace and quiet, it was wonderful! But we're back in Melbs now. So let's hear all about our adventures.
Anyway, I was going to originally make a mass post of all 10 days but then I realised I didn't want to make a video that long or write every single day because I wanted to enjoy myself and my time. But we're back and this is part 1 of our adventures. I'll post the first YT video we made at the end of this post (if that's more your style than reading). But I'm not the best videographer in the world - I'm much better at taking photos and all that jazz, but I'm learning and I'm really trying to take this vlogging and social media stuff seriously because that would be amazing if I could monetize it (it would help my health out so much). And there's no need to laugh at people going after something they've wanted to do for years, even if you think it's stupid. Anyway, let's get into the adventures that Luke and I had!
Day 1: Melbourne to Torquay (1.5 hours drive) (27th December 2023)
Day 1 started off a little shaky as I woke up with a sore tummy and had a few IBS issues and flare-ups, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from enjoying my trip. We left just before lunchtime and ended up going to Bells Beach before we checked into the first Air BnB. Fun fact, Torquay, Victoria is named after the place Torquay in the UK (I had no idea until Luke explained it to me). Anyway, Bells Beach was super misty and we were surprised to see someone out for a surf but if you gotta surf, you gotta surf. We also thought that the Great Ocean Road sign was near Torquay for a while (but we learned that it wasn't so we'll get to that in a future blog post). We grabbed a late lunch at a Torquay bakery called Bells Bakery - I got a sausage roll and Luke got a meat pie (I think they were nice but nothing special). After we had lunch, we saw the cutest Chow Chow whose owner was talking about how they have blue tongues and that's normal. I don't really feel like googling that, I feel like blue waffle was enough as a teenager (what a gross time, men were so gross). Anywho, I took a cute video of the Chow Chow quickly and we kept walking around Torquay wasting a bit of time before Air BnB check in time. Our next stop was the ice cream shop. We got some scoops of ice cream from Nordeinfein Ice Cream Shop and of course, we had to get one each because we wanted to try all the flavours (although I would regret this later on that night LOL). I had a scoop of caramilk and a scoop of death by chocolate and Luke also had a death by chocolate and a kat-teaser (like Kit Kat and Malteaser). It was a solid 10/10 for me for the caramilk one, it was so good, and the chocolate was a 9/10. Luke gave his ones an 8 and an 8.5 out of 10! By 2am, my tummy wasn't happy with me but ice cream is just so good ya know.
After our ice cream, we headed to our Air BnB (first one, we stayed here for two nights and in hindsight probably could have just been one night but ya know) and checked in. Unfortunately, we couldn't take any commercial photography there so I can't show you this one - I think because it's attached to a main house, but it was super cute (also relatively new to the Air BnB land). We sat and had a rest for a bit, and then my tummy decided to play up so that was no fun, I went to the bathroom and freshened up with a shower (my hair has gone back to curly but dunno how to keep it from going too frizzy in the humidity) and Luke went for a walk to one of the doggo beaches. We then headed out for dinner at the Torquay Hotel (so pub food style). All the houses around here are soooo fancy. We also saw a pelican flying today and a few cormorants. So cool! Hopefully, there's heaps more wildlife as we go along. Dinner was pretty good, we had some Buratta (not sure how to spell it, but it's some kind of soft cheese), Bruschetta, Calamari, Chorizo, and some chippies to share. Very yum! I also had a ginger beer and Luke had a beer (boring drinks, I know).
After dinner, we headed out to Point Danger where we watched an incredible sunset - it was so magical and I highly recommend checking it out there if you're ever in Torquay - it's incredibly rocky so make sure you wear good sneakers! We also walked around a few of the beaches and just watched the magic happen! I was hoping that was going to be the first of many sunsets we saw but unfortunately, the weather had a lot of other plans for us while we were on holiday - but we had plenty of fun out in nature along the way.
Day 2: Torquay, Point Addis, and Anglesea
(28th December 2023)
We planned to get up super early to try and catch the sunrise but because of my aforementioned tummy issues, I was awake a lot of the night and by 5am, the weather was cloudy so there wasn't much chance of a sunrise this morning. Anyway, day 2 we headed out for brunch at 9 Grams Torquay - which was amazing, probably one of the best smashed avo's I've ever had (Luke liked his brekkie too but we'd come to find out that Warrnambool had better brunch in Luke's opinion). I also had a weird dream that our Air Bnb host came and visited us during the night to tell us there was a turtle - what a weird dream.
After brunch, we headed out for a walk to Taylor Park and saw soooo many birdies - Galahs, Currawongs, Magpies, Corellas, Ibis, Eastern Rosellas, Finches, and so many other birds we didn't know the names of. We also made a cheeky stop-in at the sweets store and bought some lollies! Absolutely satisfied my craving after I salivated in the store for them lol.
In the afternoon, we went and explored all the different beaches around Torquay that we hadn't seen yet and we even saw more birds we didn't know at the surf beach! Like a Grebe who got sooo close to us and some kites in the sky, they're so cool to see flying in the wind! Then, we made ourselves some sandwiches for lunch and had a wee rest (because you know me, I seem to need a lot of rest lately lol). Anywho, at about 4pm, we went for a drive to Anglesea, and made a stop at Port Addis along the way, then we drove past the Anglesea Golf Course (it was too busy for us to go in) and saw all the kangaroos on the outside - pretty crazy that they just chill in this golf course and drove around the Great Ocean Road main road for a bit - and then we headed to the Memorial Arch because I wanted to see it (we might stop there again tomorrow if no one is there when we get there because we had a tour bus come with us when we stopped). After this, it was dinner time, and I was adamant on going to Fish by Moonlite (However, I was starting to get hangry and being told your food is going to be 40 minutes away is annoying). Pro tip - online orders get priority so if you go here, use the QR code. Once we had our food, I was one happy lady because it definitely lived up to the reviews. Like if you're a kiwi, you know your fish and chips and this was good. Not too oily, perfectly seasoned, and crispy as batter on the hoki (or blue grenadier if you're not from NZ). Anyway, the food made me feel a lot happier, but the wait time wasn't great.
After dinner, we headed down to Anglesea Beach but it started to get really cold so we only did a short walk there but it was a nice beach. I'm sure there was plenty of other things to do in Anglesea, but just a few hours there was all we needed.
Thanks for reading Part 1, we'll see you again we've I've edited the second vlog - Apollo Bay vibes! So cool :D
Here's some photos - follow me on my socials for more!
And here's the YT vlog I made! Pls enjoy! And please like and subscribe - it means a lot and will help me out as I'm really putting my heart and soul into this stuff right now.
And big shout out to Luke for his compliance in all my social media stuff (Love you) xo <3
That's all! I'll see you for Part 2 very soon! Ka kite,
Much love,
Ash xx
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