We said farewell to Phillip Island at about 8am this morning after a really wonderful few days. The first part of today’s drive was around to Sorrento, at the southern end of the Mornington Peninsula. We were headed for the Searoad Ferry – a vehicle ferry that travels across Port Phillip Bay from Sorrento to Queenscliff. In reality, it probably was quicker to drive along all the motorways around Melbourne and through Geelong to get down to the Surf Coast… but this was far more enjoyable!
We made it to Sorrento a bit after 10am, plenty of time to check in for the 11am ferry, and after a bit of waiting around in the Sorrento foreshore, it was time to drive on. We were pretty impressed by their load/unload time – the ferry arrived at 10:45am, unloaded probably 20-30 cars and then a bunch of people, and then loaded all of us (probably another 20-30 cars), and we were sitting up in the passenger lounge and the ferry was moving off by about 11:05am. Incredibly efficient! The ferry trip itself went by pretty quickly (only about 45 minutes across the bay), and we enjoyed spotting a couple of interesting things out in the middle of Port Phillip Bay, and spotting Melbourne off on the horizon.
Once we arrived in Queenscliff, we headed up to the top of the Bellarine Peninsula, to the beautiful Portarlington. There, we met up with a couple of wonderful friends of mine – Cristy and Nat – who both live nearby. We had a really lovely lunch in the Portarlington Grand Hotel, and then headed across the road to let the kids play in the park while we kept chatting for a little while longer. It was so special to get to spend some time with them both and catch up – even if it was only short!
Before we left Portarlington though, one shop was begging for a visit… Daniel’s Donuts! They looked liked they made some amazing donuts, and with a name like that, we definitely needed to grab some for afternoon tea later down the road. And having just looked them up now, it turns out there’s actually heaps of stores around Victoria.
We headed off and on toward the Great Ocean Road – such a stunning piece of road! Debbie and I have driven it before, with Daniel when he was about 1 year old. But that time, we did almost all of it in a day. So this time, it was great to only be driving to Apollo Bay tonight, and to be able to enjoy the drive more. We stopped off at the Memorial Arch along the road at Eastern View, and learned a lot about how, why and when the road was built in the early 1900s – incredible to think so much of the road was built by hand! Perfect time to enjoy our donuts too.
Back on the road, for probably the most picturesque and fun part of the Great Ocean Rd – so much time hugging the coast, then winding up into the hills, then back down to the coast… over and over again. And the views!
We pulled into Apollo Bay at about 5:15pm or so, and found our motel – right on the main road, just across the road from the park and beach. Our first reactions were that it’s quite small! (We’ve been enjoying some nicely sized Airbnb places during the last few stops!) But in the end, we realised that quite a few places down the track are going to be just as small as this – and we spend so little time inside that it really doesn’t matter.
We headed down the road to pick up a few supplies for dinner – Apollo Bay being a bit of a smaller town, there’s only a couple of smaller supermarkets. So prices for things were quite a bit more than in the bigger towns we’ve been in so far as well. But just like accomodation, this is what things will be like as we get more and more regional and remote over the next few weeks and months. However, with a small kitchenette in our unit, it was good to still be able to make our own dinner – that is something we know will be tricky in some places!
