Cutlers Cruz Aus: Geelong & Great Ocean Road & Bay of Islands

Leaving Ballarat we headed for Geelong, it was a really nice sea side town. We were only calling in for lunch but we saw some dolphins playing near the harbour, so we quickly found a carpark and were on the hunt for the dolphins. Unfortunately it was gone by the time we got the kids out. We did however, find a huge carousel and the kids had a blast being the only ones on it. They also played in a cool park which we found hard to get the kids away from. We also called into the famous Bells Beach, lots of surfers considering it was raining and only about 10degress at the most.We left our board on the roof where it belonged in that weather.
Our plan was to only travel 100kms or so from Geelong to a free camp site were we could stay at for a week and explore the Great Ocean Road, but as we have found while travelling it is hard to rely on those camp spots due to the weather. Arriving about 5pm in Lorne it was already dark, rainy, and very foggy we only had to drive 11kms to our chosen free park destination but in these conditions and going up a hill that just kept climbing it took us about half an hour. Only to get there the driveway was just mud and the gate was shut with a sign saying they were closed for the season. After a struggle to turn the van around we headed back to Lorne to set up at a caravan park, once again in the rain. It was great to have the park pretty much to ourselves as no one likes to travel south in winter. The worst part was on the second night Jamie and I loved to sit up and watch "bikie wars" so when it finished at 10pm we heading for a shower. OMG my skin was already sooo dry from the cold, windy weather we got in the shower to find they had NO HOT WATER. When braving 10mins of letting the water run and me shiverring so bad I had turned purple we decided to give the shower a miss for another night.
We did meet a family from Brisbane there who travelling the same direction as us, so it was nice to have someone else to talk to about where they were off to next.

Alizah made friends with the 20 birds that came to the door of the van every morning, cockatoos, ducks, seagulls, and pee wees. They certainly know how to wake a person up.
So we made our way to Apollo Bay, where Levi rode his scooter down the biggest ramp ever ( his words) at the local skatepark. A quick look at the beach, then we made our way to the Apostles while the sun was still shining. The scenery was breath taking
and Jamie broke Alizahs record of the biggest cuttlefish bone found. He was very impressed with himself.
It really is a beautiful part of the country.

Sorry for the lack of information with the next few blogs but when you move so fast around the country and little service it hard to keep up and I have become so far behind.