Australians Like Wood

After a few weeks of not doing anything productive with our weekends we are back on track after last weekend and our road trip to the Great Ocean Road!!

SPECIAL CAR HIRE UNIT
Special Detective Layton takes to the streets of Melbourne on foot in order to get to the car hire place - she thinks leaving work an hour before the deadline will be plenty of time to pick up the car - wrong again Ethel...it's all about the bad directions this weekend and these directions were particularly bad. Special Detective Layton ends up at 449 Inkerman Street and needs to be at 87 Inkerman Street....28 minutes to go, CAN SHE MAKE IT?? Just!

The car is a white, three door Hyundai beauty with the indicator on the WRONG side of the car...hence the new way to indicate going round corners is by the speed of the windscreen wipers. Special Detective Layton heads to the hostel in search of some parking. Luckily the signs are not easy to interpret at all beacuse that's a quality all road signs should have. Fortunately there is a driving expert waiting in the wings in the form of Matt who comes up trumps with plenty of useful advice about where to park, how fast to go, what to do with the trams and even offers us his parking space for the evening. Sold.

Obviously that evening, Special Detective Laytong and Captain Campbell stayed in, had dinner and an early night in order to prepare for the exciting events of the weekend....(see Club Retro reference in last blog)

LEAVING MELBOURNE INVESTIGATION UNIT
Special Detective Layton and Captain Campbell finally get away from the flat at about 11am and pick up the car, here's where the trouble begins. Knowing how bad the directions were to get to the car hire place - goodness knows why they thought the ladies directions on how to get to the Great Ocean Road (from now on it is to be known as THE GOR) would be any better - maybe it's because they looked so simple!? Basically it takes them an hour (that's right AN HOUR) to get out of the city...or to try and get onto the freeway (which by the way isn't actually free because they fine you if you haven't paid to be on it?!) Well, this is what happens when you have amy reading a map, gem driving and specific instructions from the car hire lady yet you are ignoring all this and trying to take a photo on timer before the lights change and this then means you don't see the ridiculously small sign for your freeway and you now need to find the next exit. A million illegal manouevers later, 3 times past our front door, once past my work, a scary encounter when we thought we were heading on to the 6 lane freeway in the wrong direction and taking the wrong exit at the very last roundabout out of the city and we were on our way to Geeeeeeeelong.

HAVE YOU EVER INVESTIGATION UNIT
Special Detective Layton and Captain Campbell's first stop is the Split Point Lighthouse, this is the very lighthouse from Round the Twist! Have you ever...ever felt like this? Have strange things happened are you going round the twist?

APOLLO APOSTLE INVESTIGATION UNIT
Now hands up who'd have thought if there was a place named APOLLO Bay that the Twelve APOSTLES may be somewhere nearby? Special Detective Layton's hand is definitely up right now...unfortunately the slight mix up with the A-words meant that the plan to get up early and watch the sun rise over the Apostles was foiled since they were another hour and a half's drive away! Aye well, Special Detective Layton and Captain Campbell found a magic place to stay in Apollo Bay called...'The Apollo Bay Backpackers', like it just stepped out of storybook. The mish-mash of furniture, cosy kitchen, dinky lounge and random decor made this place pretty special - upon entering Special Detective Layton and Captain Campbell found a note saying make yourselves at home, be back soon...genius! And it soon became home for the evening.

We went out for some food and the waitress kindly told us that she doesn't see many people eat THAT much food :)

SERIOUS FLIGHT UNIT
Day two of the serious crime intent crash unit investigation and Special Detective Layton and Captain Campbell are back on the road - via a rainforest walk and Cape Otway lighthouse (look out for the cows) they eventually arrive at the Twelve Apostles, rock formations in the sea which are slowly being eroded away - definitley would have looked stunning at sun rise! Still they did the best they could with the available light and its true what they say - it's difficult to take a bad picture of the twleve apostles.

In order to get the best possible view of the Apostles (in the absence of the sun rise!) Special Detective Layton and Captain Campbell decided to pay over the odds for a ten minute helicopter ride...turns out it was worth every cent!



Port Campbell was the next stop - well you can't not have a Campbell next to a Campbell sign can you! Other than the sign it wasn't overly exciting.

RETURN HOME INVESTIGATION UNIT
The return journey was pretty uneventful apart from the one designated stop at the Treetop Walk through the Rainforest...a little Ant-and-Dec-I'm-a-Celebrity-Get-Me-Out-of-Here-esque with walkways through the trees and tall lookout points to climb, spray that again please!?! Detective Layton and Captain Campbell experience such sights as THE BIG TREE and THE OLD TREE STUMP! Genius huh!

Australian radio is a little repetitive to say the least and Unfaithful by Rhianna soon became the GOR Trip theme tune. Not particularly appropriate to anything but you can't fight fate! Oh and if anyone is wondering why this blog sounds like (in mine and Amy's head) a television voice over introducing a (not-so) quality police drama - that's because we have adopted these comedy accents to make the quiet times in life a little bit more exciting :)

(you'll have to imagine the voices) "AMY WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE FOR DINNER?" "I DONT KNOW GEM, WHAT DO WE HAVE IN THE FREEZER" "USING MY SPECIAL INVESTIGATION POWERS" (checking the freezer....) "NOTHING!"