Ocean Drive

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For about the last thousand miles people have been asking us if we plan to take 'The Great Ocean Road' and telling us we will love it.  Today, about 20 miles west of Geelong we we finally got there.  It is, without a doubt, very lovely but:

1/  we have already seen similar stretches of coast in NSW

2/ the route was packed with tourists and tourist buses.  You have never seen so many selfie-sticks!

3/ i have ridden California's Big Sur so my wow-meter is pretty discriminating

4/  we had a 25mph headwind for much of the ride and i was too busy being grumpy to look half the time

So......nice but not one of the 7 Natural Wonders.

Light My Fire (bonus track)

As previously mentioned, HIGH is the 2nd lowest fire alert status.  In the last  couple of days i have had two insights into what this actually means:

1/  at Barry's home he has a sodding great tank in which he collects rain water.  He also has a heavy duty petrol-engined water pump.  If his house is in the immediate path of a fire he is screwed but if it is just passing within a mile or two he must don protective gear, start up the pump then patrol his property dousing anything that falling embers ignite. He has had to do this and says it is terrifying.  I believe him.

2/ at our lunch stop the local shop window was covered in posters drawn by kids to thank the volunteer firefighters for 'saving their town'.  A bit meodramatic?  Take a look at the last picture.  It was taken at the next town and clearly shows where they managed to finally beat the flames.  Just to the left, amongst the remaining green trees are the homes!

One rather sad and bizzare postcript.  Apparently some of the fires are deliberately set by.......volunteer firefighters.

We are now in Apollo Bay praying that the bloody headwind eases tomorrow.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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