A tad late but here’s finally the last missing bit of our road trip is covered. Funny enough it’s the first week!

Wow, one week has gone by already! It feels like we started the engine of our Wicked camper named ‘Murdoch’ just yesterday …
A week full of excitement and fun, but I should start telling the story from the very beginning, right? Okay, back to last Tuesday. Having finally packed my things for the big trip we went to Footscray to pick up one of the famous Wicked Camper Vans. Two seats, a bed in the back, gas stove, cutlery and saucepans, and even camping chairs and a table for outside, packed into a groovy Toyota Hiace – this would be our home for the next week. Waving good-bye to Steve, we headed west for the first round of our Tour Down Under 2008!
We reached Geelong without any trouble and even found an Aldi to shop for supplies such as Gewuerz Spekulatius and other yummy items. At that point Claudia decided to have a go in left-hand traffic … well, lets say, it takes some time to get used to driving left and having the indicator on th eright side of the steering wheel. Thank good the pedals are the same! Anyway, after some minor traffic hazards caused by a crazy Wicked Camper we came to this bit where we weren’t quite sure where to go and Claudia decided to take the straight lane – at least with the wheels on the right side of the car. Yelling “Randstein, Randstein” at the top of my voice couldn’t avoid the unavoidable: The front left tyre hit the kerb pretty damn hard and a few metres further we could hear this unpleasant “pfffttttt” …. thank god there was gas station just across the road and we had a spare tyre with us, too. Half an hour and a lot of laughter later we continued the journey towards the ocean. What a start! Not even half way into the first day and already a breakdown!
But it should stay the only one for this very first day and we reached Bells Beach at the Great Ocean Road shortly after nightfall. We still had some pasta left from lunch so we didn’t even have to cook but rather slipped into our warm sleeping bags (it was freezing cold!).
The next day started like the first: A car failure. This time it was rather my fault as I had trusted the battery too much and left my mp3 player plugged in all evening – too much for old Murdoch. We took it easy then and had a looong breakfast before a friendly couple from Melbourne gave us a jump start and we drove on along the coast to the 12 Apostels where we just missed the sunset and parked the car on top of Gibsons Steps which lead down to one of the secluded beaches. They’re officially closed but we took a stroll down to the beach anyway and decided that this would be the perfect location for breakfast the next day.
After visiting all the other arches and rock formations along the coast we headed up inland towards the Grampians. I still had an unfinished project there to deal with … it’s still unfinished but we still had two exciting days there, a totally bogged car (ooops, my fault) and a poor wallbie caught in a fence, and of course some good climbing.
The last couple of days were spent driving along the beaches south of Adelaide, on the beautiful Fleurie Peninsular. All the beaches were deserted, and it was still rather cold but that should change as soon as we arrived in Adelaide | See the pictures