Coffee and croissants with Kelly as we look at the options for our next road trip.

At the moment things are looking pretty good for a trip down to Victoria. The borders are open, the weather looks promising and by the time we depart (in a few weeks), Kelly will have completed her second dose of the COVID vaccine.

We are thinking of heading down on a close approach to Melbourne before using its gravitational pull to slingshot us off and down along the Great Ocean Road.
We have done this trip of a couple of times already… but never in Ripley (our motorhome).

One of the reasons we have hesitated in taking Ripley down the Great Ocean Road is anecdotal stories of the whole trip being Motorhome unfriendly. By this I mean scarce opportunities for overnight stays, poor parking opportunities, locals who are camper van/motorhome adverse, and sketchy (ie expensive, poor quality and/or grumpy owners). One van park in Lorne has a particularly poor reputation it seems.

However, anecdote is not evidence. So we think we will go on a scoping mission ourselves. What could possibly go wrong?
Er….thats a rhetorical question….please don’t answer.

Once we reach the end of the road (so to speak) we might just flip on over to South Australia to visit Mt Gambier (‘B’ on the map). We visited this city a couple of years ago (read here) and enjoyed it. As usual, our planned route is subject to change without notice or reason. For example, a re-trajectory up to the Grampians National Park is also very tempting, time permitting.

The total freedom to make frequent course corrections and unexpected stops are one of the joys of motorhome travel…and that’s the way we roll.