After celebrating our first anniversary quietly at home on Friday night, John & I left at about 11am next morning (New Years Day) & rode over the West Gate Bridge in fairly good time. We stopped to refuel at Avalon & headed on to the Great Ocean Road. Traffic got heavy as we approached each town which slowed us down considerably. We stopped for lunch at Lorne, then rode on to Apollo Bay for another break.
Next stop was Port Campbell for refueling, then on to Warrnambool where we stopped for the night at a camping ground. After setting up camp, we rode into town for dinner where I dropped my bike as I was parking (ouch!!!) Luckily my bike was okay but my pride & my left knee definitely weren't! I had an uncomfortable night's sleep but was okay to keep going, so we packed up & rode to Portland where we got some further directions at the Information Centre. The road between Portland & Nelson proved to be the best we had encountered (John's still raving about it!) We stopped to re-fuel at Nelson & met a small group of bikers who'd just come from Mt. Gambier, so we knew we were getting close. Five minutes later down the road John's handlebars almost split in the middle, so we rode slowly into Mt. Gambier & stopped at a petrol station to ask for help. The guy rang the local bike shop owner (Jezza) & luckily he was able to contact his mate, an engineer (Pedro) who spent the rest of the afternoon welding John's bars back together.
After a long & trying day, we rode back to Portland & stayed in a motel for the night - a hot shower & lovely dinner at the pub down the road did wonders for our spirits! The trip home went smoothly (much quicker than the coast road), stopping at Colac for lunch, then Avalon to re-fuel & finally home.
