Portland to Phillip Island, or,

The Winding Way Round.

16/10/14

It was bloody good day today. We got to ride The Great Ocean Road and it was a first for many of us, me included.

The Great Ocean Road runs along the coast of Victoria and has some wonderful winding sections that are motorcycle Nirvana. As luck would have it, this road also features some iconic tourist destinations as well. This can lead to some heavy traffic sometimes and it "could" be frustrating for motorcyclists. It's not though, and do you know why not? Because the majority of drivers pull over and let motorcyclists past so we can enjoy the road. Two huge thumbs up to those who let us through today. Thank you.

Everyone rugged up and donned their wet weather gear this morning because it looked like it was going to be pretty miserable, weather wise. Luckily we only got a smattering of rain in the early part of the day, and sun shine for the rest of the time.

Our first tourist stop was The Bay of Martyrs.

Do those of us that you can see look like

we're having fun yet?

Next stop was The twelve Apostles. Well, there used to be twelve, but they keep falling over. Now there are actually only eight left.

I tried to push over another one.

Back on the road we continued our run down the Great ocean Road.

Uncle G and Mark enjoying the ride.

   Uncle R did a good job wrestling the Harley,

and keeping up.

Next stop was Apollo Bay for a quick lunch and more fuel.

Apollo Bay Bakery makes great pies.

Then I stopped at Wye River and had a happy snap taken outside the hotel. Suzanne's parents used to have a holiday house in Wye River so it's a very sentimental place. And so is the hotel...

The Wye River Hotel.

Then it was a quick ride to the end of The Great Ocean Road. It was a fun day.

We had decided earlier to take the ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento. It doesn't save much time, but it will give our backsides and brains a forty minute rest.

A ferry like ours making a return trip.

A coffee was now the order of the day, but Sorrento wasn't playing the game. Most of the shops there close at 4 pm. Damn! Oh well, we'll just have to wait until get to Phillip Island for a coffee. It won't take long.

It shouldn't have taken long, but we had a few dramas with a bloody road works detour. Having a detour sign at the start of the detour is fine, but you need to follow it up with a few more signs so people can find their way back to their original route. After a bit of stuffing around, and some Google mapping, we were back on course.

We finally pulled into the driveway at our awesome house on Phillip Island at about 7 pm. We'd covered just over 4,000 kilometers in the last six days, and our backsides knew it.

Now it's Moto GP time.