CAMPSITE # 41 - Apollo Bay by Amy Mackay

Now don't go getting all disappointed that guest posting is already over after the first. I figured that even though it's a great concept to have the others guest posting every time, I'm sure they would prefer to not have to post from the Ladies toilets. That's right, thanks to the festive season - we don't even have the option of using a powered site. And, considering our daily drives are no longer than 20 minutes long, I don't even have the luxury of attempting to charge it into the temperamental laptop to cigarette lighter charger. That's right, finding 'juice' for the laptop is a royal pain in the behind. First.. we bought the wrong inverter so we couldn't recharge via the inverter. And then.. the replacement is just pathetic and falling to pieces and on top of that a fully charged laptop battery is lucky to last one hour. So... an electricity port is like gold dust when you're on the road. To a point where I'm willing to BYO stool & laptop into the Ladies toilet and plug in just to blog.. how's that for commitment?!!

Thanks to our lack of charge, we are now a few of campsites behind in the blog, I thought I would do the honours of blogging about our stay at Apollo Bay in a drastic attempt to catch up while we've got JUICE!!! Golden JUICE!!

We are officially cruising along the Great Ocean Road. Camping with 5 people is a lot slower than camping with just the two. I remember a few times Tom and I would just have a little chuckle at how much of a shambles everything was. Order has officially gone out the window. And if we had to decide between order & friends... of course we'd chose the latter. Even though we love having everything right for our 'home' it's literally impossible when there are so more bodies to consider. I'm just so glad that we don't always have to fiddle with a tent everywhere we go. Tents are hard work. It didn't help that a friendly drunk decided to catapult himself onto Amy T's tent the night of New Years Eve and therefore broke one of the poles. Broken tent coupled with an Oztrail camping chair and a cardigan being left behind at the NYE's farm didn't start Amy T off on a great foot.

Luckily, we had one of the better unpowered sites at the Apollo Bay Recreation Reserve, we were located right at the end of the dead end.. which is always a plus when there were at least (obviously a big guess) 500 other campers on site. Once we had (finally) settled in, we were able to look forward to spending the next two days doing very little physically and very lots drinkingally. Oh wait, does fishing count as physical activity? Tom is absolutely determined to catch a fish while the boys are here... he is still yet to catch that fish full of testosterone but no doubt (god I hope!!) it's just around the corner.

Apollo Bay was nice. I wouldn't say it was overly nice but it still managed to have some charm. It is a shame that we had to share it with, what felt like, half of Victoria. I'm sure, during the quieter times, this town would be a lot more appealing. Travelling along the Great Ocean Road however is absolutely glorious. We have been so lucky to be blessed with such amazing weather and we're so happy that we've had such great weather for Christian to enjoy. We took a little journey along a 4WD track because I think Tom felt like Charlie was dying to show off his talents. And quite talented he is. Even with what we believe to be roughly 3 tonne under his belt, Charlie was purring away without any troubles. The issues we were having with him dying when cold have miraculously disappeared. While we haven't been able to directly pin point what the issue was, a few pipe changes, new valves, new primer and a lot of love have made all of the issues go away. Tommy Boy is transforming himself into quite the mechanic. I think the rocks might be getting jealous...

Back at camp, we began a rather friendly game of poker. I learnt how to play. I learnt how to come second at poker and win back my $5 that I contributed. Now that I feel like I've come to terms with it... I've been pushing for a rematch but for some reason the boys don't seem so keen... perhaps they have also sensed my amazing gambling abilities and are keeping their wallets tucked firmly away in their pockets.

Now if you don't mind, I think it might be time to sign off for now, young girls in the bathrooms seem to be very intrigued by what the strange lady is doing sitting in the toilets with her laptop. I must say, it's certainly not one of the more serene locations to blog from. 2 of my 5 senses certainly aren't enjoying themselves right now.

Roast chicken on the cob :)

Binks seems to be enjoying himself. Although, I'm quite certain he'd eat anything so long as he didn't have to be the one to cook it.

This Pom certainly felt the cold.

Children.