Day 76 (Sunday 31st December 2006) New Year's Eve

Happy New Year everybody...

We left Kangaroobie and headed off to complete the Great Ocean Road. We by-passed Apollo Bay, having stopped there the day before and despite planning to make a stop at Lorne. this trendy little surf place was so jam-packed full of tourists, we by-passed it too.

At last we got to see the kind of roads you invisage when hearing the name 'Great Ocean Road' and Sarah (she wanted to drive this bit) navigated us through the twists and turns along the cliff-tops. It was just like the Cornish coastal road that links Newquay and Padstow.

Eventually we made it to the turn-off for Bells Beach and we decided to take a gander at the famous surf beach before trying to locate our lodge. It's quite difficult to access the beach and it was a hell of a walk from where we parked the car. From the cliff above though we saw three or four surfers out there trying to catch a wave, but there was certainly no '50-year storm' here today...more like 50 ripples!!

The beach wasn't all that exciting and with a guy being taken by a shark just days before, we made do with our view from the cliff and headed off to find our lodge. Now don't be fooled by the title 'Bells Beach Lodge' (www.bellsbeachlodge.com.au)...the damn place is nowhere near Bells Beach! We finally stumbled across it about 15-minutes down the road at Torquay.

Having finally found it, but no one at reception to check-in, we drove up to Geelong where we did some shopping for more soup and pasta (yum), before eating fish and chips by the beach. The lodge interrupted our feast to find out where the hell we were, so we finished up and headed back.

We checked in but didn't hang around (Marc feeling closterfobic of being surrounded by more than one person and being dangerously close to people having a good time) and went out for a drive. We visited Jan Juc before watching the sun set for the last time in 2006, somewhere over near Bells Beach.

Now dark and 2007 approaching, we went back to the lodge to find it full of drunk drongos! One by one they slowly siphered off to whatever party they attending and we were left in momentry quiet, with some another boring English couple (him from Wimborne her from the Isle of White). We thought we were boring, but these guys were the dullest, most unanimated, lifeless  people we have ever met!

We chatted about real interesting topics until 23:45 and by then, we were dying to catch up with the crazed, drunk drongos! Cutting it fine, we deciding to head to the nearby Surf Beach for the countdown, only to miss it on the way. To make matters worse, it was like being in a youth club, us about twice the age of everyone else!

We should have learnt by now that New Year's Eve has never treated us well, so we trudged back, whacked in the earplugs (cheers Daddy Cool) and hit the sack. Sarah wouldn't get any sleep that night until 04:00...Happy bloody New Year!!!!

Happy Birthday Josh!!...sorry we missed you buddy...