Lorne

The beauty of the Great Ocean Road! Actually it is singularly unattractive until just before Lorne, but that doesn’t dampen the spirits as we’re en route to a spacious pad to hook up with some good friends. We pass Geelong and unbelievably miss out on the world famous National Wool Museum, which Karen is particularly put out by. However we’re on a schedule and must press on. The last 20 kms are very pretty, almost Cornish, with the rugged coastline, but sandy rather than rocky. The house is a stunning 4 bedroom beauty on the hill overlooking the bay and with a spacious balcony for feeding the colourful local fauna – namely cockatoos and parakeets. We’ve already met up with Andy, Nicky and Cooper and done a big food/booze shop, so the girls cook up a delicious prawn, chilli and ginger lunch just in time for the late arrivals from Adelaide: Rob, Simone, Jack, Harry and Emily. Blimey that’s 12 of us in total – maybe the shop wasn’t that big after all.

It’s very relaxing here. Lorne is the most fashionable and developed town on the Great Ocean Road, but still only has 1,200 permanent residents, so it’s very peaceful. The first night we stay in for a BBQ and boozing (especially Nicky!). Late on the girls gravitate to bed and the boys to the poker table, where I sting Andy and Rob for a huge $5 each making me even for the trip!

Saturday lie in HURRAY! Miss Karen’s fry-up BOO HOO! The girls go for a massage whilst the boys walk the kids to town for some excellent trampolining (a great double whammy for the stir crazy nippers). We meet the girls for lunch (marlin, yummy) and then we walk back up the hill with an ice-cream incentive at halfway. The cunning ruse of exhausting the kids works well and the adults are soon left in peace to play the hilarious Name Game. Everyone is in stitches at some stage including yours truly at the fourth H when I go for Henry 5th having already used Henry 8th, 7th and 6th (OK so you had to be there). It’s another late night but I get up early despite the sore port head (yes, the 10 litre flagon is still going strong) so as not to miss out on another fry-up. I end up cooking (for a long overdue change) and someone snags my snags for the kids – Gutted. We walk to the trampolines again and back up the hill via the ice-cream shop again. Are we stuck in some weird kind of Groundhog Day from which we will never escape? I hope so as long as it doesn’t involve more port. We say our goodbyes to Andy, Nicky and Cooper in town and to Rob, Simone, Jack, Harry and Emily at dusk with a few tears as we wont be seeing them again for a while (actually Karen and Harley do). Whilst everyone is standing around crying I manage to sneak a couple of litres of port into Rob’s car to ease my later suffering and to increase his. Cheers mate! We are left with a mixture of sadness that everyone has gone and happiness at the peace and quiet, the beautiful big house to ourselves and the fact that Karen surprises me with some saucy new lingerie WOW!