[Scott] We checked out of our hotel in Geelong and the guy at the front desk was a really nice gentleman from New Zealand, and quite a character too. He was nice enough to wait up for us last night, since we didn’t get in until almost 11pm. This morning he told me fascinating stories about some of his adventures in New Zealand, including a story about a Cessna flight he took to the summit of Mount Cook in a blizzard! We headed down to the surf town Torquay. Both of us agreed that our breakfast raspberry white chocolate breakfast muffin was one of the best we ever had. Stef let her tastebuds study the flavor, as she couldn’t wait to give a try and replicating the recipe herself. We asked about the day’s surfing conditions, and the cashier at the bakery told us that her boyfriend was surfing down at Bells Beach that morning and he said the waves were pretty good. We were excited to go check out the surfers. We arrived at Bells and there were hundreds of surfers in the water. We walked out onto the rocks so we could watch up close, and we stayed for at least a half hour watching these people ride the waves. The waves were up to 10 feet high at times, and some of these surfers were very talented! We headed back into town, and Stef did some serious shopping there at the surfwear outlets. While she was “in the zone”, I took the opportunity to go to the Surfing Museum which wasn’t too bad. We both really liked the surfing atmosphere in this town, and would probably enjoy relaxing here for a three or four day stay. We decided instead that we would head to Wilson’s Promontory National Park, a good drive to the east on the other side of Melbourne so we can do some hiking tomorrow – our last full day in Victoria. This will be the only hike we do in Australia. When we were planning our trip, we talked about hiking to Australia’s highest point at the summit of Mount Kosciusko near Canberra, but decided that it was too much out of the way. Tasmania and Cairns were the other two Australian destinations under consideration that didn’t “make the cut”. Speaking of which, it doesn’t look like golf is going to “make the cut” on this whole vacation. There are just too many other interesting things to see and do that we don’t have in Colorado! Anyway, we put our car on the ferry, a “shortcut” from Queenscliff to Sorrento to save us from driving around the enormous Port Philip Bay. It was a nice day for a ferry ride (about 45min long) and we enjoyed sitting outside on top, although there wasn’t much in the way of scenery. Stef figured out the route we needed to take to Wilson’s Prom, and she was in charge of calling out the next turnoff. She did great, but I missed more than one turnoff and we pretty much gave back the time we saved with the ferry shortcut. I think I’m losing my focus after all this driving. We called ahead to the town of Foster, the last town before the Prom, and made a reservation at The Comfort Inn without any trouble. When we got settled into the room, we agreed that this hotel room made our list of worst stays on the trip. Didn’t matter – we just needed to get some sleep before hiking tomorrow. I was just glad we made it there after all the driving struggles.
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