The Great Ocean Road - Episode 1: Treasury Hunt at Night in Geelong

 The Great Road was the most memorable part of this Australia trip. I miss the clear blue sky, powerful ocean, breathless scenery, diversified wildlife, relaxing atmosphere............ along the road. One advantage of self-driving trip is you can hop on / off wherever and whenever. If you can drive, I highly recommend you to arrange your own trip and spend more time to experience the greatness of the Great Ocean Road. My 2D2N trip started in Geelong and ended in Port Campbell, home of the 12 Apostles. Despite it was longer than usual 2D1N or even day tours, I just completed around 57% of the entire route. So, pls be reminded to spare more time for the Great Ocean Road.

Night 1: Geelong 

We took a flight from Sydney to Melbourne - Alvon and stayed one night in Geelong, around one-hour drive from the Alvon airport. The first advantage and the more important one was shorter traveling time. Geelong is near the Great Ocean Road official starting point - Torquay. The second advantage was the air fare was cheaper than that to Melbourne.

Ford set up a car factory in Geelong. However, they refused to sponsor our car rental, so we picked a Hyundai. This little blue car was our best partner in the Great Ocean Road and Melbourne. My friend, the chauffeur felt good with it. Why? Because it was new and it ran smoothly.

My friend booked Geelong Conference Centre, not a real hotel but a conference centre equipped with accommodation.

It was almost midnight when we arrived. We expected it was dark but not to have a mini treasure hunt. It happened anyway. We followed signage to the main entrance, however, it was closed. We thought we probably missed something and started again. No another entrance was found. This time, we got off to check if there was any clue. My friend found a number and called. A staff asked him to get an envelope from a letterbox around. Yeah, here was the key to our comfortable room.  Good night!