The Friday was supposed to be very hot, more than 40 degrees and hot northern wind. Not the best situation to be deep in a forest with 10 km of dirt road and another 20 of bitumen to get out of it. We decide therefore to pack up and look if Johanna’s Beach is a good next stop.
Not everyone agrees with leaving this cool stream.
We dread the busy environment of the Great Ocean road but it works out that it’s not too busy. Our first stop is for fresh organic blueberries on the side of the road.
Then the scenery changes and we can see the ocean again.
The Johanna Beach campground is quite big and busy, but we find a good spot on the edge of a large grass field, not too far from the beach and not too far from the toilets.
The camping has a very high turnover; when we arrived the field was empty bar 4 groups of people, at sunset on Friday the field was full apart from the middle. It goes like that every day, empties during the morning and fills up in the afternoon. It’s popular because there are toilets, it’s not far from the beach and it’s free (where other campings charge up to $75 per night during this peak season).
The ocean is quite wild and swimming is not recommended due to wild waves and strong currents. So we keep it to bathing.
Kiting is out of the question, especially when we see delta wing flyers jump off the high dunes; the updraft of the wind could make a kiter an inverted parachutist.
With he temperature in the 40’s and the beach a bit golden the temperature of the sand gets so high that normal walking (even on slippers when the sand gets between your foot sole and the slipper) is too hot. So everyone runs for a bit and then when they can’t bare it any more stands still to let the sand under his soles cool down and build up courage to run the next bit of sand. Nossi just made a quick dash in the dunes and barely touched the sand; poor Dotti plainly refused and turned topsyturn so she was on her back with her fur between her skin and the hot sand. She had to be dragged and carried across. So they were really happy when they could cool their paws in the pools.
And then were content with their little tent.
Then Marjo saw a hat float in the water.
Until she realised that there was a bold head attached to it, cooling down under water.
The only others in the water were some surfers who love the big waves and if you weren’t careful they would go straight over your hat.
We stayed four nights at this camping; partly because it is not bad, partly because we are supposed to be in Melbourne in 4 nights and the campsites between here and Melbourne are all in National Parks, not open to dogs and partly because we have traveled enough for a (short) while.
During the last two days we met a nice couple, Jack and Mary who invited us over for drinks. Jack had built his own nice vintage motorhome in which they traveled for short trips. Jim (with hat) who camped on the other side of us with a nice slide-on motorhome also joined us.
Marjo and Dotti were pulling faces 🙂
The next morning Jack showed us how you can make nice thin bread in a fry pan. Something to repeat for sure!
Some of the days were very hot (42 Celcius), others were quite cool (20 Celcius) and some days there were not many flies where on others I stayed most of the day inside and for the rest with my head wrapped in a fly net. Marjo just took it like the woman of nature she is.
At night the sun set nicely over the water.
That was not the sign for everyone to quieten down though; this camping is popular with groups of younger people which meant that we could hear music, talk, dogs, laughter till well past midnight. Where if my head touches the pillow my sleep switch turns on, poor Marjo listened to all the noises. I’m sure that once or twice the thought hit her of joining in.
A nice stay.
Posted from Johanna, Victoria, Australia.
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