Great Ocean Road Self-Drive Day 4: Car Rental, West Gate Freeway & Point Addis

Here are my Victoria, Australia travelogue recap:
Melbourne Day 1: Federation Square, Hosier Lane & Flinders Street Station
Melbourne Day 2: Queen Victoria Market, Royal Arcade & Block Arcade
Melbourne Day 3: Victoria Hall & Queen Victoria Market Again (Part 1)
Melbourne Day 3: St. Kilda Beach, Luna Park & Acland Street (Part 2)

We woke up on day 4 feeling very happy. Adrenaline is pumping. Oh yes! This is the day we’re going on our Great Ocean Road journey. Wohoooooooo!!! Going to Great Ocean Road is one of my childhood dream (oh yes I have so many dreams). And driving along this great road is another point in my to-do dream list. Now I can tick both off. Weheeee 🙂 Now you know why I said yes to Victoria, Australia.

Our morning breakfast were the leftovers cakes bought from Acland Street and strawberries from QVM. Haha Checking out of Victoria Hall is simple and fast. We informed them that we wanted to check out, passed back the electronic key cards and got back our key card deposit. That’s it. Fastest check out ever! I think that was done in under 2 minutes. Hahaha Our room were fully paid for before coming to Australia. Yeah, they need full payment.

After that we drag our 3 bags (so many coz we did some shopping at QVM remember?) slowly to Franklin Street. If you remember on day 2, we detoured to Franklin Street during our walk to QVM. Well, that’s because we were checking the location of Hertz (car rental).

Hertz office open at 9am and we were there at 9.05am. We didn’t want to waste our time at all. 🙂 We have made reservation prior to our journey here, so everything were processed pretty fast. All they asked for is our confirmation number, driving license & credit card (forgotten they need to see the passport or not). Previously we had asked JPJ for a translation copy of our driving license in English (RM10) but it didn’t have any use at all. Looks like our Malaysia driving license is good to go in Australia.

Nice office eh?

We choose Hertz because we have Priority Club Rewards card which will give us a 10% discount on car rental (save! save! save!). 🙂 After the paper work was done, we asked for the best way to get out of Melbourne. They also provided us with 2 maps. Then we head down to their basement to get our car.

Normally before servicing your car, the car advisor will go around the car to check for dents and knocks and then circle the location on a piece of paper. Likewise here. After that we were asked to sign on that paper. Then it’s all good to go.

12th September 2010 @ 9.31am, 12^oC, 13124km… Great Ocean Road here we come!!!

First look at our economy car, Toyota Corolla Ascent (hatch), 1.3L.
Great Ocean Road ammo: maps (a few of them) and sis’ GPS.
Tsk, if you don’t have GPS you can rent from Hertz.

Route to get out of Melbourne CBD to Great Ocean Road:
From Hertz drive till the end of Franklin Street, onto Queen Street then to Flinders Street. Then take on the Wurundjeri route over Charles Grimes Bridge. Then turn to West Gate Freeway (M1), it’s name is changed to Princes Highway (M1), passing by Geelong, then turn to Surf Coast Highway (B100) until you reach Torquay where the Great Ocean Road starts.

Let’s start our journey!

Beautiful buildings at Queen Street, Melbourne CBD.
We were ooohh and ahhhing at the buildings as we’ve never been to this part.

South Wharf, shopping complex.

DFO (Direct Factory Outlet) South Wharf on the left and Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre on the right.

We’re at West Gate Freeway (M1).
From here onwards we were relying on the GPS.

West Gate Bridge.
Going over Yarra River.

Beautiful yellow flowers along West Gate Freeway.

Very pretty ya?

This is heaven. 🙂

Around 10.30am we stopped at the petrol kiosk to answer nature call. It was cold. Brrrr… We also visited the tourist information centre right beside the kiosk.

Then it was my turn to drive. This was my first time driving in oversea and 2nd time driving a rented car (first was in Kuala Terengganu).

What I like about driving in Australia is that everyone (almost) abide to the speed rules. Driving was fun and pressure-free.

At 11.00 am we reached the start of the Great Ocean Road. It’s located at Torquay.

Having missed the turn to Bells Beach, we thought okay we can visit it when we come back this way again few days later. Bells Beach is a famous surfing beach and home to the Rip Curl Pro.

So when we saw another place of interest, Point Addis we quickly turned to that road.
Coming into this road, I was a little scared at first because no car was going in but later we saw a few… ok la. 😛

Can you see the blue sea at the background?

Point Addis Lookout. Point Addis is located at the Surf Coast Shire.

Surfers surfing near Point Addis Beach.

On the right is the car park. On the left is the open sea (Bass Strait).

Beautiful flora at Point Addis.

Point Addis Lookout.

The wind blowing here is really strong.

It’s like walking in dreamland. 🙂

Pixie Caves Beach.

Can you see some black dots in the middle of the photo? Well, they’re surfers.

Sound of the waves I like.

A closer look at the surfers. The strong wave kept dragging them to the shore. Ohh sungguh kesian. Paddle paddle paddle…

Point Addis Road – road leading into Point Addis Lookout. 🙂

Time taken from Franklin Street To Point Addis @ Victoria is 2 hours.

To be continued… (photos overloaded already)