Janice

We pick up Janice at about eleven on Sunday morning. Initially we think she's called Lucy but soon see the error of our ways. And that's Janice with the 'i' pronounced 'ee'. She's quite the looker, we soon grow attached.

She comes equipped with a surprisingly spacious fold-out bed that, two chairs for sitting in the sun and a deluge of unbridled freedom. We get on the road; music blaring and windows down.

Heading out of Melbourne we are filled with the excitement and possibility of a new journey. We have only very vague plans of route, we don't know where we're going to sleep tonight or how far we're going to get. I guess we'll find out.

Our first stop is a small seaside town called Torquay. Place names here are one of two things. Either they are interesting and exotic, with aboriginal roots, or they are the names of places you know well back home. We pass through Peterborough then right next to it we find Warrnambool.

The first thing that strikes me about the coastline is the colour. The rocks here are an orange that we just would not get at home. The water is quite cold (it is only spring) yet the sea is still full of surfers. From children that can't be more than five to ageing veterans the waves are full. We vow to give it a go. When we reach a warmer climate that is.

We drive slightly inland and the landscape shifts. Gone are the craggy red rocks and the bent and twisted trees. We enter rainforest and the trees soar above us. Tall and straight, reaching for the sun. We visit a waterfall that cascades gently through a gully I could have easily found in Vietnam. I notice the smell in the air, the perfect blend of damp forest and fresh water, and am struck by that a mere ten minutes drive south reveals instead the salty sea breeze we all know so well.

We make another quick stop by the sea as the sun is setting. The noise of the ocean abounds and everything is peaceful. Then we hear from the nice Italian man whose room we stayed in and the stresses of real life return. There is a crack in the chest of drawers in his room that wasn't there when we move in. We feel bad about that, we hadn't noticed it in our time there. He still has six hundred dollars of ours as a bond. We tell him to fix it with our money, suspecting it to be a wood glue job. He wants one hundred dollars and we want it dealt with so we agree.

Next he finds a stain on the mattress, underneath the mattress protector, and some hand marks on the wall (possibly from all the stretches I had to do when I couldn't walk). He is not happy. I hadn't noticed them because they blended into the marks that were already there when we moved in. Marks that I had actually tried to clean off. And as for the marks on the mattress protector. Well who checks underneath a mattress protector? We suggest he cleans it, and offer some of our money for stain remover. He takes another hundred dollars for the hassle. We get four hundred back and then try to forget about it and enjoy ourselves.

We spend a while driving around towns looking for a campsite in the dark. We drive into a site with no power and no water. It's a place to park and we are hungry so we gladly accept. We cook our dinner outside beneath the stars. Venus blazes majestically through a thin veil of cloud before us and the Milky Way paints a fragile trail across the sky.

I don't remember seeing the Milky Way like this before. I find it is amazing to be so aware of my position within our galaxy. The stars form a lattice of light above and each dazzling pinprick seems to burn with import. I am awed, as I so often am, by the scale of the universe and by all its unending beauty that we will never get the chance to see.

The next morning we return to the rainforest. We walk through trees that seem built of twisted rope standing next to those that seem pillars stretching for the sky. The air is filled with the lilting sound of tropical birds, the occasional stream gurgles between them. There are trees here like I have never truly seen before. Some of them sprout from multiple spots in the ground only to converge mid air into one great trunk before branching out again. As ever my photo's do not do any of it justice.

We head back to the coast and to the second most southerly point in Australia, Cape Otway Lightstation. It is the oldest lighthouse in the country; built in the 1848 without using any mortar or cement. In 1859 a telegraph station was added to the site to connect mainland Australia to Tasmania via one hundred and seventy miles of submarine telegraph cable. This was an extension of a cable that reached all the way back to the United Kingdom. It amazes me that we can built such things now, that we could build them one hundred and fifty years ago is astounding.

The lighthouse keepers cottage is full of interesting facts on the life and times of the lighthouse, the telegraph station and their occupants. In the middle of all this, completely unexplained, there is a room dedicated to the history of dinosaurs in Australia. It was complete with lots of plastic models that I suspect were straight out of the nearest toy shop. Nope, no idea either.

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After a brief encounter with a koala (baby in tow!) we head onto the Great Ocean Road proper. Scenes of drama and power abound and I am amazed by the relentless ferocity of the ocean. The wind is up and waves pound against towering red sea stacks with reckless abandon. We sit and stare for hours, bound by the forces of nature around us. Each swell seems greater than the last, sending towers of misty white cascading heavenwards against the sheer sandstone cliffs. We descend to a beach down a set of steps carved a hundred years ago. The waves sweep in and rush back, seemingly a safe distance away.

We walk further up the beach and all of a sudden the sea seems to rise around us and water engulfs us to our knees. The wave rebounds off a cliff and comes at us again from the side, deeper than before. It is sucked back into the sea as if it had never been. We walk back along the sand, sodden, when we see another such wave approaching. They come from nowhere and cover the whole beach, ignoring the gradual inwards movement dictated by the tide.

This wave we are braced for and it comes up to our thighs. In front of us a couple are unprepared and are swept ofs their feet. Just beyond them a young boy is being dragged into the water as his dad fights against the sea to reach him. Amy throws me her phone and wades towards them. The father manages to grab his son's hand and they are both pulled further down a sand bank. The man is trying desperately to find purchase while the boy is horizontal in the water. I am temporarily convinced all four of them are done for. The wave retreats and we are all left high, if not dry. The boy seems surprisingly blasé about the whole experience and even his parents don't seem too shaken. Out of everyone Amy seems the one most likely to relive it in her dreams.

We come to a sea arch called London Bridge. It used to be a double arch attached to the mainland but in 1990 the first arch collapsed leaving a group of tourists stranded on the world's newest island. From our current viewpoint we fully understand how the sea can undo stone. We watch from what we hope is a safe distance. The Great Ocean Road is done.

That night we sit in our camper van while the sky bursts around us. Lit from horizon to horizon with streaks of lightning, pouring an oceans worth of water on our roof. The next day all is calm and we head into the Grampian Mountains. They are not really what I would call mountains. The land here is flat then suddenly they protrude outwards, almost like a growth on the land. And despite all being prefixed 'Mount' most really are hills.

The landscape we walk through is beautiful. Rocks, now more grey than red, form alien shapes around us and trees cling between them wherever they can take hold. We scramble up a gully grandiosely named the Grand Canyon. It looks significantly smaller than last time I saw it. We wander through a forest and past a waterfall and reach 'The Pinnacle', a wooden platform built on an outcrop of rock at the top of the hill. Sorry, mountain.

Here, every path you can tread has been carefully mapped out and its safety has been guaranteed. Signs, bridges and board walks cover the hillsides you are allowed to climb. There is no right to roam. Also they take great care to inform you of all the possible ways you can die on the simplest of paths. Falling trees, slippery rocks, collapsing cliffs. One sign emphasised profusely, in capital letters, how strenuous a descent to a waterfall was, that it was exhausting and you had to take your time. It turned out to be a flight of stairs, albeit quite a long one. You wouldn't find this sort of thing back home. I would like to let these people loose in the highlands and see how long they lasted.

We drive past the Pyrenees, which are shprtly followed by Ben Nevis. Someone's having a laugh. A rainbow tides us from evening into night. Two perfect arcs frame the road before us, blazing with possibility. We stop in a lay-by and consider spending the night. A dilapidated hut freaks Amy out so we go into the nearest pub and ask for directions to a campsite.

In the morning I visit a giant cross atop a mountain. It is cold wet and stormy so Amy stays in the car. I run through the fog and it looms before me exuding portent. I take the necessary selfies then run back to the car invigorated.

Mid afternoon sees us pull into Wilson's Promontory, a national park that marks Australia's most southerly point. It is a stunning place. Bare rocks poke from the top of tree covered hills. Green shrubland gives way to the Eucalypt forests that seem ubiquitous in Australia and these then meld into rainforest. Wildlife surrounds.

We visit white beaches cut with deep brown streams stained with tee-tree. The contrast is striking. We witness the tide washing up the river and I am reminded of two meter tidal bores in the river Severn.

We find a group of gulls pecking at something on the sand. Curious as to what treats they've found we approach. We find them eating a penguin. Not as in a chocolate biscuit. As is a penguin. Its head is missing and they are pulling entrails out through its neck. Unfortunately a wave takes the whole lot away before I can photograph it for you.

Goon, to those of you who don't know, is the drink of choice for backpackers in Australia. Boxes of wine for ten dollars. Who could say no? Especially when everything else is twice the price is it at home. One late afternoon we are walking along by the river with some Goon we decanted into a plastic bottle. We are practising our accents when a sudden storm hits. The rain is unrelenting and dense, our tree seems scant shelter.

We hear voices from behind calling us. There are two well-to-do middle aged Australian ladies beckoning us into their delightful woodland cabin. We frantically hide the Goon and make a run for the door.

We have half an hour of polite conversation over a bowl of dates. We see a deer stalk past the ceiling to floor windows. I teach the room about antlers. The storm passes so we bid them farewell and return to our Goon.

Wilson's Prom turns out to be prime territory for animal spotting. Wombats wander through the campsite unconcerned, intent only on the grass between their paws. Koala's hang from the trees. We spot a Wallaby hiding in the bushes from our car and just farther down the road we find a couple of Kangaroos. As we are excitedly trying to get as close as we can an Emu wanders out of the bushes and off up the road. The only thing missing is an Echidna.

We leave Wilsons Prom and return through rolling hills lifted from England (or perhaps the Shire!). The landscape here changes in a heartbeat. We sing at the top of our voices and rediscover Avril Lavigne. A quick stop off in Brighton to admire the beach huts then we are done.

We bid farewell to Janice. She was a trusty companion and worked with us well. I find it a pity we cannot just stay with her and continue into the wild. As I write this we receive a mildly abusive message from the Italian. He has found a mark near the sofa and tells us it is luck we have our deposit back. I couldn't tell you what the mark was though I very much doubt it was us as we only used the sofa about four times. I suspect it would have cost us at least another hundred dollars.

None of it matters. We have a plane to catch and the north beckons. Tropics, crocodiles and endless sun. Bring me that horizon.