Murray's Tour of Australia 2012-13: Warrnambool

Warrnambool is the largest city along the Surf Coast / Great Ocean Road. It has beautiful beaches, and I was also attracted by a rail trail that led to nearby Port Fairy, that I wanted to check out.

The Ride
The train ride was a couple of hours from Colac. I had difficulty finding places to stay at Warrnambool.

The Camp Site - Warrnambool Holiday Village

Caravan Park web site

This was a small park and very expensive at AUD$45 a night. It has a decent camp kitchen though. The location was good for me being close to the railway station. The city centre took about 10 mins to cycle to, though is a bit of a walk.

I was given a really terrible patch of land to camp on, no grass, all dirt. This was a shame as the other campers all had grass. Dirt is a problem as it gets everywhere in the tent and makes the tent filthy inside and out.

Also there was no shade, so the tent was intolerable in the heat. Still at least I found somewhere to stay, I hadn't realise how difficult that would be.

Still nervous about security

Solar Charger in action, good weather

The wasteland I had to camp on

Oi! Get off! Some b****** decided to park on my allocated space

Still dinner was nice. Kitchen was good here.

The Beach Front

Warrnambool has a really nice cycle path along the beach, it's quite extensive and well worth following. The beach itself is very attractive, though several people have died swimming in the sea here over the last few years! So there are dangerous rip tides in places.

The City - Warrnambool

It's big! A real city. Lots of shops and a good cinema. Strangely though it shuts down at 11pm, and you won't see a soul on the street at midnight. I had a very creepy walk back to the caravan park after watching a late movie. I didn't see a person or a car the whole way, and I was in the middle of a city.

There are some nice lakes and walks around them.