Fires and a Long Drive Home, and a Lesson Learnt.

Well that was intense. The moral of this story is to not be an idiot and ignore a weather report. I mean, Victoria is often full of extreme weather and we can get a bit complacent and blase about it but this was a lesson not to.

Camped with family down near Port Fairy on the weekend at a place called Yambuck. Really pretty by the lake, and had a pretty lovely swim in the low tide lagoons late as it was still hot and we were enjoying a few beers which was was fuelling my desire to rip my clothes off and immerse in salt water. We had a nice surf in the morning on the calmer beach at Port Fairy, but there were some epic waves coming in on the other beach and at the lighthouse.

Before midnight we were up watching the eerie sunset colours of a fire in the distance that were reminiscent of the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires that we watched as kids before having to evacuate. Wierd co incidence was that I was with my uncle both times. Anyway even if they asked us to evacuate we were too drunk to drive anyway, so settled into sleep in the landie. Now imagine being in a rooftop tent with 100 k winds.

Yep. Obviously we got no sleep, even though we squished up in the landie itself and Jamie found the lee of a hill to shelter in, but that was an a hour from dawn so not much use on sleep front.

Obviously we didn't take photos, but I was searching for some images online and came across this painting by Australian landscape painter Eugene Von Guerard that was painted in 1857 where he witnessed a fire near Timboon, which is worth sharing as that's exactly where these Western District fires were:

So the drive home is usually a straight forward along one road and takes 3 hours in a normal car, but we had Buttercup and she is lucky to break 80 downhill. Jamie's looking into the overdrive more intensely now obviously!

Anyway we got to Warnambool and the emergency services are there and the A1 and the side roads are shut off as they were evacuating one town and there were trees down everywhere too. Diversion was down the Great Ocean Road which is beautiful for touring but not trying to get home through fuck off winds, trees losing limbs and a hangover. And the roads are insane - the landie is buffetting from side to side and theres tree debris everywhere and Jamies looking at the trees moving in the wind and we are waiting for one big mother to crash in front of us and Im trying my best not to throw up. At this point taking photos was not my priority but I regret that now as it was pretty spectacular.

So we take the second diversion and there's the emergency services again. The two roads ahead were impassable due to fires and trees again so we had to backtrack back down the Great Ocean Road. Thank god many tourists HAD listened to the warnings and there wasn't as much traffic on the road as you would expect on a Sunday, but we did get nearly cleaned up by some Chinese driving on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend. Seriously if you are an international tourist reading this, PAY ATTENTION. It's a dangerous road without high winds and falling branches, and there are far too many of you causing accidents. Lucky Jamie was on the ball and the driver saw us at the last minute. I do hope he makes it home alive.

Eventually we get on the Great Ocean Road proper near Apollo Bay. The further we drive down, the calmer it gets, and the seas got more turquoise that angry cobalt with huge white caps. We kept hitting lights as they are fixing the GOR (it's a bit of a mess, hence why you need to DRIVE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE ROAD) and finally reach Lorne, only half an hour from home. What a relief. Hit a cop road block 15 minutes from home, had to tolerate making small talk with a copper whilst he drug and alcohol tested Jamie. Annoying bastard told us the obvious: well, there were warnings. Thanks mate, noted.

Turns out it was far worse for some folk as 18 homes were lost and lots of cattle and sheds. No lives lost thankgod. They were worried that the two massive fires were going to join up but they got it under control. Hot, dry weather and high winds, coupled with lightning strikes, makes for disaster.