Travel Journal: Car Swap

Arriving back from Phillip Island we had arranged another hire car to be picked up at a rental place in Melbourne city. Having figured out the pick up point, we decided we didn’t want to carry our heavy packs and didn’t really want to look like scruffy backpackers so Andrew left me with the backpacks at Southern Cross Station and headed off on his own to collect the car.


I drew Andrew a helpful map how to get back to me but he would have to navigate the busy city traffic and the fun Australian concept of “Right turn from the Left Lane Only”, meaning you have to cross over a lane to get to your turning. But to my surprise Andrew made it in one piece and within an hour. We piled the backpacks in the car and started the next major road puzzle – getting out of Melbourne City. Now this was scary. Six lanes of traffic going over a massive bridge which was also the on ramp to the motorway with constantly changing traffic lights over head; it was definitely a challenge but Andrew managed it and we are still here to tell the tale so all is good.

Now we had only done a little research into where we were supposed to be heading which first off was to Geelong and then hopefully there would be signs to get us onto the Great Ocean Road.