We left home in the dark, driving south down the peninsula with only a rough idea of where we might go. The world turned dusky and grey around us while we drove, the day starting to seep in along tree tops and horizon edges. We stopped in an empty car park, then set off down a track, down some stairs. More colours steadily leeched in with the daylight.

And just as we headed around into a little cove, the sun broke over the distant headlands, throwing all it's flashy, fluorescent colours up onto the low clouds. Celebratory colours because it wasn't raining, because we weren't it the city, weren't at work, stuck in traffic or on commuter trains full of sad suits. Celebratory colours because we were somewhere alone, quiet, empty. Not sharing space with strangers. Or with concrete and plastic and mechanical sounds.

Just us and the big ocean. 

Just us and a little window on the quiet wild world. 

Joe Cocker and John Steinbeck, Jenny Lewis and Charles Manson biographies. Ciders and sketchbooks on a picnic rug in the dappled shade. Coffee at 5am watching the sun rise, walking with bare feet across the dewy lawn to get a better photograph. Watching the neighbour brush her graceful black horses in the soft light of a crisp evening. Tiny nieces and nephews. Mandarin and lime-scents, fresh off the tree. Pandanus palms and pale pink barnacles, collected among the rocks on a lagoon-like beach. Pitch-dark nights and soft beds, and more than anything, peace. 

The real upside of Victoria having kinda petulantly unpleasant weather throughout nine months of the year is that sometimes you get a weekend of perfect sunshine blue, and no one has planned for it. 
That means when you show up at a well-situated dog-friendly camping ground somewhere along the Great Ocean Road, there's no one else there except for a German couple in a campervan who probably would have been there even if it was snowing. 

Another upside of the Great Ocean Road is that the Twelve Apostles is an incredibly famous Australian landmark, and just a far enough trek out of Melbourne to make it the end point of the journey for most people, before they need to turn around and head back because everyone is now tired, hungry and over it. But on the other side of the Apostles, the Peterborough side, there's still so many more beautiful coastal landmarks to visit, from Loch Ard Gorge to the Bay of Martyrs, which are a bit less crowded.

All along that coastline, the intensity of the orange earth against turquoise water was incredible. Maybe everything just seemed more vibrant because it was our first bright, outdoorsy day after a long stint of dreary, drizzly, overcast days. Whatever the cause, I was completely taken with winding walks through coastal scrub, looking down into canyons of ochre-hued cliff-faces filled with restless, rich blue, wandering along deserted beaches strewn with cuttlebones, and finally sprawling out on springy green grass to have an afternoon rest with the Beany dog while Scotty hunted around for fishing spots. 

It's pretty idyllic stuff. 

Vintage boots, hat and scarf; Volcom Gypsom romper; Three Arrows Leather stash pouch; Penguin Books 'Book of Longing' by Leonard Cohen; Pony Gold 'Myola' shell bolo tie; YSL Black Opium perfume; Sailor Jerry spiced rum.  

It's the late-night conversations around fires, over-roasted marshmallows, strong whiskey drinks warming the belly, meandering conversations about travel ambitions to shake off the thought of an impending winter. The empty park at 6am, the rising sun on crisp dewy grass, Humble bouncing in circles, full of bottomless happiness and optimism. It's booking flights, reading books, cooking warm food and drawing cold air into a runner's warm lungs. It's planning the next big leap or tiny step, trying to work out what idea you want to chase most: erasing, redrawing, failing succeeding. It's the ciders and pizza and heaters and records and games and memories. The new boots and old jackets. The warmest socks and the shortest days.