No One Thing: Twelve Apostles

Our next stop on the road trip was Port Campbell. It was only a short drive from our stop at Melba Gully but it was getting late and the kid was getting cranky. We needed to get to the hotel and find some dinner, quick! Plus, it was getting close to the "must check in by" time we had for the hotel. We drove past some gorgeous coastline and regretted not having time for it, but needed to deal with other things and leave the sightseeing for the next day.

We got to the hotel, and started the usual routine. Kaylee and I hopped out of the car to stretch our legs while Heather grabbed the hotel info and went to check in.

Time passes... people (some looking not real happy) come and go from the lobby of this small little motel... Heather is not one of them. Fortunately, playing in the grass cheered Kaylee up enough that I wasn't too concerned.

More time passes...

Then Heather comes out, looking... well... not stressed, necessarily, but concerned. Turns out, the internet for the entire coast southwest of Melbourne was out and had been for a few days. This had caused many, many problems for these cute little coastal towns. Hotels were all overbooked because websites were still booking guests without confirmation making it to the hotels, so the innkeepers records weren't matching what websites said, they were turning away guests when they thought they were fully booked then had open rooms because reservations had apparently been canceled but they didn't know that. Then they'd let people in and have guests with reservations show up. Restaurants and hotels couldn't run credit cards, the ATM machines couldn't give out cash because they couldn't connect to bank databases, and, basically, trouble was brewing everywhere.

Heather had had to wait while a few other irate guests and potential guests dealt with an innkeeper who was at the end of his rope. Fortunately, our reservation was secure and our room was available. Unfortunately, he wouldn't accept credit cards and Heather was low on cash. He took a credit card number to hold the room but insisted on receiving cash for the room before we could get the key. He gave us directions to the one ATM in town that still had cash and, somehow, was still working. Heather informed him that due to cranky child, we wouldn't be back until after we had had some dinner. He agreed.

ATM and cash - check

Restaurant - check

Wine for Heather - double check

We ate a delicious dinner and headed back to the hotel. A much happier innkeeper, sandwich in hand, met us in the parking lot and got us our key, then helped get our luggage into the room, chatting the whole time about how he had spent the day before with his grandson, approximately Kaylee's age. We thanked him, and tucked in for the night.

In the morning, we had a quick continental breakfast with the innkeeper, as the last of the guests to show up before he cleaned up. And we discussed our plan for the day. We decided we needed to backtrack to the Twelve Apostles lookout we had seen the day before.

Beyond gorgeous.