The Detour Diary

We saw some amazing wildlife on the Great Ocean Road, but not all of it was in the great outdoors. The first town we stopped in on the Great Ocean Road was Lorne. We found a hotel room in a nice little spot that had a room available. Matt inquired about the room and found that it had two separate sleeping areas so Jack had his “own room”…score! This isn’t always easy to find.

After we checked in, as we were carrying our bags up the steps, we passed bathrooms in the hotel hallway and both immediately thought the same thing. Matt had asked about the sleeping arrangements and just naturally assumed we’d have our own bathroom, so hadn’t asked about that. Well, it turns out we did have our own bathroom, but we both had a good laugh about how Jack would have responded to that one!

When we walked in our room, Jack shouted, “Butterflies!!” Turns out the windows in our room were open and the room was full of moths! And these were Jurrasic Park sized moths, not your normal grandma’s attic sized moths. There’s something about trying to act all adult-y for your kid when you want to shriek like a 10 year old girl that I always find funny, but I managed to keep my calm while Matt worked to relocate most of them outside, to a better home, and closed the windows (don’t get all PETA on me, we didn’t squash them)!

However, there was one holdout flying around in our bedroom that was about the size of my hand. It was trying to get near our overhead light, so Matt turned the light off and it stayed put on the ceiling right above our heads. I think I spent the first half of the night wide awake waiting for that monster moth to drop on my face! We still aren’t exactly sure where he ended up, but I’m (mostly) confident at this point he isn’t in any of our bags.

The next night we stopped in Apollo Bay and our room was full of tiny mosquitos. Matt took a hand towel and spent about 15 minutes trying to kill all of them that he could. He dubbed it the “killing towel” and we kept it close by to make sure we were ready to fend off any more critters. Here he is in action below, multitasking while he brushes his teeth. What a man…good dental hygiene and protecting the family. What more could I ask for!

And here you thought this whole around the world trip was all glitz and glamour… 😉