Great Ocean Road

The day after Springbrook I flew to Adelaide to do a Great Ocean Road tour. I was in Adelaide for most of a day, so I had a nice walk around. I somehow managed to find a pond with baby ducks that had me transfixed. I watched them for maybe a half hour then went to go find something to do. I checked out a museum that had me interested until I got to a giant section consisting of nothing but portraits of people I’ve never heard of, and I was quite done. So I went and watched the ducks again. Lame sauce, I know, but I enjoyed it.

Onto the tour! This one was a bit more physical than the others I’ve done. I suppose I didn’t really look at the physical level when I signed up for it, but the hikes seemed to be a bit faster paced and no one seemed to be having problems. In the other tours there was generally a mixture of people.

We started out with a walk. Blah blah, beautiful views, but to be frank not the best I’ve seen in Australia. To be frank, by this point I was a little viewed out. I’ve seen so much since I’ve gotten to Australia, especially in the final weeks of my travels around Oz, that the least beautiful things kind of lose their sheen, despite the fact that they are still spectacular.

After the first hike we went for a short walk down to see a waterfall. It was a wider one than the Springbrook falls we saw, so it was different.

The second day (it was a 3 day tour) we got up early to do another climb. It was a bit cloudy, but our guide thought it wouldn’t be too bad once we got to the top. On the way up it started to drizzle and the clouds flippin rolled in. When we reached the top, it was like looking out into a sheet. I’m sure the views would have been great from the lookouts, but it was a great white wall from our standpoint.

The way down was hellish, to say the least. The rain picked up a bit, and the already rather steep and mildly slippery rocks became ludicrous. The walk was estimated to be about two hours, and the way down probably added another hour to that. The rain made every rock slippery and I don’t think anyone got off without falling at least once. In some places a rope was tied to help us down, and in those places I was literally just controlling my fall downwards as there was no chance of walking safely.

After that we were pretty exhausted, but most of the rest of the day was driving to lookouts and maybe short walks in places. My favorite we saw was the Loch Arc Gorge. Basically it was this huge gorge which ate ships, and one ship was called the Loch Arc. Everyone on that ship died except for an 18 year old girl and one of the junior captains. He pulled her to shore and they hid out there for quite a while until they were found. I guess they were quite a big deal back in England and everyone wanted them to fall in love and get married and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, he was a sailor and she didn’t want to sit around while he saw the world so they never got together. It’s kind of sad, but I found it to be a very interesting story. I’m not sure why it was so captivating. I suppose standing at the site were these two people struggled to live made it seem more real, more interesting.

We also saw London Bridge, a rock formation that looked like a bridge. Huh, fancy that. Apparently it used to be connected with the mainland and people could go and walk around on it. One day it collapsed leaving a man and his *ahem* secretary stranded. They had to be helicoptered out and were all over the news. I imagine his wife was not too pleased with the evening news.

We were supposed to watch the sunset over the Twelve Apostles, but it was so foggy there was no sunset. Earlier we did a vote to see the Apostles before dinner as we thought it would be too foggy. It cleared up a bit, so our guide nixed our vote and took us later. Too bad the clouds rolled right back in and obscured them again. I managed to get a picture and then my camera promptly ran out of battery.

Being a champion packer, I had packed the night before leaving and left my charger and spare battery at our apartment. As a result I have no pictures from our third day or Melbourne.

The third day we went on a rainforest walk. It was much bigger than Springbrook was, and the trees were gigantic. They also had walkways built up among the trees that we could walk on to see the different layers of the forest. That, I must confess, was really neat.

After that we basically just drove to Melbourne. It was a bit of a drive and we had to all be dropped off at our hostels. I’ve heard spectacular things about Melbourne from everyone who has been there, but I only had a night to spend. I ate at this burger place down the street from my hostel which was fantastic. I had a burger with egg and Canadian bacon and a whole mess of other stuff, and YES I ate it all with no more ketchup than they put on it. OK the second half I added some, but still.

I also went down the cake shop street. Oh the cake shops. There was this street lined with stores, and one section is cake shop after cake shop. They have sweets and cupcakes and muffins and anything delicious and rich and sweet you could want. There was five or six right in a row. Needless to say, the next morning I had a cupcake for breakfast.

I managed to navigate the Tran system Melbourne has going for it. It is basically a trolley system all over. I was staying in one of the suburbs of Melbourne, so to get to the city I had to take a 15 minute trolley ride.

In Melbourne they have a silly thing called a hook turn. To avoid the trolley tracks, in order to turn right you have to first turn left and hook around. It’s really odd and apparently it is the only place that does it. I found it fascinating that they just invented a new driving rule to avoid the tracks.

The next day my flight didn’t leave until around 5, so I went into the city and wondered around. I wanted to find a book shop to pick up something to read, but mostly I just wanted to soak in Melbourne. I got a bit lost trying to take a shortcut and never found my bookstore, but it was great anyway. Australian architecture is really fantastic; each building has a life of its own. It isn’t like most cities I’ve been too, because each building is different and unique. They all have character.

Not much else I suppose. I flew back to Brisbane and spent a day before I flew into Christchurch, but that’s another post I suppose.

Beaches and a Rainforest

OK post number two, here we go. Erin left a few days ago, so we were trying to cram in as much as possible into the days between when I got back from The Alice and she had to leave. We went to Stradbroke Island (about an hour outside of Brisbane), Surfer’s Paradise (located in the Gold Coast), and to Springbrook National Park. Chronological order, you know the drill!

To get to Stradbroke it is an hour train ride, a bus, and then a 20 minute ferry. Short enough for a day trip, long enough to be boring.

Erin and I woke up early, intending to make the most of our time, and ended up getting there right after the ferry left right before the two hour lunch break. We explored the ferry harbor to discover it was pretty barren except for the little restaurant and the ticket station.

I think the Island is my favorite thing around Brisbane. It was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. We went on a gorge walk all around the island and there was almost no one there. Our bus driver on the way back told us that it’s practically empty all the time and he never sees a full bus except during festivals. We were the only people on the bus ride back, so we sat and talked with him for a while. He was very nice, I think because everyone he sees is going on a holiday and so is nice in return.

We didn’t really go much into the water at Stradbroke because it was a little chilly. We did, however, have a horse fly adventure. These horse flies would not leave us alone once we got down onto the beach itself. I managed to kill one with my shoe but that seemed to just make them angry. Since we were the only ones on the beach, they didn’t have any distracts and would not stop pestering us. That being said, it was still a really fantastic day.

Surfer’s Paradise is in the Gold Coast, about an hour outside of Brisbane. We went there on a “Cultural Outing” that Study Australia sponsors for us. Our Resident Director Marco met us in the morning at the train station and bought us tickets down. He brought a certain lady friend of his whom he said was his friend but then demanded a high five for “hitting that”. Silly Marco.

He was also participating in “Movember”. I say participating, but really it was more of a trying to participate. Movember is like no shave November in the States, except just the mustache. I think it is associated with a charity of some sort. It’s widely considered to be the most unattractive month of the year. Lots of men with half-grown porno mustaches. Blech.

Any who, Surfer’s Paradise was lovely. It was a true beachy experience, as opposed to Stradbroke which was mainly the Gorge walk. We lay down in the sun and played in the waves, it was glorious. It was like a wave pool only a hundred times better. The ocean here is so wild, you just have to close your eyes and let it sweep you away.

We ate at this fantastic place for lunch that was hot air balloon themed. We sat in this huge booth that was shaped like the basket of a balloon and then had draping above it to resemble the balloon, it was adorably fantastic. I had pancakes! Om nom nom pancakes.

There is really only so much I can say about a pretty beach. Onward to Springbrook National Park!

Erin and I signed up for a full day walk to see glow worms mainly. We had to be in the city fairly early to be picked up and driven to the Gold Coast. Fast forward through the drive and more pickups from Gold Coast hostels and then more driving, we got to the rainforest at around lunch time. A quick lunch of sandwiches and then we went for a walk around. The trees were huge, unbelievably so.

Australians like to name things for what they are, so we learned about Climbing Vines (vines that climb!) and Strangle Plants (these plants that strangle the tree they grow on) and Whip Birds (the male makes a whip noise and if there is a “Cachoo cachoo” after that means he has found a lady friend).

We saw some waterfalls which were just flipping cool. One was through a hole in the rock and fell into a cave with a circle of light falling around it. Another we got to walk under as the rock jutted out over the path. The best one was a giant one which had a pool in the bottom we could swim in. Most people didn’t have their bathing suits so didn’t swim; Erin and I went down and dipped in our feet.

We had some cool views from the top of our hike, blah blah there are only so many positive adjectives one can use to describe scenery before the words begin to lose meaning and I feel as though those should be saved for the truly spectacular. Highlights being the waterfalls in terms of scenery we saw.

During the walk we got to walk through a giant crevasse in the rock, which was pretty snazzy.

After the rainforest walk we went to this little place that was some land which some rich potter guy gave to the tour. I’m not entirely sure what the deal was, but he had cultivated a lot of glow worms and wanted people to be able to see and enjoy them. There was shop there to buy overpriced souvenirs and out back was a whole host of birds.

The birds were really cool, I must confess. They gave us handfuls of sunflower seeds and the brightly colored parrots would fly down and land on your hands to eat. Some people got creative and put seeds on their heads and had birds all over. They were kind of mean to each other, pushing and pecking to get to the seeds when there were plenty to go around. I had one which really didn’t want to climb onto my hand but would chase away all the other birds from my seeds. Little jerkface.

After feeding the birds we got to see the glowworms. They wouldn’t let us take pictures, as they distress the worms, though I imagine it would be like trying to take pictures of the stars. There were little green speckles of light all across this cave which we walked through, and it was really quite lovely.

Sorry this is a bit brief; I’m actually in New Zealand at the moment trying to catch up on a few things so I can start writing about the various adventures I’ve been having here. Sorry, folks, I’m writing when I have time but I’d rather be out having adventures than recounting them.