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.