The 'Not So' Great Ocean Road

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Abandoning the lifestyle of Melbourne was not easy to swallow. In the haste of planning our five weeks in Australia, we hadn’t budgeted more than 48 hours in the megalopolis and were now suddenly faced with 2000 miles of driving over the course of 10 days. Our only comfort: knowing that our long haul was along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, around Kangaroo Island and through some of Australia’s finest wine country (Coonwarra, Barossa and Clare Valley).

After herding our belongings into the Camry, we set out on the M1 for Geelong - the gateway city of the Great Ocean Road. Skyscrapers faded to urban sprawl, then to expansive suburbs and finally desolate farmland marred by the persistent drought plaguing Australia. As we marveled at the lack of greenery, Gina acknowledged how much prettier she found New Zealand. I encouraged her to be patient as we had barely scratched the surface of Victoria (one of N territories), let alone Australia.

Silence was broken a few minutes later when Gina exclaimed like a child about to wet their pants, “I can’t wait to see a kangaroo.”

“Supposedly, they’re everywhere,” I naively responded.

The freeway ended in Geelong and we entered a roundabout with a deluge of directional signs, one pointing towards the Great Ocean Road. Our giddiness escalated as the coastline came into view and we began anticipating the natural beauty the route is so famous for.

Over the next several hours, we wound our way up the often treacherous road, passing through Torquay (a famous surfing Mecca that is home to Rip Curl), Lorne and a handful of otherwise unimportant seaside cities. At one point, we rounded a sharp corner to find several people standing on the shoulder thoroughly entranced by something in the Eucalyptus trees above them. I veered into the soft shoulder sending smalls stones and dust at a retreating family - they weren’t amused. I knew immediately... koalas.

Suddenly, I had a flashback to a Discovery Channel program that my friend Jason Roberts and I caught after a hard day laying tile in Mammoth. In my mind, the narrator carried on about how the oft considered docile koala can be quite vicious. During mating season the male koalas compete to gather a harem (yes, harem) of females that he guards jealously from other males. When the time comes to mate, the male approaches his desired female of the moment, chases her, bites her shoulder forcing her into submission and then has his way with her. Yes, that’s right, he rapes her.

Dumbfounded, Jason and I sat in amusement before laughing our asses off at the absurdity of the documentary.

As Gina darted from the car, I fumbled for the camera hoping to capture a few shots of the elusive marsupials. We clawed our way through some underbrush before encountering, what appeared from a distance a wad of unmoving grey fur, our first specimen. Fighting off the urge to stir the little bugger by shaking his tree, we sat and laughed about the above mentioned documentary which lives infamously amongst my friends. We then proceeded to shoot several photos before retreating to the car and carrying on to our day’s destination: Apollo Bay.

The next morning we woke disappointed to find the sky had clouded over and a persistent drizzle was falling. We were due past some of the Great Ocean Road’s best scenery, including the Twelve Apostles, and couldn’t help but curse the Gods for the lousy weather. Knowing that we had 100kms to travel before the Twelve Apostles we hoped for a miracle - unfortunately, it never manifested itself.

We spent most of the day shooting and re-shooting photos until I finally announced that I’d just “borrow” some stock photos from the Internet.

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Comments

[Sam]

How did Aunt Gina react to the panda?<3

[anonymous]

so cute