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Published: August 8th 2007
Brekkie Messiness Autopia Tours is going to pick us up at 8:15am, so we wake up early and even have enough time for breakfast. Unfortunately, the brekkie is not ready at Base, and most of the other restaurants on Acland St. are still closed. The Galleon Café, our first stop on day one of our stay here, is open but it’s full and we are not disposed to wait. I know McDonald’s has breakfast starting at 7am, so we head in that direction. Leroy orders the usual breakfast with pancakes, but since they don’t come with sausage here, he also orders a sausage mcmuffin without cheese. I take the same mcmuffin but with cheese. They give us our order and tell us they’ll bring the missing mcmuffin to our table. I am about to start eating when I decide I want some ketchup. On getting it, they hand me the missing mcmuffin and I mistakenly start eating the one without cheese. This is just another ditzy mistake on my part, not as bad as Miss Saigon, but I’m 0 for 2 as far as Leroy is concerned. I am practically finished with it when he asks if I’ve eaten his mcmuffin,
and I have. In my guilt, I drop some of the ketchup-laden mcmuffin I’m holding, and my new white carpenter capri pants are done. And I mean done. I had ketchup in at least eight places, including my “I will not love you long time” tanktop. I have to go back to Base and change, as well as wash my clothes in the sink. Luckily, we have plenty of time… just enough for me to get everything done and walk downstairs to join the Autopia tour.
The Great Ocean Road Our tour guide is Steven, and he is awesome. He is an avid traveler as well, and I am looking forward to seeing the sights of the Great Ocean Road again. We start off with about an hour on the highway with nothing to see, so most of us on the coaster take an early morning nap. There are 20 passengers - a mix of Irish, Dutch, American, and other tourists. Our first stop is Bells Beach, which I remember from the last scene of Point Break, that movie with Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Lori Petty, and Gary Busey. In that 90s surfing movie, Patrick Swayze talks of a
Bells Beach
Leroy is impressed with with surfer dudes. He's watching one wipe out...the emergency doc in him feels for the surfer dude.50-year storm that will happen on Bells Beach, Australia, and of course, he plans to be there for the gigantic waves. Bells Beach, in real life, does not have superhigh waves, but it does have really long ones that are great for surfing. Oh, and in real life, that last scene of Point Break was filmed in Oregon, Steven tells us. Bells Beach is nice, but the grey weather that has descended on Melbourne makes the scene less than it could be. It was 35°C yesterday and about 19°C today with forecasts for showers. It is windy and cold outside, and we take a few pictures and head back into the van. We then head to the Split Point Lighthouse for more photos. We also have a tea break here, where one of the Dutch girls paid little attention to her bag as she knocked into Meli causing her to spill her tea on her windbreaker. This would not be the last run-in with this klutz. After that, we stop at nice beaches and a memorial arch for veterans who worked on the Great Ocean Road around the time of the Great Depression… but we’re waiting for the highlights, which
Bells Beach
Surfer Dude are the Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge, and London Bridge.
First, though, we have to stop for lunch. Just prior to lunch, we stopped for a brief tour of a rain forest and true to its name we got doused. The downpour was short-lived and did not severely impact the exploration. There were ferns similar to the ones on New Zealand, trees with openings at the base ideal for hit and seek, fancy foot bridges. While attempting to take a photo of Steven, who was giving us a schpiel about the forest, the Dutch chick from above placed her right hand on the left shoulder of another woman and straight up moved her to the said. When the woman turned around, the Dutch girl said “it’s for the photo.” One more pit stop before lunch was to a trail a trees inhabited by koalas. These guys sleep 20 hours a day, so it was no surprise that we didn’t get any video or pictures of one in action. They were all curled up in the trees, sleeping.
We drive past Lorne, a popular beach town, and onto Apollo Bay, another beach town. At Apollo Bay, we park and
Bells Beach
Surfer dudes and dudettes....they are the little black dots in the water. get off the van and head into a restaurant where they’ve prepared our sandwiches. Leroy and I had both requested chicken and avocado on focaccia but since we got off the van last, some of the other passengers must have changed their mind and taken our sandwiches. We waited a bit and got new ones, and then sat in the restaurant even though most of the other people left to eat elsewhere. This gave us the chance to talk to Steven a bit more about his travels through Europe and his work doing tours. He is very cool and friendly, right in line with our experience with other Australians in Melbourne so far. Before getting back on the van, I run into a shop and get a fish filet (no chips) because I absolutely love fish ‘n’ chips, especially in Australia!
We then head back onto the Great Ocean Road and it’s a bit of a drive before we get to the Twelve Apostles. I take a nap, while Leroy digs into his book, “Go Tell It On the Mountain” by James Baldwin. When I wake up, we are at the Twelve Apostles. We get off the van and
Bells Beach
That way, mate! walk straight into a strong, cold wind. But the view is ridiculous. We’ve had clouds and rain all day, but the clouds are parting and the sun is putting the beautiful apostles into view. There are actually 15 apostles, and they were once called piglets and not apostles. They are sandstone formations that remain after erosion of the coastal cliffs. So, what we are standing on today will eventually erode away. The sandstone erodes easier than limestone or limestone/sandstone combinations. You look at the apostles and you can see the layers of rock that have deposited over time. Back in the day, farmers named these formations as well as a larger island near them “the sow and piglets.” In the 1950s, they renamed them the Twelve Apostles to make them more attractive for tourism purposes. There were 18 piglets originally. Two crumbled in the 1800s, and the last one fell to pieces in August 2005. From our first vantage point, we could see a pile of rocks, the remnants of the last fallen apostle. Forty minutes of video and photography pass and then we climb back into the van. Our next stop is Loch Ard Gorge, from which we can
take a few walks to see Razorback Rock, more apostles that could not be seen from the first place we stopped, and a beautiful gorge and beach with a shipwreck story.
Loch Ard Gorge is gorgeous (hee hee). The story goes that in the late 1800s, a ship sighted the Melbourne coast and, in step with the tradition of the time, they had a party because they knew that in one day they would be in Melbourne. However, a storm brewed and the captain was caught a bit off guard. He dropped his anchors a bit late, and the ship was thrashing against reef in the storm. So he decided to raise his anchors and take his chances maneuvering through the 150km gap between the coast and King’s Island. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful and the ship sank. Of the 54 passengers, only two survived - an Irish maiden named Eva and one of the crew named Tom. Both were 18 years old. Tom washed ashore on the beach, then went to help Eva who was hanging onto a piece of wood. Then he climbed up from the beach and called for help, and when help came, they rescued Eva.
Split Point Lighthouse
Eagle Rock at Airey's Inlet The press tried to romanticize the story and create a love story between the two youngsters, but in reality, there was no romance and Eva hopped on the next boat to Ireland. For us, the Loch Ard Gorge is a beautiful sight with no danger. The water flows past two large cliffs into a secluded beach and it is mesmerizing.
After Loch Ard Gorge, we drive a few minutes to the remnants of London Bridge, which as the name states, is a formation that looks like a bridge. Pre-1990, you could walk onto the top by crossing a narrow bit of rock that bridged London Bridge to the main cliffs. But in 1990, it crumbled, leaving a couple stranded on it. It turns out that the man and woman were actually having an affair and the media coverage would blow open the scandal. We take a few quick shots of the bridge and head back to the van for the ride home. We stop at Colac for dinner, where our options are McDonald’s, KFC, or a noodle place. All three Autopia buses get there at almost the same time, and all the passengers seem to want noodles, perhaps as
Split Point Lighthouse
The clouds were zooming by it is the healthiest option. We get to the noodle shop and it is packed, but we figure we only have 10 people ahead of us. What we didn’t know was that the last bus called in their order, so our noodles are really #40 on the list. We waited for over 40 minutes, which meant our 30 minute stop was prolonged and it was a bit of a mess. What kept me entertained was finishing Leroy’s book (A Long Way Gone), and Leroy watched the noodle operation. The lady would yell at you much like the Soup Nazi when requesting your order. Then, she would put the ingredients in a metal bowl and put it on a table near the cook. He would get the bowl and cook the ingredients in a wok, adding sauces and spices to order. They do everything quickly, but there are just too many people in line. The order taker was so busy trying to help cook that she wouldn’t even take Leroy’s order for three dim sims (this is what they call their dim sum dumplings). “Not now, I cooking, maybe later” the bossy old Chinese lady told Leroy. With nothing to tide
him over, Leroy stayed hungry til our noodles
finally came. They were tasty, but I couldn’t finish them.
Trying to Make a Night of It At almost ten o’clock, we pulled up at Base and said our goodbyes to Steven who, by the way, really got a kick out of Leroy’s Willis shirt. He called him Willis when he said goodbye. Once at Base, we freshened up and decided to go out for a drink since it was Leroy’s birthday (still). We went to Vineyard, which Steven had talked about and which we had seen multiple times on Acland St. It had the “Let’s Go Recommends” sticker on it, which let me know that a Let’s Go researcher-writer had been there and really liked it… but that is no assurance I will since not all R-Ws like the same kind of scene. And I don’t love it. They have live music, which is cool, but the place is packed and lots of people are smoking. People just keep bumping into me and stepping on me, and lots of them are wasted which is kind of annoying when you’re sober. As Leroy saunters up to the bar, a cougar who
is about to order turns to him and says, “You’re much too gorgeous to wait in line, let me buy you a drink.” He turns to me and says, “I’m getting hit on! What drink should I ask for?” I said he could get whatever but to please not forget that after she buys him that drink, I’m still gonna need one! He does the nice thing and does not let her buy him the drink since he’s not gonna chit chat or dance with her anyway. We get our drinks and move outside where it’s less crowded but a lot more smoky.
Once done with our drinks, we bail on Vineyard and walk around Acland St. instead. Leroy gets a smoothie and we head back to Base and figure we can just get some vodka shots and add it to his smoothie. However, when I order the shots, the bartender gives me a double vodka tonic, and then overcharges me. I tell him that’s not what I ordered and that I wanted the shots alone. He looks at me and just says, “That’s a vodka tonic, that’s what you asked for.” This dude has been a jerk from
the beginning, but calling me a liar goes too far (which reminds me… I still have to email the complaint people at Base Backpackers about this guy). The concierge people have been great, but the Red Eye Bar is bull****. It’s not like it’s a real bar with scary people. It’s a backpacker bar with a bunch of happy 20-somethings. If they’re gonna treat independent traveler types like this, they need to revisit their mission. I talked to the concierge about it, but the first guy just said something like, Oh that’s not our problem here at the reception desk. Uhh, okay, whatever. I was just asking him where I could file the complaint, not to go fix my problem. The second one was more understanding, but I didn’t need either of them. I got the email address I needed, and I’m not sure I’ll be so keen to stay at another Base hostel. I’ve stayed at three (Rotorua and Auckland in New Zealand, and now Melbourne). Anyway, it’s a bit of a sour end to a great day, so we just go upstairs and hang out before falling asleep. Tomorrow, we plan on going to Wicked Sunday of the
Great Ocean Road: Memorial Arch
Or is this the Memorial Arch? We need an Aussie to clarify. Where's Steven when you need him, eh? Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, where chocolates, desserts, cheeses, coffees, and wine will be featured. We have to rest up for the debauchery!
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Eric Harp
non-member comment
No surfing?
Leroy didn't grab a board and shred some waves? Dude.... bummer, man.... bummer.... I'm still jealous of the trip.