Great Ocean Road

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I'm now in Melbourne and finished the first talk today at University of Melbourne - two more to go. However, I had an amazing weekend hanging out with Bruce's mom and brother (and his mom's friend). They were a hoot! We saw some amazing sights along the Great Ocean Road and I took way too many photos. There were so many awesome views of the ocean, the cliffs, the rock formations and the wildlife to capture. I took the train out to Geelong on Saturday morning and they picked me up from the train station and we headed to Port Campbell on an inland road (faster) to hit up the Twelve Apostles and then wind our way along to Lorne (where we spent the night in this huge apartment and had an amazing tapas dinner and lots of red wine). The weather wasn't the best as it was a bit rainy and windy, but we saw the sun occasionally and the views and company more than made up for the cold and wind. Fortunately, Dan was patient in driving around 3 gabbing women around for 2 days. Whew!

We saw an echidna waddling around at one of the places we got out to walk around. We also saw some koalas hanging out in a stand of eucalyptus trees off a dirt road. Some kangaroos were lounging around at the golf course and tons of birds (parrots, cockatoos, water birds, finches, magpies, etc.) everywhere. The flowers and plants were also gorgeous. There were tons of surfers in the area (in spite of the chilly temperatures). On the way back to Geelong (where Dan lives), we stopped at the Split Point lighthouse (so charming) and ended up at Dan's apartment and I got to meet the infamous traveling monkey before taking the train back to Melbourne. Tonight I am meeting up with Val and Andy for dinner and we are going to swap stories before they head out to the Great Ocean Road. Cheers!

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Photos

rainbow
this gorgeous rainbow came out while driving down the road

echidna
which is like a porcupine

dan taking in the view
or maybe Dan trying to figure out how to get rid of us

kangaroos at the golf course
unfortunately, we couldn't get too close since on a private golf course

flowers everywhere
calla lillies growing wild

the infamous traveling monkey
he's pouting cuz he had to stay home