Day 11 - More of the Great Ocean Road

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The second day of our bus tour we hoped would bring us more animals, and it did. Now since we were not staying in the hostel, we were not first on the bus, so Chester lost her comfy 2-seater and was stuck in a single seat. We think most people are a little intimated by Kirsten and her seat was safe and waiting for her. This day was also a lot of stop and go. We went back to the 12 Apostles to the other side of the park and explored the beaches and caves that have been created by the waves. There were many more limestone formations in the water and the views were quite breathtaking. We visited the site called London Bridge. Again we saw more huge limestone formations that stretched out into the ocean. Part of the bridge collapsed though so they no longer let anyone walk on it. The story goes that a couple was on the rock when one part of the bridge collapsed. They were stranded on the rock and had to be rescued by helicopter. After getting saved, the couple kept trying to conceal their identities from the press and cameras. Turns out, they were married to other people and were having a little holiday tryst. When you make international news like that, don’t think you can keep the affair under wraps.
We continued to drive down the Great Ocean Road and would stop here and there to observe more rock formations and walk the beaches. We stopped at a whale watching spot, but only saw three sad surfers missing every wave that came in. No whales, bummer, but we did see the one the day before. We kept moving on to another national park and hiked the trails inside an extinct volcano. There was a huge pond/lake in the middle of the crater and a hiking trail around it. On the hike we spotted several Emu. One even hissed at Joyce, the Dutch girl. We spotted many birds, Australian Magpies, black swans and others. A black swam family, the father, mother and their babies were all swimming together. The babies must have been adopted though, they were all white. At the end of the hike we still hadn’t seen any kangaroos, but one more koala. And this one actually started to move around. First he scratched himself, they are quite flexible animals, and then he spotted his on-lookers and started to climb higher in the tree. He would pause and eat leaves, then scratch and then go higher up in the tree. We were actually finally able to get a good picture of his face, so not all of our koala pictures are fuzzy butts. The rain started up again a little bit, but not bad. We headed to our final park to hopefully see some kangaroos. Our wishes were granted as we drove up to the park. There was bunches of them all eating by the parking lots. Most of them were pretty small, and they were so cute. There was a huge father and mother kangaroo. She had a baby Joey in her pouch too. When she would bend down to eat, he would pop his head out of her pouch and eat some grass as well. It was pretty cool!
For our second night of accommodations, we were all in cabins. The 8 women stayed in one house, the boys stayed in another house and we stayed in our own cabin with our own bathroom. The cabin was freezing, oh yeah, it is winter here. The gas heater fired up, but it took forever for it to get warm, then it stopped all together and we had to get it going again. We were better off than the big house though, the girls’ heater did not start up for a few hours, until Kirsten and Sophia got it working. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with meat sauce. The food was fine, but the conversation was great. We really connected with Sophia, Robyn (Brit), Moyra (Scott), Luisa (Italian) and Avril (Aussie). We did not however connect with the Germans. There was mother/daughter team of Germans who drove us up the wall the entire trip. The daughter, who was probably in her mid-20s, would never shut up. She talked the entire trip. She grabbed the front seat next to Kate and didn’t stop talking. This is a girl who has done everything and knows everything, yet she’s never been to the states or any of the places we have been to. The German mother was a doozey as well. Let’s just say this mother needs to remember that she is only mother to one person on the trip, not the rest of us. If the dishes were not cleaned the way she wanted them, then you learned the hard way. She actually slapped Kirsten’s hand after Kristen retrieved the hot water to wash our lunch dishes. It took every ounce of constraint to not hit her back. So Kirsten figured we didn’t have to help with clean up since we dumb Americans don’t know how to do the dishes. Then the Germans kept making comments about us not helping with anything.
Unfortunately, by the end of the second day, Kirsten started battling a cold that was turning into a sore throat. She was quite miserable especially when it felt like daggers stabbing her throat every time she swallowed.

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Photos

cool stuff
limestone formations along the coast

Kirsten
She won't quit her day job.

Chester
London Bridge