Great Ocean Road - New years eve

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Wow finally writing another blog and this time i think i will be here all night catching up!!

Not a great start on the oz front as my flight from Singapore was delayed by 3hours which meant a long night in the airport after several days already spent travelling. Thankfully the airport was big enough to keep me entertained!

Finally arrived in Adelaide at 11am and, as seems to be becomming a habit of mine, i had no idea what i was doing there!! Fortunately the tourist info at the airport were great and they soon had me booked on a Great Ocean Road tour and my accomodation in Adelaide sorted. So with everything arranged i spent the next few days wondering around Adelaide looking for flip flops and not being a particularly good tourist, so there is not really alot i can say about the city! Excpet that it was very clean, had a friendly atmosphere and loads of space. It felt very wierd to be back in a familar environment, not that i had ever been to Australia before but it was far more like home than any of the previous countries! No frogs on sticks to snack on for starters!!

30/12/08 - Started the Great Ocean Road tour with Grovy Grape tours. It was a 3 day tour finishing in Melbourne and i had a brilliant time. I would definately recommend the company to anyone else looking to do the trip, it was really well organised and most importantly there was always plenty of food!!
On the first night i got to experience my first Aussie BBQ and it certainly lived up to expectations and I also saw my first kangeroo (not on the BBQ, although that was an option if you wanted it!!) what more could i want, all i needed now was to spot a koala and see a deadly snake and i could go home!!!
On the second day we visited the Grampions and climbed the Pinnacles, not as tough as the ones in Borneo but still impressive. Then we were on to the start of the great ocean road. I went for a helicopter ride over the 12 Apostles, which are amazing limestone stacks originally referred to as the Pig and Piglets but renames to make them more attractive to tourists. We also saw a sea stack called London Bridge - it used to resemble a bridge (although not sure it looked like London bridge!!) until it collapsed, unfortunately a couple were left stranded on the remaining stack. Subsequently they had to be resecued and the whole thing of course was broadcast live on the news, at the time nobody could understand why the couple refused to reveal their faces until it was later revealed that they were infact having an affair! What a way to get caught!!
New years eve was spent in a small town called Port Campbell, i think we doubled the population with our tour group! All the usual new years eve celebrations took place included a swim in the sea in the early hours of the morning!! It was bloody freezing!
On the final day we completed the rest of the great ocean road stopping to spot Koalas (now only the deadly snake left to spot!) and visited Bells beach a popular surf beach. The sign at the beach read 'Warning strong current, high surf, and hidden rocks' - not really sure i would want to surf there, but it confirms what i already suspected - Australians are crazy!! Finally after a brilliant fish and chip lunch we arrived in Melbourne.

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Photos

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There is actually a koala up that tree!!