Blogs from Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia, Oceania - page 7

Since it was a long bank holiday weekend, we took the opportunity to venture down to the Great Ocean Road especially as the offer to borrow our relations car was there too. We were off to experience the rugged magic of the Great Ocean Road coastline, the beauty of the Otways countryside and the natural wonders of the new Great Otway National Park, rainforest and waterfalls.....so off we set first thing Saturday morning, first stop being Colac – a bustling regional centre that serves the surrounding rural areas and is the gateway to the Great Otway National Park with a huge lake (Lake Colac) ....oh and good coffee!! Next stop on the adventure was the “Otway Tree Top Walk” that the tourists books all seemed to recommend. Perched high in the rainforest, the Otway Fly provides ... read more

After an hour of thoroughly but accidentally exploring downtown Melbourne in our rental car, we made our way to the coast of Victoria! And a huge Kudos to our driver, who managed to keep cool while trying to navigate a foreign city, where they drive on the left, with directions that were a bit dodgy! The drive started out a bit dull, since we still had to make our way to the coast, but quickly improved as the afternoon approached. Once we made it to the coast, the drive was spectacular and picturesque, and we stopped at several scenic look outs. Our first stop was at Bells Beach, which had a beautiful black layer of sand on top of red. As the waves crashed violently against the shore, wavy lines of red were revealed. It reminded ... read more

We woke up early the next morning and the caravan park put on a free pancake breakfast for everyone so we had pancakes! Yum!! we drove down to the harbour area where someone built a replica of an old 1600’s boat so we took a few pics and dad talked to a local fisherman of course. On our way back to Melbourne we stopped at Cheese World. A local place that makes all kinds of cheese locally. We could have spent hours in there. We tried just about every cheese and we all walked out of there with heaps of cheese. It was much sunnier today and we stopped at a lookout called Bay of Islands. It was beautiful there! The last stop we needed to see was London Bridge. At one time the bridge had ... read more

10, 11 and 12 Feb Slept from 5 pm to 3 am and forewent dinner. Writing our blog and listened to the sounds of dawn breaking. After a good breakfast it was farewell to Robyn and off to see the The 12 Apostles (previously known by less salubrious names such as the pig and sucklings), Bay of Islands and London Bridge (which collapsed in 1979 and one of Robyn’s friends was stranded for several hours before being taken off by helicopter. Then it was about turn and a 3 ½ hour drive back to Melbourne for our flight to Sydney. While waiting for the flight we were treated to a brilliant display of juggling and balancing by a very bendy Chinese lady as part of the Changi Airport Year of the Rabbit celebrations. We arrived half ... read more

Op 9 februari vlogen Lisa en ik van Christchurch naar Melbourne. Vroeg in de middag kwamen we na een trein- en taxireis aan bij de Clayton campus, waar Lisa het komend semester een kamer heeft. De rest van de dag hebben we daar een beetje rondgehangen, want zo'n maandje in Nieuw-Zeeland is toch wel vermoeiend. De volgende ochtend moest ik op een (wederom) belachelijk tijdstip vertrekken om de bus naar Adelaide te halen. Het was een 3-daagse reis met een klein busje. We hadden een hele gezellige groep met mensen uit Finland, Noorwegen, Italië, Duitsland, UK en Australië. De Great Ocean Road is een geweldig mooie weg langs de kustlijn bij Melbourne in de buurt. Verder hebben we veel wildlife gezien: kangoeroes, koala's, emoes en papegaaien. Nog even gebabbeld met de locals in een plattelandspub. Gisteravond ... read more