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Published: March 20th 2008
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I've spent the past couple of days on two excellent trips into the Victoria countryside. On Tuesday I spent a day on the Great Ocean Road, and on Wednesday I went wine tasting in the Yarra Valley - so plenty of photos of rocks and vinyards coming up!
We had another lovely sunny day for the Great Ocean Road, but thankfully it was 15 degrees cooler than it had been previously, at a very pleasant 24. After leaving the city, our first stop was for coffee and biscuits at the lighthouse that was used in Round The Twist - not sure if anyone remembers watching that on CBBC? After that we set off down the ocean road proper, which is a gorgeous drive with lots of twists and turns, and fab views. The hills along the road are covered in eucalyptus trees which are home to lots of wild koalas, and at one point we stopped to look at three of them sitting high up in the branches. They were more lively than the ones in the zoos and one of them even crawled along a branch! This is a major burst of activity for koalas, which spend 20 hours
a day sleeping in order to digest their food which is very hard for their stomachs to break down.
After that we stopped briefly at an area of cool rainforest for a short walk, before heading into Apollo Bay, a pretty seaside town with a lovely beach. We had lunch here, and then carried on to the most famous section of the road where there are lots of viewing points that give you a great view of the Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge and London Bridge. These are all rock formations that sit in the sea just off the coast, and feature in all the photos that you'll see in tourist brochures for this area. By the time we arrived the weather had got much cloudier and windier, and it felt quite like England to be standing under grey skies in a strong cold wind by the sea! The rock formations are amazing, and the yellow colours contrast with the light blue of the sea to create lots of good photo opportunities. Our guide told us a funny story about London Bridge - this used to be a double natural archway connected to the mainland, but one day in
1990 the first arch fell into the sea leaving the second one as an island. Unfortunately this was in the day when you were allowed to walk out onto the bridge, and at the time it fell in there were two people on the end of the outcrop who got stranded. Other people who were on the mainland and saw everything happen jumped in their cars and drove to the police station, where the officer on duty thought that their cries of "London Bridge has fallen down" were a very good joke and refused to believe that anything had happened. You've got to admit it doesn't sound very believable! Anyway, eventually rescue helicopters were called but before they arrived the rolling news choppers turned up and started circling the rock to film the rescue live. Everyone wondered why the couple stranded on the rock sat down and covered their heads at this point...eventually it turned out that they were married, but not to each other and had come out to the Great Ocean Road because they thought no-one they knew would see them there carrying on their affair. They weren't expecting it to be broadcast live on two national news
channels!
Hopefully the attached pictures show what a lovely area of the country this is. I had a great day out and our guide made it lots of fun with his silly stories.
Yesterday I headed off in a small group of just ten people to taste wine at four of the wineries in the Yarra Valley. Our first stop was De Bortoli, a large vinyard that makes delicious sparkling muscatos as well as a good range of reds and whites. I paid an additional $3 (about 1.50) to taste some cheese and tried a yummy goat's cheese in oil, a hard cheese from Tasmania and three others which were all very tasty. We then moved on to Train Trak, a very small and recently opened vinyard where we tasted all the seven wines that they make before having a lovely lunch of antipasti and wood-fired pizza, with a glass of wine and coffee to finish. Our guide for the day was a friendly German lady who told us that we'd enjoy the day as long as we liked eating and drinking, which was certainly true!
After lunch we went to Yering Station, the Yarra's oldest vinyard,
which again had a good selection to try including two sparkling wines and some yummy dessert wine and port. Our final stop was Domain Chandon, which is owned by Moet et Chandon who have about four of these Domaines around the world to help them meet demand for their sparkling wines. Obviously they can't sell what's produced here as champagne, but it's made to the same standards as their French bottles and tastes delicious. We had a short tour to see the wine being produced, and then had a full glass of our choice with some bread, cheese and relish before a short tasting session of the other wines. The landscape here was beautiful and we had a great view from the glass-walled restaurant.
I'm really glad that I went on these two trips as I had lots of fun on both and saw some gorgeous scenery. I also met some really friendly people on the second tour including four very giggly Japanese girls who asked me lots of questions about English and really liked the word "tipsy" which they used a lot! I love the way travelling can just throw you together with people who you've never met
and will never see again, but for one day you can have so much fun together and sit down as a group to enjoy lunch and wine in the sunshine.
I can only add 50 photos per post, so will put the Yarra Valley pics in a separate entry.
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Juicy
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Round the twist
I've just serenaded Stu and Craigy with "Have you ever, ever felt like this, have strange things happened are you going round the twist?" and felt I had to share this with you. What a cool lighthouse! x x