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Published: April 7th 2008
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G'day all,
greetings from the city of Melbourne, where I'll be staying for the next couple of weeks. in the next blog I'll tell more about this great city.
My
last week in Adelaide was horrible, VERY BORING because I wasn't working. I worked only for 4 days packing down a festival site. I couldn't get earlier out of the city because all tours were fully booked. But finally I left Adelaide on a tour towards Melbourne, through the Grampians National Park and the Great Ocean Road.
Grampians National Park is located in the west of the
state of Victoria and covers an area of 1670 square km (almost 4x the size of Curaçao). The places we visited here were the Mackenzie Falls, which are the highest in Victoria, and the Mt. Zero. after a long and nice hike you arrive at the peak, from where you can enjoy some beautiful views of the Victorian landscape. We spent the night at an accommodation site in the national park and it became pretty cold at night. The area is full of kangaroos and a big one came near to
our rooms that night. There were also white kangaroos, which I saw for the first time. The landscape was pretty dry near the border with South Australia, but the further east you go, the greener it becomes.
At the Grampians N.P we visited also the
Brambuk Aboriginal Cultural Centre, where you can see and read a lot about the Aboriginals who lived in Victoria. Only 98%!o(MISSING)f the Aboriginal population survived the killings by those (stupid, self-fish, egoist) Europeans in the 1800's. All the time I read about these things, it fills me with anger, although it happened a long time ago. But especially because nowadays there are websites like http://www.stormfront.org, which is a group of racist neo-nazi's (they call themselves "white nationalists")...but in fact the hate all non-whites: Blacks, Asians, Jews, Latino's etc. They are fully against immigration and multicultural societies, while both were created because of the Europeans traveling around the world, taking land from locals and killing them. Anyway....I'd better stop writing about this. When you have the time, just spend maybe about 30 minutes on www.stormfront.org forum and read some of the postings.....it's disgusting and sick that there are still so many of such people on
this globe today in 2008.
The Great Ocean Road was completed in 1932 and runs along the south coast of Victoria (southeastern Australia) and is about 275 km long. At the time, the Australian Government wanted to develop the area and they started with the construction of the road. A popular place along this road is Torquay, a small town where the surfing brands Ripcurl and Quicksilver were born. It's also home to an annual surf championship and everyday many surfers can be seen in the area. Along the coast of the Great Ocean Road there are several fantastic rock formations, all of them formed due to erosion by the sea waves. The most popular ones are the Twelve Apostles, London Bridge and Loch Ard Gorge. We saw the Twelve Apostles at sunset, which was absolutely beautiful. The London Bridge used to have two arches, but in 1990 one of the arches collapsed, leaving the rock as it is nowadays. When this happened, there was a romantic couple on the rock and they were left isolated after the collapse. A few hours later they were rescued with a helicopter and the whole operation was transmitted live on TV. The
wife of the man was also watching...LOL!
In the Otway National Park, along the Great Ocean Road, we had a beautiful hike in (one of) the oldest temperate rain forest(s) in the world.
After I arrived in Melbourne, I spent only 2 nights there and flew to
Tasmania. I went together with Luuk, a 21 year old Dutch guy I met in Darwin. I told him that I'll be in Melbourne and then go to Tasmania and he joined me on the trip. We flew from Melbourne to Hobart, capital of Tasmania. Tasmania is an Australian island south of Victoria and has an area of about 68.000 square km which is more than 1,5 x the size of The Netherlands. Only about half a million people live on the island. It's the southern most part of Australia and it does get pretty cold there! The first European to set foot on the island was a Dutch man called Abel Tasman in 1642....the island is named after him. The island is gorgeous, blessed with very beautiful and unique flora and fauna. During our trip we visited some beautiful beaches, mountainous areas with snow and several waterfalls and rain forests.
A huge part of the island is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Cradle Mountain is the highest peak on the island (1545m) and is located in a National Park with the same name. The top was constantly covered with clouds when we did a hike in the National Park. The most beautiful beaches were at the Freycinet National Park in eastern Tasmania. The sand is soft, the water is clear...but you'll be only able to swim in the summer there because the water is cold. We visited the spectacular, 104 meters high Montezuma Falls, after more than 1 hour hiking through a dense temperate rain forest to get there.
The island is full of wildlife with several kangaroos, penguins and possums among others. And also the well known
Tasmanian devil! The animal became famous after the creation of the cartoon-character "Taz" by Warner Brothers. In fact, the animal in small and doesn't turn around like a tornado, cutting trees down etc. They have very sharp teeth and they love to eat meat. These unique creatures are protected on Tasmania to prevent their extinction, like happened with the Tasmanian tiger. The last Tasmanian tiger died in a zoo in
the early 1930's.
Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, is not a very big city and it seems a bit boring. We spent only 2 days here. We walked around the city center and visited the Maritime Museum. During my last night in Hobart, I went out with Luuk and some other people from the tour and we had a good time. There I met two girls from Tasmania, who took me to another club where I stayed with one of them until late in the night. I had a good night! In Hobart there are several places to go out,...more than what I thought. I've been in three different places that night.
So now I'm in Melbourne and I'll stay here for a couple of weeks and try to work. I don't know exactly how long I'll stay here. I might get a job in a hotel in Marree, outback South Australia (6 hours north of Adelaide) at the end of this month. I had to send my CV to them and the lady called me and said she was impressed and asked if I'm interested to start at the end of the month. She'll call back
within a week or two, but I think I'll call her before she calls me. It would be a nice opportunity to save money because you don't spend money there.
In Melbourne I'll probably meet with Andrew, George and Jackson. All three are friends of each other and I met them in Darwin while they were there on holidays. Same with Belinda, who I met in Darwin and I'll go to Bendigo (central Victoria) for a few days to meet Micheal, who I also met in Darwin.
My first impression of Melbourne is very positive I must say.....more positive than Sydney. I'll explore the city these coming weeks and write about it in the next blog.
That's all for now. Take care you all and a big hug!
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Arelys Meulens
non-member comment
LOL! The shape of the tree you're standing at the Old Temperate Rainforest looks very familiar. It reminds me of a joke by Eddie Griffin. Other than that Tasmania looks very amazing! I love the scenery. I also liked the hanging bridge a lot. Keep taking pictures! Arelys