Melbourne to Adelaide

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9/26

I have spent the last two days in the most amazing city! Melbourne is buzzing- it's hip, relaxed, sophisticated, fashion-forward, eco-conscious. It really is everything that I have heard it described as. I spent my first day eating fruit and shopping hundreds of stalls at the Queen Victoria Market before getting myself a flat white (latte minus foam, very 'down under') and reading the paper. I know, hard life right? I later met up with my wonderful friends Marc and Mandy, who showed me amazing amounts of hospitality. They took me to my first drive-thru bottle shop (ZOMG!) and we spent the evening chatting over Melbourne Bitters*, tea, and mass quantities of toast and nutella. This morning they took me to the beach at St. Kilda, where we ate pastries from the tiny cake shop and walked along the pier. It was a wonderfully sunny day, and the rest of Melbourne seemed to have the same beach-going idea that we did, because it was absolutely packed. This may be partially because there was a very important "footy" game yesterday- a final apparently. I haven't had much experience with Australian Rules Football, but it seems like a very odd game. It is centered primarily in Melbourne, and involves a rugby ball, an oval-shaped field, a long list of complicated rules, and lots of pushing and shoving (even after the whistle is blown.) The news tells me that final was a bit of a letdown because the score was tied and both teams are coming back next week to replay the game. When I say "coming back" I mean coming from the suburbs to the city, as both teams are Melbourne based of course. I'm not going to lie, Australian sport spectating is probably something that I will just have to leave to the Australians...
Jetpack out.

9/28
I am currently on my way to Adelaide with about 6 hours of bus time left to go, and am thinking that this would be a very good time to write about my two-day tour of the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians. The tour started yesterday morning from Melbourne and was only a short drive to our first stop- Bells Beach, near the home of Quicksilver and RipCurl. We had tea and cookies and watched the surfers show off their skillz for a few minutes before moving on to a campground further down the Great Ocean Road. Our tour guide gave us birdseed in preparation, and I was thinking that we would be throwing the birdseed out to try to get the birds to come closer, but those birds had absolutely no fear of us- they came up and sat on our hands, arms, shoulders, even the tops of our heads! It is really remarkable to see birds like this out in the wild- they are rainbow lorikeets, parakeets, huge king parrots, all just part of normal life here. Like crows or sparrows are to us in the PNW. This campsite we stopped at was also the home to quite a few koalas, who are quite possibly the cutest animal I have ever seen. We even saw a mother and her 3-month-old baby up in the tree digesting, as koalas do. It really was the sweetest little thing! Once the birds were full and the koalas had gotten tired of the paparazzi, we boarded the bus again, heading inland towards the rainforest. We walked a bit of a nature trail to see the (2nd) tallest trees in the world, some gigantic eucalyptus. I was duely impressed but I have seen the 1st tallest trees in the world, so probably not quite as excited as others. Maybe I should go in search of the 3rd tallest trees in the world, just to continue my tall-tree-sighting habit. The trail was very nice though, lots of tree ferns, birds, and a bit of mist. It reminded me a lot of the rainforests in the North of New Zealand, if you replace Eucalyptus with Kauri trees. The next stop was the one I was most excited for. The twelve apostles, which is actually 7 huge orange colored sandstone structures protruding from the beach right off the coast. They were abolutely massive, mysterious, and so photogenic I have about a million pictures of them, so you definitely won't have to rely on my description. The next few stops were all to see similar structures, though none quite as spectacular as the apostles. Finally we headed to the Grampians, where we would stay the night with the hostel all to ourselves. This morning we had a short drive to our first stop, a hike to see McKenzie Falls. While others took pictures, I clambered around on boulders, in search of the best view. At this point it was starting to rain and the next few sights were all a bit wet, but we dutifully marched to each lookout, took the necessary pictures, and filed back onto the muggy bus. We warmed up with some lunch before saying goodbye to our tour guide and continuing on toward Adelaide. It is a full bus and there is a very long drive ahead of us, however I am quite content after a very successful tour!
JetPack out.

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