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Published: November 28th 2007
Kangaroo
Alex's pictureI'm quite frustrated right now. I either left my USB memory card reader for my camera at the hotel in Melbourne or it fell out in the woods - either way - nobody turned it in and I'm not doing another 3 and a half hour hike to find it before tomorrow morning.
This sucks for a few reasons:
1. I'm down a gig of memory.
2. I'm down the memory card reader.
I was more so bummed because I thought - #3 - my main reason - was that I couldn't transfer my photos from card to computer and there for would have full cards and no way to take more pictures without buying another more. BUT, I just remembered that I have a cord in my camera bag that I've never used that hooks up from camera to computer.
I just took a break from this and transferred my photos, searched the car, and made some phone calls.
That is a relief. I called the Melbourne hotel and they don't have any sign of the card, but will call if they locate it. We left there
Rehab
Julie, who works with Alex, asked him if he was going to Rehab for something since he was leaving work for seven weeks...then we found this restuarant.
::Photo taken on Alex's iPhone:: a couple days ago so if they don't have it on hand now, I don't see it turning up. The best part is that I had already loaded the photos on it to the computer and transferred the ones that I want to upload on my blog back to that card. Not that I can get the darn photos to upload or anything.
Aside from that, we're in Lorne right now. We spent last night in Apollo Bay after leaving Melbourne to drive the Great Ocean Road. Alex and I are adjusting well to driving on the opposite side of the road. I had a harder time remembering my seat belt is on my right and there's no clutch in an automatic...Alex had a harder time with the blinker being on the right and kept turning on the windshield wipers - which I did that a few times myself. We pass signs that say, "Drive on Left in Australia" and a little picture of which lane you should be in. That's scary...seems like if you've gone two hours out of Melbourne and still can't figure out which lane you're supposed to be in - you probably shouldn't be driving.
My feet
after our hike through the woods...crocs have those nice breathing holes that make for dirty feet. It really is incredible out here. So nice to get away from the city. It meant things were a lot quieter and more scenic until tonight. There's some kind of crazy spring break party right outside our room on the beach. I crashed around 7 tonight (maybe even 6) and woke up at 10 to the humpty dump and people screaming, whooping and hollering. On the way to Apollo Bay we saw a seal out on the rocks. They lady we checked in with for our room said it's rare to see them so close to shore, they usually stick to rocks further out in the water. We were going to venture down to see it closer, but a couple went down there walking their dog that scared it away. What a bummer.
Yesterday, Alex and I went to see the 12 Apostles then a light house. The light house access was closed, but the drive there was an adventure. We pulled over discovering Koala Bears...everywhere! As we walked down the street we heard a wild hog snorting, grunting, and getting louder. We broke out into a run and I started planning my emergency pig attack plan in my
head...if I couldn't get into the car on time, I'd jump onto the hood and then the roof if need be.
Turned out that the wild hogs were just trying to spook us. They got very loud and sounded extremely close, but they never actually came out of the woods. I'm okay with that. We pulled the car back into the woods a bit, the noise of the car got the Koala Bear's attention so that they would look in our direction. Right when we were pulling out to leave, Alex noticed a mom and baby bear scooting down a tree trunk and at the same time, a wallaby stuck his head out of the tall grass. The wallaby let me get about 10 to 15 feet close to it while I was trying to get the settings on my camera right to shoot the bears.
I don't do well at all with the subject being back lit. You'll see that in the photos. The small display on my Nikon D70s is killing me. I can't see anything as far as lighting and have to shoot everything on a couple different settings because it'll look great on my
display and to dark or to light on the big screen. Of course even that doesn't mean a heck of a lot until it gets printed since monitor to monitor it's going to be different colors. And depending on the developing place and how they tweak the colors it could be printed different....I miss the 35mm camera and developing the pictures myself in the dark room. 100% control.
Ending that rant and back to the journey...we stayed at The Captain's Bay in Apollo Bay. We had a very spacious studio room. After checking in, we ate then headed out for the previously mentioned adventure then headed home to eat pizza and watch Old School. I bought it for Alex for his birthday right before we left - that movie is a riot. Alex swears he's going to start a fake fraternity based off that movie when I go back to school...now he can take notes and memorize what they do. I don't think the odds are good of him getting Snoop Dog to show up for the parties though.
We left Apollo Bay and back tracked to Lorne, where we are now. THIS place is awesome...the room that
"I swear I was in a meeting!!"
If I opened a bar...this is what I would name it.
This is a random boat we came across... is. I know our apartment is teeny-tiny so it doesn't take much, but this is bigger then where we live. It has a bedroom, bathroom, laundry in the room, a whirl pool bath, big kitchen, a few stairs going down to the living/dining room, and a deck over looking the ocean. I wish we were staying here more then one night.
Before we got here we stopped when we saw a sign for Sheoak Falls...we thought we'd park and take a little hike to the falls, but it wound up being a three and a half hour mostly up hill hike, down hill is almost as tough because by this point the tred on my shoes are filled with dirt making me slid more and we didn't want to trip over rocks, random fallen branches, or our own feet.. I thought for sure someone was going to have to drag me out of there. Just a little reminder of how out of shape I am. We did it - we survived. We explored a cave and one of the highest points on the mountain? hill? whatever it was...we explored it. It was really cool though. Unfortunately we didn't see
a platypus in the river/falls. If I were a platypus, that's where I would have wanted to live, so we were hopeful with no luck.
After checking in we headed to the beach. The water is so cold my skin stung and made me dread each wave. Needless to say, I didn't last long. The beach is beautiful, wish I could have tolerated being in there longer. We made our way to the heated hotel pool and called it good. After dinner, I attempted to read, but was down for the count. Actually, it's a quarter after 12 now so it looks like I'll be heading that way again.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - 8:29 p.m. Welcome to Auckland, New Zealand...the time zone is two hours ahead of Melbourne and 18 hours ahead of the states....I think. I called my dad the other day - it was 10:30 p.m. here and 6:30 a.m. there. Luckily - he's an early riser. There wasn't even a second delay in the conversation, as if I were calling from home. They have a place called Global Gossip that offers international calls for only .04 cents a minute.
Melbourne
The view from the sky lounge The flight was painless from Australia to New Zealand. We spent the whole day in the air port, on the plane, and then arrived here after 6 p.m. - made it to our hotel sometime after 7. We had just enough time to go out for dinner. According to our travel guides, the best steaks are at the place next door to our hotel. So I experienced my first Fillet Mignon. It was down right delicious. Alex got a rack of lamb that I also tried. Not quite as tasty, but good. Though we didn't do much last night other then dinner and a stroll to the harbor - we had a blast hanging out.
Today has been our chill out day. We slept in really late and didn't leave the hotel until after 4 p.m.
We went to the local park and found a place open for breakfast/lunch/dinner (we hadn't eaten yet for the day either). He enjoyed a sea food platter and I had nachos right on the harbor. While he finished his meal I ran off to the visitor center next door to grab brochures before they closed to plan our next big adventure.
If
What?
Me eating steak...Alex insists on recording all meat eating. I were to do this trip again, what I would do differently is:
Not book any accommodation. They have a few groups here that take you off the beaten path to less touristy places where you stay in low budget hostels, cabins, or even camp. I would LOVE to do that. Pack only a back pack and get away from the city.
The places our travel agent booked us are either really close to the city or in the heart of the city. It's nice if you like the city - but all the cities look the same to me and touristy crap drives me nuts...absolutely nuts. It's nice to do a few things like the Sydney bridge climb, but most of it seems like an over priced money scam and I'd rather find things in their natural environment like when we found the koala bears in the woods.
Auckland is the biggest city in New Zealand. "Flat" doesn't seem to exist here. The streets are extreme inclines that remind me of Ithaca, New York. The sidewalks are dirty, our hotel view is a parking garage, and everyone seems to be in a rush to get some
where. The park however, is incredible. Still the extreme hills, but there's people hanging out in the grass, reading books in the benches, and even sleeping in trees. There's a massive tree in the middle of the park that the trunk isn't a solid block, it opens in different areas like tunnels and the branches hang low...you can literally climb up into the middle of it and down onto the ground inside the tree - if you can follow what I'm saying - I didn't take a picture.
After dinner Alex crashed and I've been sorting through what we can do. This is the adventure capitol of the world - the creator of the bungee jumping being from here. I don't know how I feel about bungee jumping - well, no, I know exactly how I feel....NO FREAKIN' WAY!! They do have one though that's controlled and I might consider doing that one with Alex.
This is completely off topic, but if I don't splurge on a wide angle lens soon, I am going to go crazy. I miss the 19 mm lens I had access to for a while. Everything looks so much cooler through a wide
angle. That darn Dave Ramsey class says I have to save though...no credit cards...pay for it in cash. yeah...going crazy.
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dave
non-member comment
My kind of place
That Great Ocean Road? My kind of trip. The picture just gave a hint, but I can see me going for something like that. Great to see you guys are having fun. Back home, the snow is here, the cold is here - but you hippies are having a blast down under. Much love - keep writing!