Advertisement
Hello all!!!
This update is all about the Great Ocean Road (which I absolutely love, is one place I definitely want to go back to in Australia) and The Grampians. Hope you enjoy.
GREAT OCEAN ROAD
Friday 7th May
I was up at 7 and picked up at 7.30 by Fleur my 'Groovy Grape' guide for my trip from Melbourne to Adelaide over the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians. I had wanted to drive myself but it was so expensive to do it on my own and Caryl had really recommended this tour so I knew it would be good. And Fleur was her guide too, so I also knew the food was going to be good (Caz told me about that too!). There were only 7 of us on the tour, which I was pleased about. Marta from Norway, Lena from Sweden, Markus from Switzerland, Marc from Spain and Stephanie from Germany. Nienke, from The Netherlands, got on the bus after me; as she was approaching the road everyone was speculating about where she might be from and I recognised her from the bus I'd taken in Melbourne the previous day, where an Australian lady was talking to both of us and she’d told her she was from The Netherlands! So I guessed right, guess I was cheating though! I did tell them all after. We headed out through Geelong and then Torquay; the gateway to the Great Ocean Road. Torquay is big on surfing and there are a lot of big Ripcurl, Roxy etc shops around. Our first stop after Torquay was Bell's Beach, where the Ripcurl Pro Surf competition is held (it's the longest running surfing competition in the world). OMG that was impressive, the surf I mean - not the surfers 😉 It was much bigger than the surf in Queensland or Bondi and much much wilder! The weather wasn't great so I guess that helped the surf along. The surfers were so so good; I can't believe they are not totally scared by it all, the waves move so quickly. I'd like to go back to that beach just to watch the surfing, was fascinating. We then headed on to Spit Point Lighthouse, which is where they filmed ROUND THE TWIST!!!!! which was my favourite children’s TV program so I was uncontrollably excited ("Have you ever. Ever felt like this. How strange things happen. Are you going round the twist"!). The others didn't get it as it doesn't seem to have been shown in the rest of Europe. The scenery was wild, and as it was raining in the distance there was a really nice rainbow to look at as well. I hadn't realised that the Great Ocean Road had been hand built by soldiers (for soldiers as a memorial) returning from World War I. It's therefore a driveable war memorial. It was built between 1918 and 1932 and the soldiers were paid $1 a day at the time to build it; when it was opened it cost people 25c to drive over it. You don't have to pay to use it now. We stopped off at Lorne which Fleur describes as an "eclectic seaside town". There did seem to be a mix off all sorts there. We then had a 15 minute wait at roadwork’s (didn't expect that on the Great Ocean Road, but then I remembered it is a road, not just a tourist attraction) and then stopped at the caravan park next to the Koala Cove Cafe to see some wild Koalas, which can apparently move fast if they need to (40kmph). They are such funny little things! We also saw lots of Rosella's and Green Parrots. All along the journey we had lots of very interesting conversations and debates. The first of which was about Australia's relationship with Britain, the Queen and the Commonwealth. Fleur said there was a Referendum on weather Australia should be part of the Commonwealth and the decision was 'Yes', on the basis of cost (it would be too expensive to change flags and the like). We had lunch at Apollo Bay (lovely lunch, fish n chips) and I had to go to the pharmacy to sort my feet out as I really couldn't walk. I came out with all sorts of antiseptic, cream and plasters. My feet meant that I missed out on the rainforest walk later that afternoon, but Fleur took photos for me and I have seen a lot of rainforests now. We then had a lot of driving, along very windy roads which actually made me feel travel sick, which never happens! In the end I had a sleep which was annoyed about as you can't sleep on the Great Ocean Road, it’s just not right!!! It was only for 10 minutes though. When I woke up I felt better and we had a different view to look at; we were driving through a vast wild area which reminded me of Dartmoor (there was a town called Princetown, think there is one of those on Dartmoor?), with the Southern Ocean to the left. It was beautiful.
We arrived at the famous Twelve Apostles (sandstone stacks) when it was wet and windy - I loved it! I think it made it more dramatic, especially with the waves crashing around the base of the lighthouse. I can see why they are famous; it was a pretty cool view. We then walked down Gibson’s Steps to the beach for a different view, that was great too, very moody, such a crazy array of waves, all bringing in really thick foam that stayed on the beach, we nearly got caught by it a couple of times! After the climb back up the steps we went to our hostel, driving across the darkening 'moors' watching the sunset, which framed the dark landscape with a beautiful pink sky. Our hostel was in the middle of nowhere, nice and quiet though. Fleur set about cooking dinner, didn't want any help! I had a bit of a crisis when I realised we were having chicken and realised nobody had asked me if I was vegetarian so I hadn't told anyone and therefore Fleur didn't know (it's best to say I'm vegetarian as I still often can't face meat, especially chicken, don't think I'll ever eat that again). I tried to psych myself up to give it a go but it was no good, as soon as I smelled it cooking I knew I couldn't do it so had to tell Fleur. She had lots of other nice stuff she could give me so all good. We had a nice evening eating, drinking goon (which has been confirmed as being anything in a box - it means 'flagon' which means 'in bulk') which I still like, playing Ring of Fire and Spoons and then watching the Eternal Batchelor. It was early to bed as had to be up at 6.
Saturday 8th May - Great Ocean Road and THE GRAMPIANS - GARIWERD
Fleur got us up at 6. I had a bump on my head as had an accident in the night. I got up to go to the toilet, banged my head on the wall looking for the light (which in the morning I found was right next to the door, just at a really funny height so didn't feel it there, Marta did the same!) and then somehow got locked out of the room! It was freezing cold, I was in my PJs and it took a good 5 minutes to wake Nienke up so she could let me back in! I don't even know how it locked, we didn't have a key. Anyway, after breakfast we went back to the Twelve Apostles to see them in the morning light. It was different, it wasn't so stormy (but the Ocean was still very loud) and seemed clear and fresh. The sky looked nice too. We continued along the Great Ocean Road 'Shipwreck Coast' (the previous bit is known as the 'Surf Coast' where there have been around 700 shipwrecks between here and Melbourne, 200 of which have been found and 50 of which recorded (i.e. what was on the ship etc). One of the most famous was the Loch Ard, which was built in Scotland. In the early hours on a day in 1878 it struck the island just outside of Loch Ard Gorge (wasn't called that at the time of course). It took 15 minutes to sink and only two people survived - Tom Pearce and Eva Carmichael. Tom saved Eva and as they were both 18 the locals wanted a bit of a romantic ending but it didn't happen. From the viewpoint overlooking the gorge you can see how the Twelve Apostles are formed. Basically waves crash around the base of a section of land that comes out of the mainland, gradually creating an arch that eventually crumbles away. That's the geological explanation, would be interested to know if there is an Aboriginal Dreamtime story (Fleur didn't know any). Whilst we were watching the waves some were so big they splashed higher than the cliff (which was high) when they crashed into it! We then stopped off at London Bridge, named after London Bridge - you'll see why if you look at the photos. There is a funny story about when one of the arches collapsed.......it happened when a couple had walked over and before they got back it had fallen away. It attracted a lot of media attention (apparently some minister was visiting the area at the time so camera crews were there) and whilst waiting to be rescued they were filmed. But, they were a bit shy, covering their heads etc. When they were rescued they raced back to their car, still covering their heads, and drove away. Turns out they were having an affair and not supposed to be together; their partners were watching the whole incident live on the evening news!!!!
All the way along the coast I was fascinated by the waves, I don't really know how to describe them, they were breathtaking. I took some video so I could remember. The spray was creating rainbows in the water. We stopped off at 'The Grotto' which is a kind of natural picture frame. I watched the water there too, rushing into the gorge and then being sucked out (took more video, really does help me remember). (I know have a big thing about waves, as well as twilight). We stopped at the Bay of Martyrs; nobody is 100% sure why it's called that but most likely it’s in memory of the Aboriginal people that lived and died there. When Europeans arrived there was an 80% reduction in the Aboriginal population. Whilst there we saw a Sea Eagle/Osprey (not sure exactly what it's called, neither was Fleur) which was nice, especially when you saw its size compared to a seagull! There is a big difference! Our last stop on the Great Ocean Road was the Bay of Islands - which was just a nice view and we saw Cormorants/Shags (again not sure exactly what they were, think Cormorants and Shags are actually the same thing). We had a bit of a conversation over who found Australia (European wise. As we know the Aboriginals have been here for thousands of years) as a shipwreck has been found that is thought to be 1000 years old. I already knew it wasn't the British (i.e. Captain Cook). The Dutch landed in Western Australia a couple of hundred years before and the Spanish and Portuguese travelled round to mat it. It's just the British that decided to colonise it (panicking one of the others would first I guess).
We headed inland where there was a big change in scenery - no longer 'Dartmoor' like, more bright green grass cattle country. We stopped at Tower Hill which is a volcano crater (erupted 30 thousand years ago) and was Victoria's first National Park. We saw Wedge-Tailed Eagles and Emu's at the base. And then we entered the Grampians - Gariwerd National Park where the mountains are 4/5 million years old - the highest of which is Mount William at 1000m. We went to our hostel at Hall's Gap and had lunch there. It was a nice little place, apparently overrun by Cicadas at times - so bad and so noisy that they have to close schools. There were wild Kangaroos in the field behind the hostel, which came right up close at night. After lunch we went for a walk to Mackenzie/Wentworth Falls (I'm a bit confused on the name, think it might actually be the same place...) which was nice. There were some really pretty wild flowers on the track and the falls were nice. We had fun watching Nienke trying to climb the rock next to it for a photo, she got up there though! It was quite a climb back up to the top, 3 hundred and something steps. We then drove out to 'The Balconies' which give a great view over the Grampians. We walked through a bit of forest to get there, where we could see the remnants of the bush fires in 2005. It burned 1/2 of the 70k hectares in the national park. The view was awesome, beautiful mountain peaks in the distance and a valley filled with forest. The sun started going down and as we were walking back down the track we could see an amazing sunset through the trees, all misty and red which made the mist look pink. We didn't make it to a clearing in time to take a good photo though. We got a cool view of the sun's reflection in a lake though. The drive back to Hall's Gap was nice, it was twilight so I was happy (you may have got by now I like that time of day).
We arrived back at the hostel, made our beds (lovely duvets again!) and got started on dinner (Fleur let us help this time, I chopped veg, am getting better at it, not so cack-handed and can usually manage without cutting myself) which was a BBQ. It was such a nice BBQ, a gourmet one - we had BBQ veg and potato patties which were so so nice. We drank more of our goon and spent the evening talking again, such nice interesting conversations (I was already started to love all the guys). We talked about drinking ages in different countries and how it affects the drinking culture. And football stadiums; Marc, who lived in Oxford (it’s one of his favourite cities in the world, which is something considering some of the amazing cities he’s been to, and he lives in Barcelona) and went to watch Oxford United at the Kassam thinks it's a better stadium than the Boca Juniors stadium, where he went to watch Boca Juniors!! I said to him, "did you notice the Oxford one only had 3 sides?!!!!!" Apparently it's still better than Boca Juniors!!! I wonder what he’d think of the County Ground. Anyway.... We also talked about music where Markus introduced me to 'Them Crooked Vultures'. And the English language (I ended up being an English teacher from then onwards, Marta and Nienke particularly wanted to learn my accent and wanted me to help them with their grammar, which meant them wanted me to correct them when they said something wrong, which wasn’t often as they were so good); they complained about our tenses (which are confusing when you compare them with other European languages) and the slang we use. And we talked about colonies and conquests and that the Spanish nearly took over Britain (according to Marc, Spanish ships were found with enough armoury on them to take over Britain). And the European Union, economy and state benefits; it was interesting to learn what taxes you pay in other European countries and what you get back for it - the Spanish and Norwegian systems seem the best. In most of the other countries you had to pay each time you saw a doctor, so at least we're lucky with the NHS. It was a really interesting evening of nice company and nice conversation (our conversations didn't get that serious again then, from then on it was all hilarity). We went to bed happy, ready to wake up at 5.30am.
Sunday 9th May The Grampians - Gariwerd and into Adelaide
We were up at 5.30, having breakfast and ready to leave at 6.15am. As we were packing up our stuff at the hostel we could hear a Kookaburra laughing!!! I've not heard that before, was so funny, like some mad crazed laugh. We drove into the Grampian -Gariwerd forest and stopped to watch the sun rising. It made the clouds look amazing (I now have a thing about clouds as well as waves and twilight) and so so beautiful. They changed ever second; the light on them looked like flames. We went to the base of Hollow Mountain ready for a 360m climb!!! (Great, coz I just luurrvve climbing!) It was worth it though, for the view out over the plains and valleys. As we got higher the view got better and better. The valley was covered with swirls of early morning mist, and that contrasted with the orangey red of the rock. All we kept saying on the way up was "it's so so beautiful". I can't really say much more than that wouldn't do it justice. As Nienke said "Great view, Great people, Great everything". The whole way down Marta and Nienke wanted elocution lessons, bless them! I haven’t exactly got the best elocution. Once we were back at the bottom we went for a look at some Aboriginal paintings of emu print. The whole morning was lovely.
We then moved on towards Adelaide; the rest of the day would be a lot of driving. We drove through Horsham where we saw lots of people in pink t-shirts. Nobody else knew what it was but I guessed at a 'Race for Life' (the 9th May was Mother's Day in Australia) and I was right, just Googled it, wanted to go and cheer them on. Just after crossing the border into South Australia we stopped at Bordertown to have a look at some White Kangaroos and then after lunch (left over BBQ) at a service station where Marta and I got Tim Tam Cornettos, they were A-mazing! I then got very excited as we were about to cross the Murray River, the others thought I was quite mad, as I stood on the steps in the bus ready to take my picture for about 10 minutes! It's a famous river though, and quite precious. South Australia (the driest state in the driest continent on earth) are dependent on it for water and at present Victoria isn't being so nice about letting them have it, so South Australia have taken them to court. On the way into Adelaide with went through the Adelaide Hills and took a detour past Fleur's home town of Mount Barker and through Hahndorf, which I'd been asking about because Simon and Steph had told me about it (it's a Bovarian German cliché village). It was nice. Fleur told us how South Australia is like Victoria in that no British convicts were transported there so Hahndorf was founded when Lutherans in Germany decided to move there to escape persecution in the 1830s. The whole area was like the English countryside in Autumn. I felt a bit homesick. So much of the whole journey had reminded me of home, just bits of road that were so similar, random things like a bit that reminded me of the A43 on the way to Northampton (just where I got caught speeding) and the Wantage to Newbury road. The journey into Adelaide was ok, but not nice for me as the sun was really hot and low and right in my eyes.
Fleur dropped Lena and I at the YHA, my home for at least 2 nights. I was put off YHA's in Auckland but thought I'd give them another go as this one looked nice on the photos. I was really pleased, they were really lovely and friendly and helpful in there. It was so bright and clean and I had proper bed sheets (top and bottom, Mum you'd have been proud of how I made the bed!) and a duvet (I decided to stay there for my other 2 nights in Adelaide). I had 1 1/2 to get out for dinner with the others and had a lot to do, it was a bit rushed. I'd run out of 'essential items of clothing' so had to get it washed and dried as well as myself. I got myself sorted in uncharacteristically quick time but the dryer didn't work so had to dump my wet clothes in a bag (luckily some 'essential items of clothing' were dry). I had a chat with two Swiss guys who were in the room, they told me a phrase to say to Markus which he was very impressed it (roughly translated as "what you looking at, man"); he did a double take when I said it. We went to The Astor which is on the corner of Pulteney and Giles street. I would DEFINATELY recommend it. It's cheap and so so good. We went back to our hostels early, I Skyped with my lovely Mum and Dad (love you and miss you loads) whilst unsuccessfully trying to dry my clothes again (all had to go back in a bag wet) then to bed for a good nights sleep before the next days Barossa Valley (aka wine valley) tour.
Next up, Adelaide. Where I had such such fun with everyone, hence why I'm so far behind!
Xx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.268s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.1882s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Eric
non-member comment
I really enjoyed your Oz post. It made me want to go there. My blog is looking for travel photos. If you have the time, email us some at dirtyhippiesblog@gmail.com or check us out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com. We are also giving a way a free night at a hostel. Check it out!! Continued fun on your travels, Eric