Day 4: Wow! Just wow!

Today we woke up bright and early for an all day bus tour of the Great Ocean Road.  If you ever find yourselves in Melbourne, make sure you schedule in a day for this, it is absolutely phenomenal and is easily the best thing I have ever done on any vacation to date.  We went with Go West tours who came highly recommended and were environmentally minded (carbon offsets and all that) but it seemed that there were many other tour groups that stopped at all the same places.  We can say that Go West did provide a solid tour though and we highly recommend them.  Our group was limited to twenty passengers and the driver, Stu, was very engaging and humorous and had a very thoughtfully picked out soundtrack that he played over his ipod.  Also thoughtful, was the fact that they handed out foreign language translations on ipods to the non-english speakers on our tour.

A little background, the Great Ocean Road is similar to the Pacific Coast Highway in California in that it runs along the very dramatic coast of the Tasman Sea and the Southern Ocean in the Australian state of Victoria.  It was built by returning veterans of World War I and then continued as a sort of WPA type job during the Great Depression years of Australia’s history.  If I remember right, it was finished in 1939 and essentially links Melbourne and Adelaide.  Since then, more efficient roads have been developed and this one is relegated to the tourists now.

Leaving Melbourne you actually have to drive a ways down to Torquay and through the city of Geelong which is home to the Australian Ford factory.  It was surprising to see that they are still manufacturing cars in an Albert Kahn era factory rather than a modern plant.  But anyway, the first stop was Bell’s Beach which is famous for its surfing and annual surfing championships.  Even though it’s winter down here and the sea was a nipply 10 degrees Celsius, there were still quite a few surfers.  The scenery was spectacular both on the beach and in the parking lot as several surfers changed into and out of their wetsuits right in the parking lot.  Modesty is not so much in the lingo I suppose but the tourists were all agog!

From here the road hugged the coast which got progressively more and more impressive.  The hills started out rolling but soon became mountains draped with greenery and the road cut its way along the side at times high up on a cliff and other times down at beach level.  At one point we began chasing an intensely bright and sharp rainbow for at least 20 miles that, depending where we were facing on the road, seemed to hover a couple miles ahead to just a few hundred feet in front of us.  In these close encounters, everyone was straining to see if the end of the rainbow perhaps really did exist.

In the hour and half before lunch it’s hard to remember what order things came at us, but in this short span of time we witnessed a whale playing out in the surf doing somersaults and backflops and spouting away in the waves.  We drove through a eucalyptus forest where we saw several koalas hanging out  in the trees.  We stopped at a roadside dinner where colorful tropical parrots had congregated and alighted on our arms, heads, and hands expecting to be fed birdseed.

Giddy with our experiences we stopped for lunch in Apollo Bay – a charming village stretched out along the road alongside a crescent beach framed by two forested headlands.  We ate at a little sandwich shop called Nautigals.  It’s a pun, get it? Nauticals?  Naughty Gals?  Funny right?  Forget it, I’m telling a story here.  We had very tasty foccacia bread sandwiches and then walked down to a little bakery and bought a large cupcake that would cause most cupcake crazed New Yorkers to keel over in a heap, i.e. it was really really good.

After Apollo Bay, the road turned inland into the Great Otways Forest which started out as a eucalyptus forest but soon became a cold temperature rainforest.  We got out and took a half hour hike down into the thick of it and marveled over how the landscape kept changing so fast as we drove along.  Little did we know. . . .

After the hike we had about an hour’s drive through the rest of the Great Otways Forest and then past rural Victoria which is almost completely used as grazing land for sheep and cattle.  When the road reacquainted itself with the coast the topography had changed dramatically.  Instead of rolling mountains, we were now driving through desert scrubland which terminated in an unbroken line of sheer limestone cliffs that dropped 500 feet or more down to the ocean below which crashed and churned with more fury than we have ever seen.  At times the waves would break against the cliffs with such force that the spray would reach halfway up the cliff face.  The name Shipwreck Coast seemed to be well deserved.

We stopped at three locations along this stretch of coast that were named, in a national park sort of way, for their sculptural appearances.  The Twelve Apostles were a group of rock sentinels standing out in the ocean that had been separated from the rest of the land by being stronger than the surrounding limestone and eroding at slower rate.  There were many more than twelve and they extended for miles in each direction down the coast.  We were able to walk along a boardwalk at the top of the cliff and look out at the Apostles and watch the waves and feel the wind.  At this point the island of Tasmania was no longer forming a protective barrier and these winds were coming across thousands of miles of unbroken ocean from Antarctica – and they felt like it too!

The Loch Ard Gorge was named for a ship that sank near it called the Loch Ard and featured a fjord-like gorge that was shaped like a funnel with the narrow end being the entrance to the sea.  The water blasting through that opening was unbelievably violent.  We took stairs down to the beach in the mouth of the funnel from the top of the cliff and sat and watched.

Finally, we stopped at a location called London Bridge which looked very uncannily like the London Bridge with its series of natural arches but today only one of these arches remain as the others collapsed in the early 1990s.  It was a very spectacular sight as well and was the perfect way to end the tour.  From there we turned into the interior of Victoria and drove for about an hour past the cattle and sheep ranges to the town of Colac where we stopped for a quick fast food dinner.  Asian again, Kirsten liked hers better than I liked mine.  We returned to Melbourne at about nine that evening and were dropped off at our hotel.

Tomorrow is a travel day and we have to catch a 7:30 flight to Cairns.  It’s going to be a very early morning.

(Again, I think we are behind on the photos, check back later on for those).

Day 3: I now know what lions and elephants really sound like.

I don’t remember the last time I slept 12 hours but we both did last night – minus a few excursions to the bathroom for each of us. We think the livers and kidneys were also recovering from the flight and seemed to be working overtime. Not a big deal for a regular hotel but when you have to put your clothes on and walk down the hall and in my case, go downstairs because the men’s rooms on this floor are under renovation, it is a hassle! But anyway, we rested up and now we only feel about three hours ahead of things rather than 14 hours behind. I don’t really know how that works but that’s where our internal clocks are right now.

Today we decided to go check out the Melbourne zoo and Luna Park. The zoo was great! Supposedly it is quite old but it looked more kept up than a lot of US zoos we’ve been to. The animal enclosures were well thought out as far as keeping the animals happy but providing plenty of opportunities to see them. The elephant exhibit for instance was set up in multiple fields that were connected to each other by these Jurassic Park style gates that crossed the pedestrian paths. We went mainly to see the Australian animals and were happy to see kangaroos (sleepy), emus (very social and walked right up to us), wombats (also sleepy), pelicans (they were enormous), and koalas (anti social). They had a great aviary and butterfly house that both afforded lots of up close encounters with the animals and a platypusary with a lone platypus swimming gaily around his darkened tank. Strange animals those platypi. Not only do they have the duckbill, but they’re also nocturnal, venomous, electric, and they lay eggs. (see photos here on our Flickr page)

The primate exhibits were really fantastic too with lots of space and lots of stuff to climb on. One thing we thought was peculiar though was the baboon habitat, they were living in what looked like an urban playground. They seemed pretty well adjusted though as did the aerial monkeys that lived up in the trees. The walkway through that was elevated to the canopy level so you could see the monkeys cavorting around. They had a similar elevated pathway over the Lion’s den that provided a good view of the lions.

Speaking of lions, the animals at the Melbourne Zoo were quite vocal. Normally when I go to zoos I just hear children screaming everywhere but here both the elephants and the lions got my attention from significant distances so much that I actually jumped. Sitting in your living room watching a nature show is no equivalent, lemme tell ya. The monkeys also had quite a bit too say as well as did the birds.

Using vocal birds as a segue, let me say that the seagulls here are exactly like the ones in Finding Nemo, except for the ability to say “mine.” The seagulls back home are sweethearts with angelic voices compared to these flying devils. We ate lunch at the zoo café which only had outdoor seating. Even though we weren’t giving them any food we had quite a crowd around us squawking at us and some would hover uncomfortably near our faces as we ate. If they were just a bit bolder they probably would have tried to snatch the food out of our hands as we brought it to our mouths.

The next stop was Luna Park in the suburb of St. Kilda which was right on the coast. We didn’t spend any time down on the beach since it was quite cold here today but the area around was very cool. The park itself was small and a little grungy but the 1912 Scenic Railway (coaster number 209 for me and 94 for Kirsten) was worth the trip out. It was definitely built for smaller people though as we had zero leg room and maybe half of our behinds were actually on the seats. The train is also unique in that a brakeman has to ride along in the middle of the train and pull back on a big lever so that the train and passengers safely navigate the turns and the crests of the hills. It’s one of only a handful left in the world. Their other roller coaster, Metropolis, was fun and number 210 for me and that’s about it.

For dinner we went to a Mexican restaurant (strange, I know) in St. Kilda called Blue Corn but Kirsten has a finely tuned restaurant sixth sense and can pick out absurdly delicious places in the least expected of places so I went along. And it was delicious (crazy, I know)! We stopped in a bar along the way back to the train and got a beer. Just one though because the fine for public drunkenness in these parts is $13,000 and is heavily advertised via PSAs. I would rather buy a car, thank you.

Back at the hotel by eight though, we have a very early morning and long day ahead of us tomorrow.

Day 2: Melbourne Mosey

For the sake of convenience we’re saying that Day 2 starts when we landed at Melbourne.  We plodded through customs slowly but surely, without any problems, and caught the skybus into town.  The bus dropped us off at the Southern Cross railway station which was pretty cool.  From here we took the subway to our first hotel The Claremont Guest House out in the “suburb” of South Yarra.  It seems that in this part of the world they call the different neighborhoods suburbs.  I haven’t quite figured out where Melbourne proper ends and the American type suburbs begin. 

That’s the other thing, so far Melbourne seems to have a lot more in common with Toronto than London.  If it weren’t for the palm trees, the left hand driving, and the accents I would have thought I took a very long flight to Ontario.  Not that we’re complaining, we love Ontario.  It’s just that there has been no culture shock at all.  We’re quite at home here. . . except the left hand driving.

Anyhow, the hotel is quaint.  It’s very old and hostel-ey and the room is tiny with a hardwood floor, a bed and very little else.  The bathrooms are communal and we have to turn in the key when we leave.  But they serve breakfast and the location is pretty great.  The neighborhood seems pretty fun and the trains and trolleys, which they call trams, stop right outside.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the downtown area.  We had lunch at an Asian place called Krakatoa which was pretty good and had dinner at another Asian place called Chocolate Buddha which was even better.  It was situated in Federation Square which was a really cool urban space set right on the Yarra River bank.  We also saw a lot of other sights downtown such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Melbourne Museum but did not get to go inside them due to closures or crowds.  We did have fun walking through the Victorian shopping arcades that criss-cross the downtown streets.  Some of them were very ornate and beautiful.

So far we really like Melbourne and are looking forward to the next day but for now we are back at the hotel ready to call it a night.

Pictures to follow tomorrow, we're too tired to do any more uploading!