The Great Ocean Road

I don’t have all that much experience with road trips, as I have mentioned, but the Great Ocean Road has to be near the top of the all-time hits list. It’s so pretty, that I think it’s possible you run the risk of becoming complacent to beauty. The good thing is that if you get bored of one type of pretty, you can switch up the scenery constantly to keep things different. If you get tired of the gorgeous seascapes, swing inland and hike in a rainforest for a while. Spot a koala or some kangaroos. If you need a break from the outdoors, stop into one of the many wineries for some tastings, or at berry farm, or at creamery. There are loads of things to do.

The joy is in stopping constantly and randomly in all kinds of different places. My friend Alex did the road trip with a group of guys from the program, and for some reason the guys did not want to stop. They had a few predetermined stops they wanted to make, then just drive, drive, drive, the rest of the time. What’s the point? ! She ended up a little disappointed.

Now, I have to admit that enjoyment of this trip is largely dependent on good weather. We were graced with beautiful, crisp days almost the entire time. Just the weekend before we hit the road, Sabina did the trip, but her group got cold, rainy days. Needless, to say they did not have as amazing a time.

So those are the two rules: Stop constantly and pray for clear days.
We already know we got lucky with the weather, and Matt and Laura are fantastic travel buddies, open to pretty much anything and we hit the ground running from day one.

Day 1

It took a little while to get out Melbourne, but once we’d covered some ground the stops began with some lovely beaches – including Bells Beach, where Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) went out for his final set during the 50-year storm in Point Break.

The beach also always provides a lovely backdrop for a picnic. The wind threatened to blow our drinks away, but it was beautiful scenery to enjoy as we ate our loot from the Grand Victoria Market.

That afternoon, we swung inland for a hike at Erskine Falls. There is one negative to this little hike. To reach the falls you have wind down a long staircase. The falls are beautiful, it just sucks that you have to the steep hike up the stairs after the fact. It’s nice when the hard stuff come first, while you still have the promise of a view as a carrot propelling you forward. But what can you do? It would be a little difficult to go around changing the topography, and in all, the trek’s well worth it.

Before the day was out, we even got to glimpse a little bit of wildlife.

It's tough to see, but this spiky little guy is an echidna.

Day 2

The morning of our second day was all about crazy rock formations. For good stretch of the Great Ocean Road, you get display after display of the power of nature. Winds have carved the rocks along the coast into a host of different gorgeous pillars and other formations.

The best known of these natural attractions is probably the Twelve Apostles. These are a collection of limestone stacks that have been eroded into pillars. There are actually only 8 apostles left. (According to Wikipedia, there were only ever 9 to begin with) Because they’re all so close together, it makes for a very impressive vista.

The Apostles are the most famous attraction, but there’s a whole lot more to see. We spent the biggest chunk of time at the Bay of Islands. The Islands are a lot like the Apostles, but the nice thing about this park is that you can hike all around it to get views of the islands from lots of different vantage points. There are outlets down to the beach so that you can look up at the pillars from below as well. I glimpsed a kayaker on the water, and that seemed like an amazing way to see them. If I ever get the chance to go back, I definitely would find a way to get out on the water.

No water sports this time, but we found a way to catch some air. We came across the viewing platform with a wooden rail. We spent about an hour leaping off the rail taking “flying” pictures. I highly doubt this is encouraged, but we had a lot of fun.

London Bridge and The Grotto were our other two morning stops. London Bridge used to be a long, natural pier onto the ocean. However, in 1990 part of the bridge collapsed, turning the bridge into an Arch. The kicker was that, unfortunately, a couple of tourists were hiking at the far end of the bridge when the middle dropped out. Luckily, everyone was safe and no one ended up in the water.

The Grotto was quick visit, but arguably the most charming. So pretty and definitely worth stopping!

Alright, enough rock formations. Time to eat and drink. We swung inland again to try some of the regional delights. First up, Apostle Whey Cheese – a quaint little spot with very friendly staff. If you get the timing right, you can watch the cheese making process. They’d wrapped up the demonstrations by the time we got there, but we did have delicious cheese tasting.

Almost down the street, we found Heytesbury Ridge Winery. This place not only had some really interesting wines, it was extra impressive because it’s a two-person operation. It’s just a married couple, working hard to make some very nice wines. Not a bad life. I have to admit, I’m a little jealous.

This stop had an extra round fun, because as we pulled we spotted a very out of place koala scampering around the ground. Not a eucalyptus tree in sight! I guess this little guy wanted to get on the vino action.

It’s pretty uncommon to get such an active little koala. He moved so fast I couldn’t get picture before he had hidden behind a tool shed. Not a tragedy, however. We ended up having a healthy does of koala watching that day. The little stretch of road leading up to Cape Otway Lighthouse is lined with eucalyptus trees filled with the cuddly little rascals. I got a crick in my neck from staring up at them. Unsurprisingly, they’re frick’n adorable, what is surprising are the funny motor-like, rumbling sounds that emanate from their little, fuzzy bodies. But why should I keep describing, when you can just watch them in all their cuddly glory:

A note for future travelers. There are long stretches of The Great Ocean Road where there are no gas stations. The area between Port Campbell, near the Twelve Apostles and the winery, and Apollo Bay is one such stretch. We did not realize this and since we’d had a good amount of gas as we left the Port Campbell area, we didn’t think to get any. By the time we left the koalas, we were pretty out. It is only thanks to Matt’s excellent skills at using the momentum of driving on the rolling hills to conserve gas that we didn’t run out of gas in the middle of nowhere. Well done, sir!

There was one more wildlife spotting of note before the day was out. The Anglesea Golf Course is home to around 300 kangaroos. We didn’t make it here until just after dark, so I didn’t get any good pics, so I’ll borrow this one to give an idea:

Original can be found on travelpod.

Day 3

Our final day on the Great Ocean Road was all about relaxation – or, that was the plan anyways. In the morning we took the ferry from Queenscliff Harbour to Sorrento with plans to enjoy the hot baths and wineries in the area.

The first part went according to plan. We spent a couple of luxurious hours at the Peninsula Hot Springs and we all emerged feeling very relaxed, and set out to find some wineries to proceed with the second part of our plan.

Here’s where we hit a kink. Greg left the springs in such a blissful state that he left his jacket behind and didn’t realize it until we all the way to our next stop. So, we dropped Matt and Laura off to do the wine tasting, and we booked it to hot spring to get the jacket. Luckily, we got it, but by the time we made it back to the winery we were running pretty late.

Matt had to get back for an evening class and we had a plane to catch, so we zoomed back to Melbourne. In our panicked state, we made a couple of wrong turns on the freeway, but we made it back in time for Matt to make his class, and it seemed like we’d be ok for our flight. Greg sped all the way to the airport making surprisingly good time, until we hit a traffic jam in the last mile before our turn off to the airport. All we could do was sit there biting our nails. When we finally got to the airport we RAN from the car rental drop-off to our terminal. I may have even told Greg, “I’m not going to make it, just go on without me.” But I was able to go on, and just as we stepped to the check-in counter final call was announced over the loud-speaker. A harried end to an otherwise amazing trip.

Post Script. Since Returning from our Australian travels, Matt and Laura have recently gotten engaged. Much love and congratulations to this wonderful, aquatic couple!

Cap things off with Greg's photo album:

And if that's not enough, you can see the rest of mine.

Melbourne

The day after Thanksgiving we headed out on the road again. This time we flew off to Melbourne to visit the crew out there. The plan was to spend a couple of days in Melbs with Matt and Laura, and then we’d all head out for a road trip on the Great Ocean Road together.

We didn’t get all that much time in the city, but the in the time we did have we did a lot of eating and there was a good amount of dancing. Almost immediately after arriving at Matt and Laura’s, they lead us out to meet up with Sabina and some other friends of there’s at Camy Shanghai Dumpling & Noodle Restaurant for a dumpling feast. On Friday nights this place gets packed due to an all you can eat special. However, I don’t think they counted on the bottomless pits our group had for stomachs. Our table placed order after order, to the point where the wait staff was giving us looks of nearly disgusted incredulity. We had a big group, and they were good dumplings – in particular the pumpkin dumpling. I have no idea how many of those I put away.

I definitely rolled out of there, but at least I was able to work off a few calories dancing later that night. We found a little dance bar that was nearly empty and pretty much took it over for ourselves.

The next day was also pretty much dominated by food related activities. Matt and Laura guided us through the massive Queen Victoria Market -- just miles and miles of food, toys, candy, clothes, and souvenirs. The object was get breakfast and load up on supplies for our road trip. We picked up loads of bread, cheese, and fruit.

Loved the cheese. Many of the cheese stalls offer a preselected assortment at a discount. You don’t to choose, but you get anywhere between 3 and 5 different cheese to try for very little money. Another nice little feature of the market is the various wine vendors. There are several offering deals to keep you coming back – some have jugs they’ll refill for you or recycle their bottles and give you a discount on the next round. Off course you can do tastings to figure out which ones you want to take home next. We had to get a couple of bottles for the road.

We spent so much time roaming around the market that we were left with very little time to see the rest of the city. The rain didn’t help much either, but we did get to ride the trolley, roam around the streets a bit, caught a couple of sights and popped into beautiful St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

There were pit stops of course. In the afternoon, we escaped the rain by stepping into Mrs. Parma’s to grab a delicious Holgate Brewhouse Temptress Chocolate Porter. It’s infuse with Dutch chocolate and it was oh, so tasty.

When it started raining again not too long after that, we met up with friends, and dove into Tiamo 2 for a delicious Italian dinner. I think if I lived in Melbourne and dove into a bar or restaurant every time it started raining, I’d get quite fat, but the arrangement suited me quite well while we were in town for just a couple of days.

On the books for that evening was something a little different. Movember is huge in Australia. All through November men grow mo’s to raise awareness for men’s cancers and depression. It just so happened that Melb’s Movember celebration was happening that night and Matt and Laura managed to get us some extra tix through a friend of theirs. We hadn’t planed for this, so we had to improvise. The invitation said to dress up in costumes or cocktail attire. Laura and I took that at face value and dressed up in dresses and wore heels. We ended up wishing we’d thought this one out better. First off, almost anytime costumes are welcome, dressing up is probably less than required. Second, it turned out the party was outside, it was cold and it had rained all day. The field was soggy and our heels sank into the muddy grass every time we took a step.

Matt chivalrously carried Laura across the grass to keep her from sinking into the soggy ground.

Greg’s improvised costume turned out much better, given the amount of time he had. He hadn’t been growing a mo, so all he had to work with was stubble. Considering that and the fact that his stubble was pretty much translucent, I thought he’d pulled it together pretty well.

Our friend Michael went another route. He was also visiting and unprepared, so he found a way to fake a mo.

Michael, his mo, and Lego man

Despite the soggy field, it was pretty fun. Seeing all the crazy mo’s and costumes people came up with was pretty amusing. Plus, they had bumper cars – and who doesn’t love bumper cars?

When muddy feet got to be too much, the group set out to find an indoor bar and ended up at The Croft Institute. This place is too cool for school . . . actually, it’s more like high school on acid. The ground floor is looks like a lab for mad scientists in training – there are beakers and vials everywhere, and even the tables are actually high school lab desks.

The upper level looks a little like the high school gym in Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. Even getting to this place is a trip. It’s totally tucked away at the end of winding alley with graffiti covered walls to guide your way there.

Actually, this bar kind of illustrates both what I liked and didn’t like about visiting Melbourne. Well, I shouldn't say dislike, because we had a great time in the little time we were there. Melbs seemed like it would be a cool city to live in, because the joy would be in discovering all the restaurants and funky boutiques hidden down the ubiquitous side streets and alleyways. The opportunities for exploration and discoveries seem endless. For the same reason, it’s not quite as easy to get a real sense of the place in a short period of time. The only reason we got to go to some of these cool spots is because we had good guides. I suppose that can be said about visiting any major city, but it seems particularly true about Melbourne. The trolley is set up to take tourists on loop that goes by the main historic sites, but I feel like that doesn’t really give enough of a glimpse at the funky flavor of the place. I would definitely have liked to have spent more time there and get to know the city better . . . minus the rain, of course, I’m never super keen on rain.

An Aussie Thanksgiving

When Thanksgiving rolled around, everyone in our house was anxious to make sure it would celebrated. Since no one else in the program at AGSM was from the US, it was really up to us to throw the feast. We invited over anyone who wanted to come from their program, and we ended up with a fantastic mix of nationalities. We had Canadians, Brits, Indians, Germans, you name it. (Not hard really, since the mix of nationalities in the AGSM program was so varied to begin with.) What resulted was really one of my favorite days out of our whole stay in Oz.

All of the roomies pitched in with the cooking – and it turns out that we're all pretty damn good cooks, because it was a delicious feast. Kate and Ryan took care of the mashed potatoes, a truly fantastic stuffing, and an apple pie. Day – less confident in skills as a chef – pulled together the appetizers and beautiful cranberry, blue cheese, and walnut salad. Greg made maybe the best gravy ever. I don't even like gravy that much, but this was awesome. Alexandra, who is French and was not a roomie, but was heavily invested in the Thanksgiving celebration since she had spent many years in the US, contributed a copious amount of the requisite pumpkin pies. The amount of pies was really kind of insane, but they were delicious. Our other guests all made contributions of some kind, mostly of the alcoholic nature.

I made candied yams, and since I had the most time, I took on the turkey. I'd never made a Thanksgiving Turkey before, so I must admit I was both a little nervous and a little excited. I got my mom's recipe a few days earlier and began prepping the bird the day before. When I finally pulled the bird from the oven, I was even more nervous, since the skin was extremely brown. Dear Lord! Had I burned it???

Despite the color, it was delicious. I had rubbed the skin with copious, copious amounts of garlic butter . . . and then rubbed it with more . . . which caused the skin to cook more rapidly and crisp up, and it was actually quite tasty. The meat was moist and delicious. YAY!!! That bird got picked clean. There were NO leftovers . . . which actually made me a little sad. I love the sandwiches you make from leftovers. Also – as with anyone raised in an “ethnic” household – it's been engrained in me that feeding people means aim to have food for AT VERY LEAST twice as many guests as you have. If at all possible, a food to guest ratio of 3 or 4 to 1 is preferable. In my mom's case, the goal is always to have enough food to feed a small platoon, no matter how many guests you actually expect. In this, I clearly failed where the turkey was concerned, although there was plenty of food otherwise. However, the feasters seemed pretty . . . er . . happy.

After feeding, the group split pretty traditionally along gender lines. The women went outside to chat a while, and the men congregated around the TV. Seeing as how there was no American football game on for the boys to watch, they needed something to yell at, and somehow Armageddon became the substitute. Rowdy yelling was to be expected, however, I must admit that I was a bit shocked when they broke into song at the end of the movie . . . go figure.