Deja GOW

Are you sick of my Great Ocean Road (GOR) photos?  I feel like I've looked at these photos a bazillion times, I'm almost (almost) sick of them. Yet its still hard to pare down.  I've done my best.  This is the first trip to the GOR back in October with the most random assortment of friends.  I got an open invite to join my tour guide from Western Australia on the Great Ocean Walk...walking the GOR.  Hannah, my new-at-the-time-friend from Uni decided to come with me.  We weren't exactly sure what we were getting into.  We both borrowed backpacker backpacks from friends and got ready for a rugged week of hiking with packs and camping.  We met up with Macca in Melbourne, who at the time, I had only known from my 5 day WA trip.  Macca took Hannah and I to his house to pick up his brother Dave, who completed our little foursome.  

Dave, Macca, Hannah, and me surfing at Bells Beach!  Bells Beach is a famous surfing beach that hosts one of the biggest surf competitions every year.

Bells Beach

After stopping off for this photo opp we made our way to Airey's Inlet, where Hannah and I were delightfully surprised to learn our rugged week of hiking with packs and camping included a glorious beach house!  On top of that, I was simply not prepared for just how gorgeous the Great Ocean Road is.  I feel like a lame-o broken record now and the more I talk about it, the more it takes away from it.  But really, I had no idea what I was in for.  

Airley's Beach

First order of business upon arrival:  food and beer.  We grabbed local fish and chips and a 6 pack and headed for the beach.  I honestly could not think of a better way to eat dinner. 

 Friends. Beer. Fried food. Sunset.  Not necessarily in that order.

The next day our walk started.  Up bright and early, I was able to catch the sunrise from the house.

Because Macca was traveling in the states until literally the day before he picked us up and Dave was preparing to leave for Europe two days after our trip (and Hannah and I had no idea what we were doing) there was very little planning done for the trip.  Thinking back now I just have to laugh cuz we literally just packed up and went without much thought to anything.  How lucky we turned out to be.

Letting the boys figure out where we were going, I was too busy drinking a flat white and posing for pictures :)

It wasn't as simple as just goin for a hike.  Due to lack of planning and being the cheap ass backpackers/travelers that we are, we did not get camping permits and were only able to camp at sites that were drive in sites.  Strangely enough the walk in camp sites required a permit that cost like $25/night.  Because of this we had to do a car shuffle every day, which wasted a lot of time, but we had to do what we had to do.  It actually really worked out in our favor.  Each morning we would drive in two cars (Paul and I were team A, Hannah and Dave were team B) to out end point, drop off Dave's car, and ride together in Paul's car back to the start point.  Which means we got to see a lotta the GOR, multiple times.

The official start of the Great Ocean Road just outside Lorne (The entire first day when Macca or Dave would say something about Lorne, I thought it was called Lawn.  I called it Lawn until I saw it written and noticed that there is actually an R in the middle that they choose to ignore)

 

 

The benefit of hanging out with a tour guide...he knows all the good tourist pictures and doesn't judge you (to your face) when you actually do want to pull over and take a picture.  Hannah and Dave, on the other hand were so DONE with Team A pulling over 75 times.  Though they were quite happy when we slammed on the brakes and stopped to see these:

Momma and baby whale playing in a cove.

I kept seeing them just off the coast but assumed they were rocks and was too embarrassed at the idea of being wrong to tell Macca.  I'm such a lame ass.  Though the rest of the trip, and even now, I've claimed the credit for the spot.  One spotting they weren't quite happy to see was:

We tried to figure out what the hell happened to this car?!  Every side of it was smashed up, every window was smashed, it looked like it rolled but the top of completely damage free. What we could ascertain was that whatever happened, it was a female driver (there was a Fiona Apple cd on the drivers seat) and they were probably carted away by ambulance based on the blood on the airbags.  Hopefully everyone was ok!  But defo a scary start to our drive along winding, hilly, narrow, cliff side drive.  Especially with Paul driving!

Have you noticed that I haven't even gotten to the hiking pictures!  Oy vey!  

We really worried that our first day was going to awful and rainy, but much to our surprise and delight, most of the day was clear and wonderful.

documenting the before.  When we still like each other ;)

Paul was quick to take off in front and leave us in the dust.

Our first look out! 

Still friends 20 minutes into the first day of hiking.  Though Paul looks ready to jump off the edge already.  And at that, I'm going to stop this post.  I didn't even make it through the first day, but its midnight, I'm watching American Idol, and this post is quite long enough.  More to come :)