GOW: Part 2

Still Day One, but onto the hiking photos!!  Our first beach destination at the end of our hike required us to wash/brush our shoes off as to not contaminate the sandy beach.  Macca swiftly made Hannah his bitch and can't be bothered brushing his own shoes off!

There was a short beach between our hiking trail and these flat rocks that look out over the raging Southern Ocean.  The Ocean is really crazy here, but it makes for some beautiful scenery!

Hannah petting the slimy moss

Love. 

We're standing in front of a 12-20 drop (I'm guessing) and still have to stand back as the waves threaten to take us down.  (Rock fishing is a popular and dangerous sport in Australia.  In Sydney it seemed that every other week there was a news story about a rock fisherman getting swept away by waves).

Hannah and I turn to head back to the beach and find Macca and Dave shirtless and digging in sand like cavemen.  Maybe they can discover fire!  (it would come in handy later in the night)

The rain we thought we had avoided earlier in the day makes a surprising reappearance.  We haven't found our campsite yet, its getting dark and thunderous, we have our packs back on our backs, and no rain gear.  Crap.  We grab our stuff and make a mad dash around the corner, to find a monstrous hill.  In hindsight it wasn't that monstrous, but I think it was our first big hill and in a rushed situation it felt like a monster, lol.  

Sidenote:  I think this is where my love of barefoot hiking started!  No time to put boots back on, we went barefoot, and it was sooo much better than the crappy shoes I brought!

We make it up the hill just in time for it to start pouring.  We manage to get garbage bags on our packs, half way at least.  Hannah and I, freezing our asses off, take cover in plastic bags (don't do try this at home kids).  Until a nice tour guide who happens to be there lets us sit in his van until his passengers emerge from their hike.  By the time his passengers arrive, its mostly stopped raining.  Hooray :)

Hannah and I stay behind while Dave and Macca go get Macca's car from the start.  Within 5 minutes of them being gone, I get stung by a bee.  On the underside of my middle toe.  How in the world does one get stung there?!  I spend a good 15 minutes trying to pull the stinger out of my toe....youch!  I don't remember the last time I got stung by a bee, but I realize that I had completely forgotten how badly it hurts!  Without any tweezers, getting it out was a difficult task.  About 5 minutes in Hannah asks me if I'm allergic to bees.  I just start laughing, which makes her nervous.  I told her no, I'm not allergic to bees, and THANK GOD, cuz I'd be dead!!  In rural Australia all alone, with no cell service, both boys (our rides to safety) gone for unknown amount of time....yea, that coulda been bad.  But alas, no harm done.  Though it made us rethink how we'd be splitting up in the future, lol.

As fast as the rain came, it went.  To walk off the bee sting pain Hannah and I find this lovely view a few feet from our campsite :) 

Macca and Dave return safely, we finish setting up camp.  Macca, unable to sit still starts fussing with Dave's car.  Trying to fix the window. To his credit I believe he got the window up, but then kept working on it, taking the inside door cover off and removing the window crank.  Later telling Dave "I fixed your window. Well, I disabled it." At the time, this was hilarious and had us cracking up.  enough so that it ended up in our collection of trip quotes, though without the context its not nearly as funny as I remember it being.

It was a helluva lot colder than I think any of us anticipated...especially me.  Once it got dark out and we had nothing to do and no lights and were freezing our asses off we reluctantly and nervously built a fire.  Its majorly illegal, you know forest fires and all.  But since it had just rained earlier in the day and wasn't forest fire season and no one else was there, we ignored that law like a group of ignorant tourists.  The plan kinda backfired when a car pulled in around 9pm.  We panicked and put the fire out thinking it was a ranger about to cart of us.  Turns out it was some French couple pulling into to camp. And we needlessly put our fire out :( 

We had two tents with us, Hannah and I were going to share one and the boys the other.  But our tent was soo small, and the boys' tent was soo big and it was soooo sooo cold, we decided to share.  Which turned to be a good idea when previously mentioned French couple came over after we went to bed and scared the living bejesus out of us.  Hannah and I in the center of the tent were huddled together for dear life.  The boys of course were pillars of rational thought  (though Macca did eventually make Dave go check and see what was outside our tent--reminded me a lot of sibling dynamics that I hadn't had in a year at the time, lol).  Later, after the initial panic that someone was coming with a knife to slash our tent and massacre us, I swear...swear...I saw the silhouette of the French man holding his penis!  Creepy!!  I freaked again, scared everyone again.  Upon later reflection, I still believe that is what I saw, though he was probably just taking a piss and not being all pervy.  Still freaky and gross!

Hannah and Dave in their cocoons in the morning sleeping in.  Dave had his luxurious fluffy sleeping bag that I was ever so jealous of!  Again regretting why I never invested in a decent sleeping bag in Australia!?!  It wasn't as cold as the Red Center when I woke up with frost on my swag, but it still made me miserable and question why it is I enjoy camping?  But, when I woke up and got to see the sunrise over the Southern Ocean, I remembered <3.

I grabbed this blanket almost as an afterthought when packing. Best.Decision.Ever.  It saved my life, lol

 

Team B is finally awake :)

Onto to Day 2!

Why people don't like me

I kid. I kid. Though its probably true for a handful of people who have the misfortune of going against my socio-political ideals. 

I didn't get to post tonight because I'm a huge femme liberal who fought with really dumb people on facebook all night.  I say time well spent!  But alas, there was no government shut down and no new pics on the blog and now its time for bed.

Good night!

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 :)

Love at First Tram Ride

My very first visit to Melbourne was long overdue back in October.  I actually did everything in Australia in opposite order of popularity....which is exactly my style and I think a very savvy way to travel.  If you go where everyone else goes, its going to be full of ... everyone else. And I personally put more stock on the dedicated travelers not just the 19 year olds on their gap year (no offense to my 19 year old friends on gap year, lol).  My travels outside of Sydney in Australia went Tasmania, West Coast, Red Center, Melbourne, East Coast.  I think that is almost the exact opposite priority ranking most people would give.  Thoughts from Australian/traveling friends on this?

Anyways, I didn't make it to Melbourne until October, in the middle of one crazy-stressful situation  back in Sydney.  I met up with my legendary friend Tatiana who was there for work.  We got to spend one night in her fancy hotel c/o her work, which was fabulous!  It made me remember why people stay in hotels instead of budget hostels!  

While Tat was at work on Friday I set out to find the coolest exhibition ever.  After hearing about it on the radio for months and thinking I was never going to get down to Melbs to see it, I was ecstatic that it was still there when I got down there.  I was only slightly disappointed to miss the Titanic exhibition at the museum but if I had to pick Tim Burton wins!

 The had drawings and character remakes of all his movies.  That man is unbelievably talented and indisputably disturbing.  They even had the Batmobile there!  No pictures were allowed inside, but outside was fair game!

The Yarra River runs through Melbourne, making for one of the prettiest city-scapes I've ever seen.  This one picture on a cloudy day I have doesn't do justice.  I think I have more stashed away for later posts.

 I took this picture for Jake. I don't know what Makers Mark is in Australia, from the looks of the building, its a shut down department store  ??  But I love me some Makers Mark bourbon, mmm.

 A better cityscape picture at night!

 There is one casino in Victoria (the state Melbourne is in), Crown Victoria.  It brings in something like a third of the states revenue (learned from Bill Bryson, my new fav travel writer).  Every night, yer round at certain times the casino has a fire ball display.  There is I think 6 or 8 of these pillars spaced out front of the casino.  They're coordinated to go off with impressively big fire balls in an almost musical pattern.  Its something that sounds lame, but never ceases to stop you in your tracks every time you catch it.

 This machine just cracked me up.  Pay a dollar or two, but in a US (?) penny and we'll print a koala on it.  Really?  Australia doesn't have pennies, or anything that is equivalent to a penny even.  They don't have one cent coins, they just round to the nearest 5.  Which is fine, but why  or how in the world do they press pennies then?  Silly.

 Tatiana and I somehow found an empty yet thumping club on a Thursday night.  They offered us free entry, champagne, a make over, and manicure.  The make over is why my makeup is so dark.  I know I'm getting old when I don't like heavy makeup of smokey eyes (on me) anymore.

 She'll kill me for making the reference but how much does she look like Baby from Dirty Dancing?!  After our day or two of luxury in the hotel, we were on our own for accommodation.  I actually thought we still had the hotel and was surprised to find out on Friday that we had no where to stay that night.  Not a big deal, we just went next door to the YHA hostel (which later became very important to me) to book for friday and saturday night.  Unfortunately, we got a little hosed.  They had beds for Friday but none for Saturday.  No one had beds for Saturday.  The footie grand final (think SUPERBOWL) was the weekend before in Melbourne but they tied.  Seriously, can you imagine a tie in the superbowl?!  And they had the re-match this same weekend.  We were almost screwed.  I went to the info center (if only I had known Olly then, lol) and they called around for me and found a dodgy hostel that had rooms on Saturday.  Phew!  It gets even better because Tatiana, love her to death, is a girl who likes nice things.  Nice hotel rooms, fancy shoes and bags, expensive drinks, trips to Fiji, etc.  She is not a girl to stay in a hostel.  And she will be the first one to tell you this.  Having to stay at the YHA was a huge step for her and she very nearly panicked at the thought of it.  She slept with her designer bag under her pillow.  And to this day she describes me as the only person on earth who could get her to sleep in a hostel.  Unfortunately, with the near lack of accommodation, she decided to leave me a day early and head back to Sydney.  It was probably for the best because the next hostel I stayed in was completely sketch.

 Walking through some gardens randomly come across a memorial to JFK.  Why would Melbourne have a JFK memorial you ask?  No reason.  Cuz they cool like that.

 Helps that it was prettiest part of these particular garden.

But then I found the flower conservatory.  I don't remember what its actually called...is there a specific name for it?  Whatever it is, I could never find it again.  I tried to show it to Olly when we went to the gardens on our second date, and when I was there with Jess, Jake and Donna, but no luck.

After the beautiful flower conservatory I wandered through the gardens aimlessly falling in love with the city and came across this church.   

 I think it was St. Patricks Cathedral.  I just thought it was impressive and beautiful and artfully located in a great location. 

 I do love those macro shots

 Kinda hard to tell whats going on here.  Remember that in Australia they drive on the left side of the road.  Here the taxi and the car behind it are trying to make a right hand turn (crossing traffic).  Certain intersections, not all, in Melbourne require you to do a 'hook turn.'  I hadn't heard of such a thing and still remember the first time I saw one, I abruptly stopped on the sidewalk and gawked at what the horrible driver causing such a ruckus in the street.  A hook turn requires the driver desiring to turn right to pull all the way to the left, almost into the crosswalk, wait for the light to turn red before completing their turn.  Its really strange to see.  Having driven in Melbourne, its not actually that hard.  The only thing that can get tricky is knowing when to do the hook turn, but they are pretty well posted so its not usually a problem.

Melbourne is known for its restaurant and coffee culture.  They really are competitive about coffee and made me appreciate a good flat white.  I found a coffee shop that served gourmet cupcakes.  How fun!  I don't actually love cupcakes, but when they're this cute how could you not?

The next day Hannah flew down to Melbourne to meet me.  We were about to set out on the Great Ocean Road with Macca and his brother who I used to call Little Macca (until I actually met him and learned his name).  While we waited to start that adventure we strolled around the Queen Victoria Markets.  I had a love at first sight moment with the Queen Vic Market or QV Market, or Market.  They have everything one could want from Australian souvenirs, clothes, dresses, leather jackets, rocking pink knock-off rayban sunglasses,  jewelry, fresh produce, and even this Justin Beiber hat...