Great Ocean Road

20090423SW6537
Originally uploaded by s webster

After returning to Melbourne from the Grampians national park I found my two friends from Dublin. I had been planning on driving the great ocean road by myself but decided they should come with me. So we rented a car and headed out Monday morning.

First stop was Phillip Island, home of the penguins and Grand Prix race track. We got to the island and purchased our 3 park pass getting us into see the penguins, koalas & Churchill Island. Then we proceed to find our hostel. It was a nice little place seemed to be built out of an old house. It had everything pool, lounge, bar, Free Breakfast. Though only one problem it shut down at 8:30pm so basically we had to go to bed early. Our first stop of the night was to see the penguins. They are little the biggest being 1 foot high. The night before they had 450 come into shore at 6:15 our night only 250 came in and it wasn't until about 6:30 that they started to show up. We sat on the beach and watched them come out of the water and run up the hill. They would run back and forth into and out of the water until they were sure it was safe. We weren't allowed to take any pictures so I have none to show you!

The next day we went and walked Churchill Island it was a great little place. We ended up walking around the entire island. After which we went and saw the Koalas though they were all asleep.

Day 3 we stopped at the grand prix track to have a look around we just missed the walking tour so I got a shirt took a few pictures and we carried on to the chocolate factory for our free samples. They even had a few penguins made entirely out of chocolate. We got our samples and bought some more it was really good.

We continued on our travels to meet the ferry this would cut out 4 hours of driving. We got the car on and went up to make our lunch of cheese and a baguette it was quite good. Went to the top and took some more pictures though we did not see any dolphins as they do on occasion.
We continued along the road to Lorne stopping at a lighthouse in Aireys inlet to watch the sunset.

Day 4 we awoke to the Cockatoos; they are very loud and as you can see come right up to you to see what you’re going to feed them. Or possibly they will take from your hands as you try and eat!

Following breakfast we set out to the information centre to find out about the local walks in the Great Otway National Park. We got one that would take us about 3 hours to do. It was up the mountain to Erskine falls. Here the trees are huge and the ferns stand well over 15 feet high everything is green and it's a little cool walking along the path. We criss crossed the river so many times sometimes jumping others walking across fallen logs or even just stones. We found another track that would lead us back to town. This one there was not a sole to be seen as the bridge was out closing down the track. Though we did find a way across it. This trail had 2 separate waterfalls the last being the phantom falls here we found a wild apple tree with some fruit still on it.

It was a nice little journey totaling over 30kms we got back at around 7:30pm. We made some pasta for dinner and I sat down to download and catalog my pictures for the past 2 days. I didn't take all that many only 330. I will need to press that trigger button some more!

Back in Civilization (it’s really just a place to spend $$)-Rant

20090416SW6275
Originally uploaded by s webster

Well I’m back in Melbourne for a couple of days. The last few days in Halls Gap were great! I met some people from New Zealand who just happened to Geo-cache. I hadn’t thought of doing that while I was there and glad I met them. They got me hooked again. If you don’t know what Geo-caching is, the simplest answer is using multi-billion dollar satellites to find Tupperware hidden in the woods.

You download coordinates onto your gps then treck around looking for the “cache” There was even one hidden by another Manitobian. He did make me work for that one – Thru the bush, no trails except for the paths the kangaroos made and with some rock climbing to boot. It was a great way to end my stay there.

Now that I’m back in town I’ve got internet and lots of food close at hand. I’ve traded my 4 books in for 2 new ones and wandered the shops some more. Oh I found Wall-Mart it’s called “the Big W” here.

$3.00 Slurpee - Prices for new books as well as electronics and video games are insane. A book that would cost me $10.00cad at home is $20.00aud here. Video games are even worse. One that would cost $50-60cad is anywhere from $99-110. DVD’s are in the same boat as well $20.00cad they are $30aud $40.00aud for blue-ray. Did I mention that it’s $15.00 to see a movie in the theater?

So even though we as Canadians complain about the prices we pay when we see the US prices. It’s even worse off for the Aussies. My $3.00 Slurpee just doesn’t taste the same!

Halls Gap, Grampians National Park

20090328SW2457
Originally uploaded by s webster

Well it’s been a while since I’ve last updated. I had to move out of Melbourne as the Grand Prix took over the city and all the hostel beds as well.

It’s quite nice up here extremely quiet until the birds start to yell around supper time. The first day I met my friend Tatiana from the UK. We dumped our stuff at the hostel and went looking for some trails. Ending up in town (250 permanent people live here and there are 6000 beds) we found the visitor information centre. We got a map and took off looking for a trail. Ok this is the second place that I have been in a national park and wonder where people in this country learned to cartography? We completely missed the start of the trail by 2.5kms, on the way back to town we managed to find it! Hidden beside a bridge, there are trail markers but they have been over grown by trees and are not visible at all. We did make it to the top and there is a great view.

Upon our return to town we decided to head out and find food, but wait it’s a small tourist town everything closes at 8:00pm. We managed to find one open restaurant and they were serving Kangaroo. It was great! It tastes a lot like Bison, very lean.
The days here have been sunny and hot. Hovering around 30+ each day. Tho the past 2 days it’s been cold around at around 20.
Halls gap is a great place to unwind walk among kangaroos and star gaze. The kangaroos’ even come right up to the door to eat the grass.

As Easter is just around the corner I will be staying here for the next week as a lot of hostels fill up over the holidays here.

Have a great week and Happy Easter!