Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Crazy Weekend!
So this past weekend I took a trip with the UNSW Waterski and Wakeboard club up to Cliftonville Lodge which is about an hour North of Sydney. The plan was to leave from Sydney at 8am on Saturday and be on the river all weekend. So I of course overslept and forgot to pack flip flops (thongs in australia) but that's not important. Barely made it to McDonalds where we were meeting but I did thankfully otherwise I wouldn't be writing about it haha.
I jumped in the car with the president of the club so obviously we were the first ones there and I got to help take the first boat out. I wasn't too sure what to expect (which seems to be the case a lot of the time here) but once we got both boats out onto the river we all signed up and took turns taking runs. We also set up a trampoline by the water which was fun. I honestly think I was the only water skier since most people went wake boarding. It was such a great time though. Water was a little cold but we had two beautiful days and I got some good runs in. The second time I went I attempted to wakeboard for the first time. Five or six failed attempts later I was pretty frustrated but I wanted to get my runs in so I decided to postpone getting up on a wakeboard until over the summer.
Once it got a little bit colder and we were done for the day we went up to our cabins that we were staying in which were actually pretty nice. Cody and I were given the task of trying to set up this really old inflatable hot tub, and actually found an email from the club to the manufacturer saying that the hot tub was shocking people. So we kind of gave up on that haha. I go the the University of New South Wales but the University of Sydney waterski club was also there, and we knew one of the guys that was there so we ended up staying in a cabin with him. Had a huge cookout to end the night and enjoyed getting to know a few Australians and a bunch of other nationalities too. France, Norway, Netherlands, Singapore (wherever that is, not really helping the ignorant American stereotype) to name a few. Got a bunch of compliments on how good the chicken Cody and I grilled was too.
The next day we woke up around 9 and cleaned up the cabins, had a light breakfast and headed back down to the river for another awesome day. For the first time ever I tried to drop a ski and slalom which was so cool but I fell both times. Went a little bit farther the second time. I'm really pumped to get out onto the lake this summer. Once we got all our runs in we packed up the boats and headed back to Sydney. It's always pretty amazing to drive across the Sydney harbor bridge. Got back and went to the movies to see the Avengers for an overall awesome weekend.
I jumped in the car with the president of the club so obviously we were the first ones there and I got to help take the first boat out. I wasn't too sure what to expect (which seems to be the case a lot of the time here) but once we got both boats out onto the river we all signed up and took turns taking runs. We also set up a trampoline by the water which was fun. I honestly think I was the only water skier since most people went wake boarding. It was such a great time though. Water was a little cold but we had two beautiful days and I got some good runs in. The second time I went I attempted to wakeboard for the first time. Five or six failed attempts later I was pretty frustrated but I wanted to get my runs in so I decided to postpone getting up on a wakeboard until over the summer.
Once it got a little bit colder and we were done for the day we went up to our cabins that we were staying in which were actually pretty nice. Cody and I were given the task of trying to set up this really old inflatable hot tub, and actually found an email from the club to the manufacturer saying that the hot tub was shocking people. So we kind of gave up on that haha. I go the the University of New South Wales but the University of Sydney waterski club was also there, and we knew one of the guys that was there so we ended up staying in a cabin with him. Had a huge cookout to end the night and enjoyed getting to know a few Australians and a bunch of other nationalities too. France, Norway, Netherlands, Singapore (wherever that is, not really helping the ignorant American stereotype) to name a few. Got a bunch of compliments on how good the chicken Cody and I grilled was too.
The next day we woke up around 9 and cleaned up the cabins, had a light breakfast and headed back down to the river for another awesome day. For the first time ever I tried to drop a ski and slalom which was so cool but I fell both times. Went a little bit farther the second time. I'm really pumped to get out onto the lake this summer. Once we got all our runs in we packed up the boats and headed back to Sydney. It's always pretty amazing to drive across the Sydney harbor bridge. Got back and went to the movies to see the Avengers for an overall awesome weekend.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Time flies...
I have been so busy since I last posted. It's hard to believe that I'm over halfway done with my time here. I stand by the fact that this country is amazing, and there's no way that I won't be back here at some point in my life. The more I explore the more I keep wishing there was some way I could stay here forever.
I still haven't posted about my Fall Break with IES (it's Fall in Australia), so check back in a few days and hopefully I'll have that entire trip posted about, it's gonna be a long one.
Highlights from the last few weeks let's see...
Well classes are going pretty well. I might as well touch on that. They grade a lot harder here than they do back home, but I'm doing well as far as I know. I've got a few essays due next week, and I'm actually looking forward to a little bit of stress and structure for the next couple weeks. Yesterday in my Vertebrate Zoology class a Zoologist from the Taronga Zoo in Sydney brought in a few different animals, which was an awesome change from normal lab (which is still way more interesting than anything I've ever taken at Ithaca). The best animal was an Echidna named Brian, and it looked like a cross between a porcupine and a platypus and it was so awesome.
Last Wednesday was Anzac Day, which is basically Australian Memorial Day, to remember all the troops that died fighting in World War I and all the other wars Australia has fought in since. We had a bunch of people over to our building and had a cookout in the backyard. It was a pretty good time. This weekend we're actually having a cookout for Cinco de Mayo so we seem to have an endless amount of reasons to grill which is great.
This past Sunday I went wine tasting in the Hunter Valley, which is about two hours North of Sydney. I'll put a few pictures up on facebook soon, but it was a lot of fun. I went with a group of about 10 people from the states, and a few Frenchies and a Brazilian kid too. We stopped at a chocolate shop to try some fudge (it's just as good here as it is in America) and chocolate, then stopped off at a vineyard that makes this wine called Tin Soldier which we tried a few of. I liked white wines more than red, but it was interesting trying different types of wines that were actually pretty nice. We also stopped at a cheese shop called The Smelly Cheese Shop, which had more kinds of cheese than I've ever seen before. I ended up buying a cow feta cheese with sundried tomatoes and garlic, so good. Then we went next door to another winery and tried some really really nice wines.
After that we went to another winery (I wish I remembered all the names, but the thing is that most of the wineries in the Hunter Valley are so small that they don't produce enough to export, so most of the wines can only be bought directly from the wineries. And no, I never tried yellowtail haha). I found out that I like sweet wines and white wines. Verdhelo was my favorite wine I tried I think. After the last winery we went to The Hunter Valley Brewery and tried a couple really nice beers that they brewed. It was cool to be able to sample all the different kinds that I never would have tried on my own.
Check back soon for my Break posts!
Monday, April 16, 2012
The most extreme weekend ever.
Friday:
So I had known I was going skydiving for a couple weeks now. But it wasn't until the morning of March 30th that I actually realized what I was about to do. The cool thing about Australia is that you're usually so busy doing other stuff, that you don't have time to dwell on what's happening in the future. Which is nice if you have a test or something. But when I woke up at 5:30am to catch the bus that took us downtown to catch the other bus that drove us to Wollongong, I actually started to think about it. To be honest, I wasn't too nervous, but when the five other friends you're going with are freaking out like six year olds who just discovered coffee, well it can get into your head.
After the two hour bus ride from downtown Sydney to the skydiving place in Wollongong, we got off the bus and went inside this little shack where you have to hand in all your paperwork and sign up for the day. I figured that we'd take a hour long class or briefing or something before we jumped. Instead we jumped into our harnesses, met the instructors who would be strapped to our backs, and jumped into another van to head to the airport. The cool part was that as we were doing this, other jumpers were parachuting into the field right outside the building, so we had a brief glimpse of what we were in for.
We had worked out that I was gonna be the last one to jump on the way to the airport, so when we got there I was the first one to get in the plane. Now I was starting to get excited. Before it seemed surreal, but now I was actually getting in the plane. I sat facing the back of the plane with everyone except the pilot and my instructor in front of me. Next thing I know we're taking off and climbing fast. After about ten minutes I look down and assume that we're pretty close to where we're going to jump, 14,000 feet off the ground. I of course then look at the altimeter and think that I'm reading it wrong, but I'm not. 3,000 feet and climbing. This is going to be interesting.
So then the moment is here. The red light turns yellow. Yellow light turns green. Door opens and Chris falls out of the plane. Then Cody. Then Adam. Catherine. Michelle. Now it's my turn. Surprisingly, watching my friends fall out of a plane in front of me hadn't freaked me out. I move closer to the door. I look down. Yup.
I'm a little ashamed to say I closed my eyes for the first two seconds. I curl like a banana like I was taught and keep my hands in tight. Then the guy strapped to my back (or am I strapped to his front...) taps me on the shoulder and I open my eyes and throw my arms out. After the initial jump, I wasn't scared, but the adrenaline from the wind coming at you that fast is just insane. You can't really focus on anything other than the world around you. Then it's over. Parachute opens and as I take the reins and fly through a cloud I really am able to take in my surroundings. Ocean on my right, beach on my left. If you ever see me back home, ask about the video I got from skydiving. That's the only way I can really show how awesome it was.
Saturday: I honestly forget what happened, I'm pretty sure I was productive and that in itself is pretty extreme for being in Australia.
Sunday: Wake up at 4am to catch the 4:30am bus to central station. Run down the the bus stop. Realize that I incorrectly deciphered daylight savings in Australia and it's actually 3:30am. Damnit.
And so began one of the longest days I've had in Australia. The plan was to go canyoning in the Blue Mountains, which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Sydney, but with no bus, we were forced to catch a 5:45am train. Which was actually a cool experience since I hadn't yet.
When we got to the Blue Mountains, the train took us to the small town, where we met up with our guides for the day, who outfitted us with all the gear that we needed for the day. The last time I was in the Blue Mountains, everything was pretty dry and cliff-like, so I figured that "canyoning" mean rock climbing and belaying. Well technically it's called "abseiling" in Australia, it just means the same thing as belaying. We started abseiling down a small 3 meter cliff, then worked our way up to 30 meters, which is about 100 ft. which is pretty tall. Somehow I ended up attempting to lead the group back from the bottom of the cliff to the top where the instructors were. It was fun but I was wondering what we were going to do for the rest of the day.
After lunch we hiked down into a canyon (starting to make sense now) and pulled off our packs. At the beginning of the day when we were given our gear, the first thing we were given was a wetsuit. I was starting to understand why we'd need it. As we followed our instructor into the icy stream that flowed through the canyon we spent the next hour jumping into natural pools of water and climbing through the stream. It was so awesome. The best part was this one 15 foot jump that I must have climbed back and done about 6 times while we were waiting to abseil the canyon.
When it was my turn, I clipped in and did my best to look graceful as I tumbled down the rock face, mostly because I was getting pounded with ice water the whole time. In retrospect it was pretty cool but it was not fun at the time. It was still cool though. I pushed off about 10 ft from the pool at the bottom and jumped in. I had done it. It was a pretty impressive waterfall too, about 100 ft. tall. As we were getting out of our wetsuits to hike back out of the canyon, we heard a huge clap of thunder overhead and the skies absolutely opened up and rained harder than I've ever seen before. We hiked back out of the canyon through the pouring rain and quarter sized hail (which hit me in the face and actually hurt a lot) and jumped back in the van to have a beer and enjoy the train ride back to Sydney where we'd get some sleep after a ridiculous weekend.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
A really delayed update.
Well I really have not been keeping up with this at all.
So let's see, what's happened since Melbourne? St. Patrick's Day was two weeks ago. I've never really cared that much about it, but let's just say it's one of my new favorite holidays. Hung out with a lot of people during the day and then went downtown at night. It ended up being a really great day. Let's just leave it at that.
Last weekend I went to the famous Sydney Opera House and saw the Magic Flute by Mozart. It's hard to get into Opera's that are in English but it was an awesome experience and pretty fun to go see. I also never get sick of the harbor so it's always fun to go down there. The next day was our surf lesson that the program I can here with set up, so we took a ferry over the Manly Beach to learn how to surf. Worth mentioning that as we were taking the ferry over, a plane wrote "Marry me Jane?" in the sky, then wrote "she said yes!" haha which was cool.
When we got over to Manly the waves were pretty small so we weren't sure how good it would be but it turns out that it was perfect for learning. I was obviously a natural, just kidding I stood up a few times but it was definitely harder than I thought it was going to be. I had a lot of fun though.
Classes are going pretty well. Actually had work due last week and this week. Then on Saturday mid-semester break starts and I'm going to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef for five days. It's going to be pretty awesome.
So let's see, what's happened since Melbourne? St. Patrick's Day was two weeks ago. I've never really cared that much about it, but let's just say it's one of my new favorite holidays. Hung out with a lot of people during the day and then went downtown at night. It ended up being a really great day. Let's just leave it at that.
Last weekend I went to the famous Sydney Opera House and saw the Magic Flute by Mozart. It's hard to get into Opera's that are in English but it was an awesome experience and pretty fun to go see. I also never get sick of the harbor so it's always fun to go down there. The next day was our surf lesson that the program I can here with set up, so we took a ferry over the Manly Beach to learn how to surf. Worth mentioning that as we were taking the ferry over, a plane wrote "Marry me Jane?" in the sky, then wrote "she said yes!" haha which was cool.
When we got over to Manly the waves were pretty small so we weren't sure how good it would be but it turns out that it was perfect for learning. I was obviously a natural, just kidding I stood up a few times but it was definitely harder than I thought it was going to be. I had a lot of fun though.
Classes are going pretty well. Actually had work due last week and this week. Then on Saturday mid-semester break starts and I'm going to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef for five days. It's going to be pretty awesome.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
An appropriate recount of my road trip to Melbourne: Part 3
Well things are better in trilogies I suppose, even if they are three weeks late.
So I woke up the second morning of our trip on my own while it was still dark out. I had one of those "where the heck am I" waking up moments, only to have all the memories of the past two days flood back. It was a pretty awesome feeling. Unfortunately, Adam's alarm clock went off not two minutes later from the roof (forgot to mention that the inside of the car is so much more spacious and comfortable to sleep in than the roof) and we decided to get on our way. Driving down the Great Ocean Road with the sun rising was pretty amazing. Incidentally I slept a lot on the ride back, about four hours I was told which deemed me the nickname "sleeping beauty" for the rest of the trip.
Once we reached the end of the Great Ocean Road on our way back towards Melbourne, we stopped at a beach to look for a shower, which we all desperately needed. Luckily almost all the busy beaches I've seen have showers and we found one. Nothing wakes you up like a freezing cold shower. Now that we had gotten off the main road, we decided to use the GPS to get us to and through Melbourne and also the rest of the way home. The only problem being that when we went to turn on the GPS, it showed a computer error. Luckily we had an atlas and two Eagle Scouts (always fun to run into another) in our van so we made it back with only a few wrong turns.
The reason that we ended up going to Melbourne this chosen weekend was because a large group of girls that we knew from Coogee (suburb of Sydney I live in, not sure if I mentioned it) were going to Melbourne this weekend for the free music festival that was taking place downtown. This incidentally lead to a large amount of traffic downtown. After driving around Melbourne for about twenty minutes and realizing that our van was too tall to fit into any parking garage, we drove around looking for a parking spot. The only thing I can compare this to is trying to park in downtown Rochester without a parking garage while Jazz Fest, East End Fest, and Party in the Park are all going on simultaneously. After driving around unsuccessfully for about half an hour more, we were all about at wit's end. Then, almost miraculously, we came to the end of a line of cars and found the most perfect spot I have ever seen. It was only about a half mile away from where the festival was happening, and was right at the end of a row so we didn't have to parallel park that giant purple van.
After walking to the festival, which was pretty cool actually we decided to look for the girls. They were staying in a hostile downtown and had been there for a few days, but were coming to hang out at the festival too. The location couldn't have been cooler. It was right on a river that ran right through the heart of the city and took up a pretty decent amount of space. It ended up being more of a giant carnival with a few music acts every couple hours, lots of rides and food with some professional water-ski jumping on the river (see album). After meeting up with the girls, we decided to walk around the city for a bit and get some dinner. If anyone is ever in Australia, I would absolutely advise going to Melbourne, it's an amazing city. We actually decided to check out the hostile the girls were staying in since they kept relaying horror stories from the past two days they had spent there (i.e. stuck in elevator for half an hour with irish guys) and I won't go into detail but I'm basically scared to stay in any hostile ever now.
After dinner we walked back to our van and decided that we were too tired to actually go out, but wanted to check out the Crown Casino downtown. The best part about walking to the casino was that it was right along the water, and there were tons of street performers and musicians that lined the walk since it was a Sunday night and the festival was going on (Sunday nights are always big party nights in Australia, still not sure why). The casino was cool enough, I lost $20 playing blackjack and that will probably be my casino limit for a while, but the experience was cool. The lobby for the hotel was incredible though, never been in a hotel that nice before. Not to mention the yellow lamborghini or silver miata out front. Around 10:30pm we decided to get back on the road since we needed to find a place to sleep and get a start back to Sydney. It fell on me to do this part of the drive, which didn't bother me, but let's just saying that trying to get out of Melbourne in the dark without a GPS was... stressful. Oh and I was driving on the left side of the road. But we made it out alive, and I drove until about 1:30 in the morning when I found a car park in the middle of the forrest, which creeped everyone else out (seeing as how AJ is still convinced there's dinosaurs in Australia. I am a little too), but I was so tired I hardly cared. Didn't hit any wallabies on the drive either!
Woke up pretty early the next day and got to ride shotgun since I had the role of navigator. Did make a few wrong turns, but Australian roads have about as little signage as possible, which makes navigating slightly more confusing that I would have liked. We stopped about two hours outside of Sydney to eat lunch and toast to our epic road trip, one which I will remember for a long time.
So I woke up the second morning of our trip on my own while it was still dark out. I had one of those "where the heck am I" waking up moments, only to have all the memories of the past two days flood back. It was a pretty awesome feeling. Unfortunately, Adam's alarm clock went off not two minutes later from the roof (forgot to mention that the inside of the car is so much more spacious and comfortable to sleep in than the roof) and we decided to get on our way. Driving down the Great Ocean Road with the sun rising was pretty amazing. Incidentally I slept a lot on the ride back, about four hours I was told which deemed me the nickname "sleeping beauty" for the rest of the trip.
Once we reached the end of the Great Ocean Road on our way back towards Melbourne, we stopped at a beach to look for a shower, which we all desperately needed. Luckily almost all the busy beaches I've seen have showers and we found one. Nothing wakes you up like a freezing cold shower. Now that we had gotten off the main road, we decided to use the GPS to get us to and through Melbourne and also the rest of the way home. The only problem being that when we went to turn on the GPS, it showed a computer error. Luckily we had an atlas and two Eagle Scouts (always fun to run into another) in our van so we made it back with only a few wrong turns.
The reason that we ended up going to Melbourne this chosen weekend was because a large group of girls that we knew from Coogee (suburb of Sydney I live in, not sure if I mentioned it) were going to Melbourne this weekend for the free music festival that was taking place downtown. This incidentally lead to a large amount of traffic downtown. After driving around Melbourne for about twenty minutes and realizing that our van was too tall to fit into any parking garage, we drove around looking for a parking spot. The only thing I can compare this to is trying to park in downtown Rochester without a parking garage while Jazz Fest, East End Fest, and Party in the Park are all going on simultaneously. After driving around unsuccessfully for about half an hour more, we were all about at wit's end. Then, almost miraculously, we came to the end of a line of cars and found the most perfect spot I have ever seen. It was only about a half mile away from where the festival was happening, and was right at the end of a row so we didn't have to parallel park that giant purple van.
After walking to the festival, which was pretty cool actually we decided to look for the girls. They were staying in a hostile downtown and had been there for a few days, but were coming to hang out at the festival too. The location couldn't have been cooler. It was right on a river that ran right through the heart of the city and took up a pretty decent amount of space. It ended up being more of a giant carnival with a few music acts every couple hours, lots of rides and food with some professional water-ski jumping on the river (see album). After meeting up with the girls, we decided to walk around the city for a bit and get some dinner. If anyone is ever in Australia, I would absolutely advise going to Melbourne, it's an amazing city. We actually decided to check out the hostile the girls were staying in since they kept relaying horror stories from the past two days they had spent there (i.e. stuck in elevator for half an hour with irish guys) and I won't go into detail but I'm basically scared to stay in any hostile ever now.
After dinner we walked back to our van and decided that we were too tired to actually go out, but wanted to check out the Crown Casino downtown. The best part about walking to the casino was that it was right along the water, and there were tons of street performers and musicians that lined the walk since it was a Sunday night and the festival was going on (Sunday nights are always big party nights in Australia, still not sure why). The casino was cool enough, I lost $20 playing blackjack and that will probably be my casino limit for a while, but the experience was cool. The lobby for the hotel was incredible though, never been in a hotel that nice before. Not to mention the yellow lamborghini or silver miata out front. Around 10:30pm we decided to get back on the road since we needed to find a place to sleep and get a start back to Sydney. It fell on me to do this part of the drive, which didn't bother me, but let's just saying that trying to get out of Melbourne in the dark without a GPS was... stressful. Oh and I was driving on the left side of the road. But we made it out alive, and I drove until about 1:30 in the morning when I found a car park in the middle of the forrest, which creeped everyone else out (seeing as how AJ is still convinced there's dinosaurs in Australia. I am a little too), but I was so tired I hardly cared. Didn't hit any wallabies on the drive either!
Woke up pretty early the next day and got to ride shotgun since I had the role of navigator. Did make a few wrong turns, but Australian roads have about as little signage as possible, which makes navigating slightly more confusing that I would have liked. We stopped about two hours outside of Sydney to eat lunch and toast to our epic road trip, one which I will remember for a long time.
Friday, March 16, 2012
An appropriate recount of my road trip to Melbourne: Part 2
Oh right, the Great Ocean Road.
Feel free to look through my Photos! on facebook. Most of the pictures are from the Great Ocean road but I did take a few in Melbourne. They don't really do the trip justice.
So I had the job of driving through Melbourne, and after we got out of the city we drove for another hour until we got to this town called Geelong and from there we got on the Great Ocean Road. If you look at it on a map, you can see that for the most part the road runs right along the coast for almost the entire way, with about 10 miles of road running inland (everything is in kilometers and liters here, but I still haven't gotten used to using them yet). It's a pretty unbelievable drive, and if anyone is everyone in Australia I would absolutely recommend it. Since it's such a touristy spot there's actually signs along the way that say "Drive on the left side of the road in Australia". I was actually in the backseat for the entire length of the Great Ocean Road, mostly because the roads were so curvy and basically run right next to cliffs the whole way and that makes me super anxious. Yeah laugh it up.
So the forecast for the weekend said the weather in Melbourne was supposed to be sunny every single day, but when we got through Melbourne all we had were cloudy skies, and while the drive was still awesome, it wasn't as nice as we were all hoping it was going to be. The road passes through some pretty cool towns along the way, but for the most part its just scenic coast and beaches, with a lot of scenic lookouts to stop at along the way. One of my favorite parts of the drive was that even when we weren't directly on the coast, the land around us was absolutely amazing. Mostly farms to be honest but nothing like the flat expanses we have back home.
Our goal was to make it as far down the road as London Bridge, which is this really cool rock structure that looks like a bridge and used to be connected to the mainland, but according to Adam (one of the guys I traveled with) it fell a few years ago and actually stranded a few people out on it, so now it's not connected. Around 4pm we stopped to get gas at the information area for the Twelve Apostles, which are these really amazing rock structures that used to be connected to the mainland millions of years ago, but now just stand straight out of the water. The clouds had been moving all day and miraculously with our five minute drive down to the actual site of the Apostles, the clouds parted completely and we were able to take the view in as the sun was setting. I wish it was easier to describe emotions and feelings in blog form, and the pictures don't do the area we were in justice, but it was absolutely amazing.
Since we wanted to see London Bridge before the sun fully set, we got back in the car and drove about half an hour down the road to stop at the London Bridge site. All the rock structures are pretty similar, but each one is as cool as the last. Most of the viewing areas are a couple hundred feet off the ground, but another area that we went to called Loch and Gorge was the site of a shipwreck in the 1800s I think. We couldn't see the wreck from above the water, but the coolest part was that there were actually stairs that led down to the beach, hence the pictures in my album that are mostly dark ones of us on the beach. We actually think we found an aboriginal carving in one of the rocks but we're not completely sure (aboriginal are native Australians, basically native Americans but prosecuted worse than they were in the U.S.). Since we didn't want to attempt to drive the van down the road at night, we decided to camp out in the parking lot and get up early to drive the road as the sun rose. So we cooked some dinner (we basically survived on sausages, chips and beer the entire weekend) and hung out for a bit, then decided to take a walk down one of the trails that led to a different lookout we hadn't seen yet. One of the best ideas of the entire trip. Since we basically weren't near any major population it was so dark out that for the first part of the night the stars were amazing, and as the moon rose we were able to see everything without flashlights. I can't begin to describe how cool it was to just stand there and take everything in. We were at this rock structure called razorback, and we all kind of just had really great "I can't believe we're actually in Australia" moments, which seem to happen pretty often here. Then we headed back to the van for a few hours of sleep all looking forward to the drive, albeit the few hours of sleep we were about to get.
Feel free to look through my Photos! on facebook. Most of the pictures are from the Great Ocean road but I did take a few in Melbourne. They don't really do the trip justice.
So I had the job of driving through Melbourne, and after we got out of the city we drove for another hour until we got to this town called Geelong and from there we got on the Great Ocean Road. If you look at it on a map, you can see that for the most part the road runs right along the coast for almost the entire way, with about 10 miles of road running inland (everything is in kilometers and liters here, but I still haven't gotten used to using them yet). It's a pretty unbelievable drive, and if anyone is everyone in Australia I would absolutely recommend it. Since it's such a touristy spot there's actually signs along the way that say "Drive on the left side of the road in Australia". I was actually in the backseat for the entire length of the Great Ocean Road, mostly because the roads were so curvy and basically run right next to cliffs the whole way and that makes me super anxious. Yeah laugh it up.
So the forecast for the weekend said the weather in Melbourne was supposed to be sunny every single day, but when we got through Melbourne all we had were cloudy skies, and while the drive was still awesome, it wasn't as nice as we were all hoping it was going to be. The road passes through some pretty cool towns along the way, but for the most part its just scenic coast and beaches, with a lot of scenic lookouts to stop at along the way. One of my favorite parts of the drive was that even when we weren't directly on the coast, the land around us was absolutely amazing. Mostly farms to be honest but nothing like the flat expanses we have back home.
Our goal was to make it as far down the road as London Bridge, which is this really cool rock structure that looks like a bridge and used to be connected to the mainland, but according to Adam (one of the guys I traveled with) it fell a few years ago and actually stranded a few people out on it, so now it's not connected. Around 4pm we stopped to get gas at the information area for the Twelve Apostles, which are these really amazing rock structures that used to be connected to the mainland millions of years ago, but now just stand straight out of the water. The clouds had been moving all day and miraculously with our five minute drive down to the actual site of the Apostles, the clouds parted completely and we were able to take the view in as the sun was setting. I wish it was easier to describe emotions and feelings in blog form, and the pictures don't do the area we were in justice, but it was absolutely amazing.
Since we wanted to see London Bridge before the sun fully set, we got back in the car and drove about half an hour down the road to stop at the London Bridge site. All the rock structures are pretty similar, but each one is as cool as the last. Most of the viewing areas are a couple hundred feet off the ground, but another area that we went to called Loch and Gorge was the site of a shipwreck in the 1800s I think. We couldn't see the wreck from above the water, but the coolest part was that there were actually stairs that led down to the beach, hence the pictures in my album that are mostly dark ones of us on the beach. We actually think we found an aboriginal carving in one of the rocks but we're not completely sure (aboriginal are native Australians, basically native Americans but prosecuted worse than they were in the U.S.). Since we didn't want to attempt to drive the van down the road at night, we decided to camp out in the parking lot and get up early to drive the road as the sun rose. So we cooked some dinner (we basically survived on sausages, chips and beer the entire weekend) and hung out for a bit, then decided to take a walk down one of the trails that led to a different lookout we hadn't seen yet. One of the best ideas of the entire trip. Since we basically weren't near any major population it was so dark out that for the first part of the night the stars were amazing, and as the moon rose we were able to see everything without flashlights. I can't begin to describe how cool it was to just stand there and take everything in. We were at this rock structure called razorback, and we all kind of just had really great "I can't believe we're actually in Australia" moments, which seem to happen pretty often here. Then we headed back to the van for a few hours of sleep all looking forward to the drive, albeit the few hours of sleep we were about to get.
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