Apparently "Aussie" pizza or anything "Aussie" contains egg. It's a little weird. I guess it's because there's no distinct Aussie food, and they decided to just adopt egg as typical Aussie cuisine.
So bright and early Saturday morning, we hopped onto the bus and started our day tour to the Great Ocean Road. Here is our tour guide, Eddie.
He wasn't so pleasant to start out with, but he warmed up and was actually a great guide. As far as accents go, comparing Eddie's to Peter's (our tour guide last week), they were quite different, even though both of them were born and raised in Melbourne. Perhaps there really is a difference in accents from suburb to suburb here.
After quite a long drive, we arrived at the beginning of the Great Ocean Road. This Road is built along the coast, similar in idea to the 17-mile drive in Monterey or around Big Sur), but it goes on for foREVER. There are three sections to it - the Surf Coast (where surfers go and there are good waves), the Green Coast (which is basically National Park), and the Shipwreck Coast (appropriately named due to the many many shipwrecks along this part of the coast - 180 in just 40 years!). Anyway, our first stop was to Wikipop Bell's Beach where there were indeed a lot of surfers, even though it was pretty cold outside. Apparently when it gets even slightly warmer, even in winter, there are a lot more surfers.
The beach was really nice, and the weather held up nicely the entire day.
Michelle found some pretty shells..
.. and they made cool sounds.
And then it was time to move on to the Great Ocean Road memorial arch. Eddie called us the "dodgy six."
Everywhere along this road was amazingly beautiful, even a random place we stopped for coffee and bickies.
Apparently this beach and town is crazily full in the summertime. But in the winter, there's barely anybody around.
Koalas still exist in the wild, so we stopped at some random forest and went koala hunting. They were really high up in the eucalyptus trees, but really cute all the same. (click on the picture to see them better)
Lunch found us at this little beach town; we ate really fast so we could go explore and play on the beach.
And who knew there were rainforests in Australia?
With huge trees and giant ferns..
.. and this crazy looking tree that is actually just one tree but looks like three.
And then a long drive through the Green Coast, through rolling pastures full of sheep and cows, clear blue sky, and green.
Then we arrived at Shipwreck Coast, which was absolutely beautiful. Basically it was cliffs along the coast, and lots of rock formations. Even though it was a relatively calm day, the waves still crashed really powerfully against the rocks. Imagine in a rough storm, the waves would be even stronger, causing many ships to meet their end.
These are the 12 Apostles. Why they call them that, I'm not quite sure. There's only 8 of them, but one fell down, so there's only 7, I guess. But we were only able to see 6, including the one that fell.
And after viewing them from the lookout, we got to see them from the beach. It was quite the different perspective, and seeing the waves up close and personal was pretty amazing.
[It's supposed to be PRIME - we can spell (: ]
And then we headed home.
Sunday morning we went bike riding with David. Well, as long as we could keep up. I hadn't been on a bike in forever, so it was a little difficult.
Saleh, David's friend Henry, and I eventually got separated from the rest of the group, and we ended up going pretty far. I'm not exactly sure how far, but it was definitely farther than I had ever gone on a bike. We stopped for coffee and really yummy muffins along the way. I learned about gears on a bike, and the differences between mountain and road bikes. We rode along the bike trail which was on the bay, and it was really pretty.
Got honked at a couple times because we were going too slow. Explored many suburbs in Melbourne. It was pretty fun. Then when we went back to return the bikes, we met up with the rest of the gang and walked around St. Kilda. Last time we went to St. Kilda, it was pouring rain. This time, it was great weather - sunny and bright. There was a little craft fair going along the pier, and an amusement park. It reminded me a little of the Boardwalk up in Santa Cruz.
Anyway, my research is going. NIMROD is working, and I'm trying to figure out how to get it to work properly. And our bottoms are still sore.
1 comment:
haha your blog is funny. you write so much about your adventures and you included only two sentences about your work in the end. haha!
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