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Melbourne - Our first glimpse of Melbourne came as our train neared the end of our journey from Adelaide and rounded a corner to show the city as a whole sat in front of us. It's a very good looking city with a lot of modern skyscrapers and buildings. We settled into our hostel, slept and prepared for a very packed few days. During our time here we:
•Walked around the city (several times!) taking in the sights and looking in the shops.
•Visited 'The Old Melbourne Gaol', a prison that housed Australia's most famous outlaw, Ned Kelly. In fact Ned spent his last days here as he along with 40 or so others were hanged. We wandered around the main cell block and looked in the individual cells which told the story of the building. Some of the cells were home to the 'death masks' of those who were hanged. After the event had taken place a cast was taken of the recently deceased's face so it was a little eerie looking at them knowing that was exactly what they looked like rather than a painting or artists impression. After leaving the prison we went to the Watch House which only stopped being used a few years ago. This is where people would be checked in after being arrested before being either released or sent to court, so on a weekend it would be full of drunks who had been taken in for minor offenses. This was a tour with a difference though, and we were given a card with a name and an offence on it, and were dealt with as though we had just been arrested. After giving our details we were put in cells where the door was locked and the light turned off! Thankfully our sentences were only a few minutes long before we were freed and were able to freely wander around and take photos. An interesting and fun day out.
•Saw the turning on of Melbourne's Christmas lights. This was complete with some Aussie celebs (we didn't know them) singing songs, as well as the girl who came second in the 2010 Aussie X-Factor performing (who we did know as we'd seen a couple of episodes on our travels).
•Spent several hours over our several days in the city at the library, taking advantage of their free internet of course!
•Went to the Queen Victoria Market - 'one of the largest open air markets in the Southern Hemisphere'. There was a huge fresh fruit and vegetable section where we picked up some strawberries and cherries, as well as stalls selling clothes, toys, knick-knacks, you name it! We spent a couple of hours wandering around and taking in all the sights and sounds of the place.
•Visited Erinsborough and Ramsey Street on a 'Neighbours Tour'. We got on a minibus complete with Neighbours bodywork and headed off in search of Harold Bishop! Well, that was Andy's hope anyway! First off we were driven to the school that doubles for Erinsborough High and driven slowly around it. Neither of us have watched the show in years but we recognised the entrance of it. From here it was off to the studios where the outdoor sets of the Lassiters complex, Harold's cafe, and Carpenters Mechanics (Kylie Minogue worked here before her singing career took off don't you know) are located. It was quite small with everything connected and/or right next to each other. Some camera trickery is clearly at work to make it seem otherwise. We took many a tourist photo outside the different places and then took a brief stroll to the lake where people get married or sit on the grass for those all important 'I've got something to tell you...' soap moments! Once all the hysterical ladies had got back on board the bus (yes, Andy was the only male in sight, no, they weren't hysterical because Andy was the only male in sight) we headed for the piece de resistance of the tour - Ramsey Street (or Pin Oak Court as it is otherwise known!). It's an actual residential street with the owners of the houses being paid a nice yearly fee for the usage of their road! We wandered up the street taking photos of the houses which was a little awkward as it was a weekend so the owners were doing gardening and what not! The tour company had brought along a Ramsey St road sign so we posed for photos with that outside Harold's and the Kennedy's houses before jumping back in the van for the drive back to the city. We stopped halfway to meet someone from the show. It was a lady who played Janelle who is Stingray and Dylan's Mum. This may mean nothing to you if you don't watch the show, Andy didn't know who she was either but we had a quick chat and Nikki had a photo with her.
The Great Ocean Road.
In our room in the hostel we met a couple from Canada (Dave & Kerri) who had arrived in Melbourne the week beforehand and were looking for work. We had planned the last leg of our time in Oz to be a trip along the Great Ocean Road. We were making enquiries into renting vans and for some reason vans that were big enough for 4 people were cheaper than ones for only 2 of us. When you then split the price 4 ways it was a bargain! We knew the guys were growing tired of the 4 walls of the hostel and although they were looking for work, it would be a chance for them to see at least a piece of Australia before being tied down so we asked if they wanted to come along - they jumped at the chance.
During our 6 days travelling the Great Ocean Road we stopped in a lot of small towns and villages, stayed in different places each night be it a car park or a campsite in the bush, and of course, saw lots of different things. It would be hard to list every detail so the following is a summary of the trip, a highlights package if you will!
Our trip took us from Melbourne down to the start of the Great Ocean Road in Torquay through to the end of the road in Warrnambool. We continued along the coast to Portland before heading north to Halls Gap in the Grampians national park where we spent a couple of days, before returning to Melbourne.
We stopped the van at Addis Point which was simply a nice viewpoint which also had a path leading down to a deserted beach. As boys will be boys, Andy and Dave wasted no time in stripping off and launched themselves into the waves. It was the only way of getting in because the water was FREEZING cold, no one sane would walk in slowly! It wasn't much of a surprise that it was cold seeing as the water separated the beach from Antarctica; there is no more land in between! It was also exciting knowing it was Great White territory making it an even more interesting swim! To give you an idea of the kind of weather it was, while the boys were in the water, Kerri and Nikki sat on the windy beach in jeans and hoodies!
We stopped on a road next to a golf club whose greens were also home to a large number of kangaroos. Luckily they were lazing on the only green where we could see them easily from the road. There were around 50 of them and even though we'd been to the outback, they were the first 'roos we'd seen, exciting even though they were only semi-wild.
We headed for a road that we had been told would almost certainly have koalas up in the trees. They weren't wrong! In one of the first few trees we looked up to find two of them participating in their favourite hobby - sleeping. It was so exciting to finally be seeing some in the wild, we had been looking up almost every tree in search of them! We carried on up the road for about a kilometre where we spotted one or two more. As we got to a point where we decided to turn back we saw there was one right by us. He was in the branches of a tree that was in a bank sloping away from the road meaning he was just above head height. Not only was he very close to us but he was climbing around the branch he was on and grabbing handfuls of eucalyptus leaves and eating, all the while having a good look at us too! It was a really special moment being so close to an animal in the wild especially one who is acknowledging you and not appearing scared. Very cool!
The 12 Apostles, London Bridge and the Bay of Martyrs/Bay of Islands.
The 12 Apostles are a series of huge rocks jutting out of the sea that have become separated from the mainland due to erosion over many years. Most people drive the Ocean Road just to see these natural phenomenons. We stopped to look at these and take photos before driving a few minutes down the road to London Bridge. This is a huge archway formed in an enormous piece of rock sitting just off the coast, though until only a few years ago it was still connected to the mainland but the 'bridge' gave way and fell into the sea. The roof of the arch is expected to follow suit in the years to come. Last on our list in this area of the road was a brief stop at the Bay of Martyrs which gave us a view across the Bay of Islands, a series of lots of rocks and 'islands' of various sizes dotted along the coastline. These 3 sites are all situation within a 30 minute drive so in an afternoon we saw all of these natural formations that will only get smaller and/or collapse in the future.
We stopped briefly to take a photo of the archway that goes over the Great Ocean Road in dedication to the thousands of men who built it, all of which had served in the Australian Army we believe in WW1. Once the war was over many of these men were jobless so were employed to build the road linking all the villages and towns along the treacherous coastline.
We stopped just over halfway into the journey from the coastline up to the Grampians to stay in a free campsite for the night as it was near a big waterfall called Wannon Falls. We didn't visit the falls until the morning where we found a raging torrent of water. All the rains had caused the falls to look and sound even more spectacular than they usually are. Dave and Andy walked over to the water's edge on top of the falls not knowing until afterwards that they were standing on a huge ledge supported by nothing underneath! No wonder the girls looked worried! It made for a spectacular photo though.
Once in the Grampians we drove up a very steep, very winding road that eventually got us to a small area near the highest point in the park. To get to the top required a couple of kilometres walk up a path just as steep and just as winding. Around halfway up we stopped to get some amazing views and photos of the other mountains surrounding us. We carried on a little longer before giving in to the elements as the rains were closing in and our rain coats are unfortunately quite thin. So we didn't make it to the very top, but we were close and we still got some spectacular views.
While staying in the Grampians the free campsite was 10km down a dirt road into the bush. Whilst on our way there we slammed on the brakes as we'd spotted another of Australia's native wildlife in the road up ahead, and something we'd been told was quite rarely spotted - an Echidna! These guys are like hedgehogs crossed with porcupines, and their defining feature is a long pointy snout! When we got too close it turned itself into a ball in the blink of an eye before slowly poking it's head back out to see if we were still there or not. We were very excited and got some photos of it before letting it shuffle off into the bush. Once we arrived at the camp itself we started cooking dinner and making a fire when Dave spotted something. Only around 50 metres away was a kangaroo and two joeys! We had finally spotted wild 'roos! We took photos and then carried on cooking only to find ourselves being surrounded by them and their friends, as over the next couple of hours we must have seen around 30-40 of them emerging from the bush to eat the grass in the camp. It was brilliant to see so many of them and in quite close proximity.
And so we neared the end of our time in Australia. We'd dived the Great Barrier Reef, rafted down the Tully River, taken in the sights of the various cities, roughed it sleeping under the stars in the Outback, and then our final week provided us with the missing puzzle pieces we'd been hoping for, to see Kangaroos and Koalas in the wild. Although we found that Australia wasn't exactly a cultural country it was great to finally see the iconic sights such as the Opera House with our own eyes. Having said that, the highlights for us were undoubtedly the times we got away from the cities with our trip along the Great Ocean Road, and of course our favourite part overall, our days spent in the Outback. It was a great and very varied 2 months that we will remember fondly.
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