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Excitedly I woke on Tuesday morning and was picked up by the tour bus at about 7:30am. The friends I had made from the first tour, that were on the second also, had already been picked up by our tour guide, Dan; my hostel was the last to be picked up. We were soon on the road and Dan was getting us to answer a series of questions in the hot seat to get to know each other better. There were 14 of us in total. 3 Germans, 2 Swiss, 2 Danish, 4 Dutch, 1 Italian, 1 American and I was the only English person.
Our first day together was all driving really, not quite the distances we reached on the Central trip, but we did not get into the Grampians until mid-afternoon. We had a lunch stop in Bordertown, a town that used to be on the SA/Vic border, but that now lies a few kilometers before it. South Australia realised that Victoria had taken land that rightly belonged to them and so the border was moved. Arriving in the beautiful landscape of the Grampians we climbed up to our first stop, Mackenzie Falls. Here we followed the walking track down to a few lookouts over the waterfalls; we could not get to the base due to construction work.
After many photos and twiddling round with the shutter speed and exposure on my camera we were soon being moved on to our next stop in Halls Gap. This was up even higher and unfortunately the cloud and fog obscured our view out of many of the lookouts that we walked a rather long way to reach. The mist closed in around us and began to cool us quite quickly. The woods we had to walk through to reach the lookout had an eerie atmosphere but had a peaceful silence. This meant no sunset from the lookout but we drove to the holiday cottages we would be staying in at the foothills of the mountains. Dan cooked us an incredible pumpkin and pomegranate spaghetti dish for dinner with homemade garlic bread! Very full and tired I took an early night.
The next morning I awoke to find most people dressed and about to go eat their breakfast. Surprised, I checked my iPod clock and realised that although I had changed my iPod because of the time difference between SA and Victoria, I had not changed my phone, as it had been sitting turned off, in my bag, when we crossed the border the day before. So my phone, used as my alarm clock, had woken me up half an hour too late. Amazingly though, Dan had changed our plans so that we would leave half an hour later because the weather would affect the rest of the day.
We started our first walk just down the road from our cabins; it took us past hoards of kangaroos, a few emus and a couple of deer to Brambuk Cultural Centre. Here we had a short video about the aboriginal dreaming story for the creation of the world and it's relevance to the Grampians plus a video about the geological and social history of the Grampians. We had half an hour to have a look around the centre's displays which detailed the history of the aboriginals in the area. There were many references to when the white people came to settle in the area kicked the aboriginals out of their homeland, stole children away from families and killed aboriginals that tried to fight back. There were many unnecessary deaths on both sides but thankfully it has mostly resolved itself today and the centre is there for generations to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Then we had another 'Dan Surprise' as he had organized for us to pay just $5 for a tasting platter of kangaroo, emu, crocodile, mountain duck and wattle damper (aboriginal bread). I really enjoyed the emu and the mountain duck, which funnily enough tasted more like pork. The crocodile tasted like fishy chicken and the kangaroo was probably my least favourite. The wattle damper is made from the seeds of the wattle tree that are ground into a sort of flour. When the dough is made it is cooked in a pit of fire in the ground. I found that if I was hungry, I would eat it, but would not choose to eat it on a regular basis if I didn't have to.
We were then taken to Silverband falls and after a short walk there, we hopped into the bus and began to make our way down to the coast. We stopped for lunch at Tower Hill, a now dormant volcano crater; here we finally saw some koalas, three in fact. We were told it is difficult to find them as they only feed off specific species of eucalypts and as there are thousands of species of eucalypts you can see it would be like hunting for a needle in a haystack. So we were thrilled to be able to see some in the wild.
We actually made it down to the sea mid-afternoon and hit all the tourist checkpoints along the road: Bay of Islands, Bay of Martyrs, London Bridge and Loch Ard Gorge. It was a spectacular stretch of coastline that was made even more dramatic with the dark, moody clouds hanging over us. It brought the stories, that tell of all that has occurred along this section of coastline, to life. For example, Loch Ard Gorge is so named after the English ship that shipwrecked on the rocks in he late 1800s as it tried to seek shelter in the gorge, from a raging storm. Only two people survived and you can understand why when you see the narrow opening to the gorge as well as the jagged cliffs and crashing waves.
Our last stop of the day was the most famous point of the trip, the Twelve Apostles. Many joke about them not being twelve anymore as they have slowly been falling into the sea, I certainly only counted seven and you can understand why this has occurred. The waves that were crashing against the columns of rock were unrelenting and the power in the water has eroded many of them to a very narrow base. It is sad to think that that incredible seascape may no longer exist in my lifetime, but at the same time I know that the rock is apart of this ever-changing world that make these places we visit even more special. We took our obligatory group shots but once we had seen the sun disappear below the horizon, we were quite chilly and so headed back to the bus. We stayed the night at a hostel nearby called the Thirteenth Apostle… We had takeaway pizza and watched a movie just to relax a bit.
The next day we woke to very pleasant weather, sunny and breezy and perfect to see the beaches we past at their best. We drove the windy road past beautiful blue sea and sky stopping first at Castle Cove then passing through the Great Otway National Park. We took a stroll under the canopy of the temperate rainforest where we saw the tallest hardwoods in the world, the Mountain Ash. We then had half an hour to have a look around Apollo Bay, an old whaling town that is now just a haven for tourists.
At Kennett River we had another 'Dan Surprise' and, with birdseed in hand, got up close and personal to a mass of colourful parrots that lived in the trees along the road. They were landing on our heads, hands and shoulders scrabbling for the seed we held out to them and we also saw another koala!
We had lunch at Lorne and then onto having classic tourist photos at the Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch. The archway stretches over the road and a stopping area gives all the information about the WWI soldiers who built the road after they returned in an attempt to keep them busy. On to Split Point Lighthouse where people have spotted whales along the coastline in the last few months. It is the season for the mother whales to come closer to shore to have their calves. Unfortunately we could see none but the views were pretty awesome as they were. Our last stop was Torquay, home of the surf brands Ripcurl and Quiksilver. We had an hour to search the warehouses for bargain brand clothes before heading onto the highway and arriving into Melbourne at about 5pm. Drop-offs took a while with the awful evening traffic backing up, but I was soon at the train station saying my goodbyes to the group still left.
All in all, I had a fantastic trip and made some great friends. I am so happy I got see all I did and it was more than I expected it would be.
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