wipe out!

Surfers assessing the waves at Bells Beach

Day 23 recap (Thurs Mar 3)

[Scott] We checked out of our hotel in Geelong and the guy at the front desk was a really nice gentleman from New Zealand, and quite a character too. He was nice enough to wait up for us last night, since we didn’t get in until almost 11pm. This morning he told me fascinating stories about some of his adventures in New Zealand, including a story about a Cessna flight he took to the summit of Mount Cook in a blizzard! We headed down to the surf town Torquay. Both of us agreed that our breakfast raspberry white chocolate breakfast muffin was one of the best we ever had. Stef let her tastebuds study the flavor, as she couldn’t wait to give a try and replicating the recipe herself. We asked about the day’s surfing conditions, and the cashier at the bakery told us that her boyfriend was surfing down at Bells Beach that morning and he said the waves were pretty good. We were excited to go check out the surfers. We arrived at Bells and there were hundreds of surfers in the water. We walked out onto the rocks so we could watch up close, and we stayed for at least a half hour watching these people ride the waves. The waves were up to 10 feet high at times, and some of these surfers were very talented! We headed back into town, and Stef did some serious shopping there at the surfwear outlets. While she was “in the zone”, I took the opportunity to go to the Surfing Museum which wasn’t too bad. We both really liked the surfing atmosphere in this town, and would probably enjoy relaxing here for a three or four day stay. We decided instead that we would head to Wilson’s Promontory National Park, a good drive to the east on the other side of Melbourne so we can do some hiking tomorrow – our last full day in Victoria. This will be the only hike we do in Australia. When we were planning our trip, we talked about hiking to Australia’s highest point at the summit of Mount Kosciusko near Canberra, but decided that it was too much out of the way. Tasmania and Cairns were the other two Australian destinations under consideration that didn’t “make the cut”. Speaking of which, it doesn’t look like golf is going to “make the cut” on this whole vacation. There are just too many other interesting things to see and do that we don’t have in Colorado! Anyway, we put our car on the ferry, a “shortcut” from Queenscliff to Sorrento to save us from driving around the enormous Port Philip Bay. It was a nice day for a ferry ride (about 45min long) and we enjoyed sitting outside on top, although there wasn’t much in the way of scenery. Stef figured out the route we needed to take to Wilson’s Prom, and she was in charge of calling out the next turnoff. She did great, but I missed more than one turnoff and we pretty much gave back the time we saved with the ferry shortcut. I think I’m losing my focus after all this driving. We called ahead to the town of Foster, the last town before the Prom, and made a reservation at The Comfort Inn without any trouble. When we got settled into the room, we agreed that this hotel room made our list of worst stays on the trip. Didn’t matter – we just needed to get some sleep before hiking tomorrow. I was just glad we made it there after all the driving struggles.

The sun setting through some trees as we drove back to Geelong for the night.

We are standing at Loch Ard Gorge. Regardless of how peaceful it looks, it was so loud in there from the sounds of the waves echoing off the walls. This photo was taken by a really nice Australia family.

Scott standing in front of some limestone stalactites at Loch Ard Gorge.

The coastline is under attack daily from the strong currents and high waves.

Standing in front of some of the Twelve Apostles. The waves were crashing in around them.

This oldtimer is known as "Big Tree". It is over 300 years old!

A Koala woke up for a photo-op! With nails like that I thought he was going to scratch Scott for taking a close-up! Luckily, they are pretty lazy creatures.

Scott pointing high up at a "fuzball" (AKA: Koala) How they balance for their naps is beyond me!

Day 22 recap (Wed Mar 2)

[Stef] After a great nights sleep, we got up today to another warm, sunny day. We checked out of the hotel by 9am, loaded the car and went to a little bakery in Lorne called “Beach Buns” for some baked goodies. Scott got a chocolate donut and a raspberry Danish. I got a croissant and hot crossed buns with chocolate chips. The women who owned the bakery called them “American Hot Crossed Buns”. She was very kind and probably the biggest fan of Americans I have ever met. She told us story after story of how Americans have made her life better. Her favorite memory of her first trip to the United States was when she was about 18. She and some friend were in Miami, waiting to transfer flights to go to the Caribbean. At a coffee shop she asked for an iced coffee. The employee quickly made her the coffee, but after trying it, she was very disappointed with the concoction. Apparently, the way she had iced coffees prepared in Australia were not the same as how they were made in the coffee shop. The employee overheard her and asked her if she was happy with her purchase. She sheepishly said no and so the woman said, “Tell me how you like it prepared, and I will make it for you.” And so she did. From that day on, she had the utmost respect for the American way of life – eager to please and commitment to quality customer service. (For those of you who have traveled to other countries you can agree there is nothing like customer service in the USA.) The woman explained that because of this kindness in Miami she has made it her personal commitment to treat all the customers coming through her bakery with the same kindness and respect.

Her other comical story was of her son. He is 20 years old and has made many trips to Colorado to ski, his first trip was in when he was 18. Before he left for the states, he refused to drive his parents “dorky” Subaru car. After returning from Colorado, he had no problem driving the Subaru. Finally, the Baker asked her son why he stopped complaining, and he told his mother that everyone in Colorado drives Subaru vehicles! You can only imagine her excitement when I told her I drove a Subaru! She was excited to tell her son! It was a really nice chat but we had to get going so we said our goodbyes and left.

We quickly ate our goodies in the car – yummy! Nice and fresh! Then we set out to see some koalas in the wild. We drove about 20 minutes from Lorne and took a little drive up a dusty road, quickly into the thick of tall, thin Eucalyptus trees. At first, it was hard to see anything, but suddenly we looked up and saw big fur balls at the tops of the trees! They were sleeping! We saw about a dozen or so and even one with its baby cub clinging to it while it climbed to the highest point of the tree to get the young leaves. Many of them woke up when they heard us, but they only starred at us and went back to sleep. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat. After our necks got too sore to look up anymore, we left. On our way out, we saw one at the side of the road only about 8-10 feet up. Scott climbed up a steep hillside to get closer and took about 50 pictures. I was scared the koala was going to get annoyed and scratch him. Scott did not mind though!

We got back on the Great Ocean Road until Apollo Bay, where we did a little shopping and had lunch. We stopped again at Otway National Park. This is a little pocket of Rain Forest and so we hiked it. It was about a 45 minutes round-trip hike, which was a nice break from the driving. Back in the gully of this protected forest is what they call the “Big Tree”. It is an enormous eucalyptus tree – which is a Otway Messmate (a cross between a Mountain Ash and a Messmate trees). This tree is 300 years old, surviving several fires in its lifespan.

Finally, we made our way to the Twelve Apostles. We got there at able 3 PM and we were very tired. We decided before we went we would take a cat name in the car. Finally, we got out to check it out. It was a beautiful place. Overwhelming in a sense because the massiveness of the ocean in front of us. There is no other landmass south of Australia until you get to Antarctica. This allows the waves and strong currents to beat against the limestone coastline creating interesting geological formations. This is also the general location of many historical shipwrecks. Standing on the cliffs looking at the powerful waters colliding with the coast on a beautiful day makes you wonder how impressive the waves are on a stormy day. At this location, there is also a trail to an area known as Loch Ard Gorge; named after this area’s most famous shipwreck. On a boat of 54 people, only two survived. They were washed up onto the beach in the gorge – this was an unbelievable stroke of luck as there are very few places to get onto beach. We were impressed with both places. The Apostles were a little too touristy for us, so we didn’t get as excited when we could hardly take a picture without a tourist in it. In Loch Ard Gorge, we met a very nice family from Victoria. They were very kind and interested in us. They gave us some advice on things to see on our drive. They had two kids who were really fun and lively. They also took a picture of us with the waves crashing behind. It was really nice!

We got back on the road and went to look at a few more limestone formations. They are known as London Bridge, Thunder Cave, The Blowhole, the Bay of Martyrs and the Bay of Islands. We got to see the start of the sunset over the Bay of Islands. It was a fun day with as much exploring and hiking as driving to balance it out. We know that they say it takes 6 hours to do the Great Ocean Road, but we took our time and did it in a day and a half. We are both glad we did that since we wanted to see everything and not rush it.

We drove back that night on the inland highway to Geelong, where we would stop for the night and get some rest.