The Great Ocean Road

I only have about fifteen minutes of internet left, so I will make this brief. Pictures will have to wait until I'm back in Adelaide, which should be the 8th.

Yesterday Ashley, Soxi, James, and I woke up at 7 to begin our road trip to Melbourne. The first leg of our drive took us through the Coorong, a wetland area near the ocean that had tons of birds, including many emus that looked like grass huts on the horizon.

On the way, we passed by a gigantic lobster and decided it was necessary to get out of the car and take a picture. His name is Larry. I hope you appreciate this, because as I was taking a picture of gigantic Larry the Lobster some people driving by mooned me. D:



A few hours outside of Adelaide, we hit Mt. Gambier, a small town near the Victoria border famous for its lakes. The most famous lake, Blue Lake, is an otherworldly shade of blue. Unfortunately it was cloudy when we were there, but the colour was still stunning. I can only imagine what it looks like in the sun.





Soon after Mt. Gambier we hit the Great Ocean Road. The drive was incredible; the small road winds along the craggy coastline, with a seemingly infinite number of places to pull off and just gawk at the cliffs jutting out into the ocean. We saw lots of kangaroos on this stretch, too.






We hit the Twelve Apostles right around sunset, but there was cloud cover so we didn't see the colour change that makes them really light up. They were still beautiful, though, and we were so happy that we made it. We ended up spending the night in a hostel on the beach in a tiny little beach town.




We woke up early the next day (today!) and hit the road again. The Great Ocean Road winds through Great Otway National Park, which happens to be a temperate rainforest. We pulled off for lunch and a quick hour hike to a waterfall.





On our way back a wallaby hopped right in front of us on the path and stopped, staring. The tiniest little joey head was peeking out of its pouch; it was SO adorable! The birds singing in the trees were really nice, too. As you can see below, it was prime platypus habitat, but alas, no platypi were to be found. Regardless, it was an awesome hike.



The rest of the drive was through beautiful rolling hills, punctuated with wide ocean vistas and thick eucalyptus forests, complete with heaps of wild koalas. Sometimes the trees looked like they had a disease which caused them to sprout furry grey protruberances, there were so many.

Okay, only four minutes left. We stopped at a surfing beach for a quick swim, dropped James off at the airport outside of Melbourne to catch a flight home, and then got lost in the city trying to find our hostel. We are staying in an old nunnery, and it is a very nice, clean place right across from the Melbourne museum. We are all looking forward to the races tomorrow, and then I'm going to spend a day looking at the sights while Ashley and Soxi shop (they have both been to Melbourne multiple times). Now we're all going out for a drink, plus I'm out of money here, so I have to go!