Vacationception

The Great Ocean Road tour was a vacation within a vacation within a vacation. Vacationception woooooo

Now words can not explain this trip any more than the pictures do. I can not describe with words how beautiful the landscape was and how gorgeous the shoreline was even through the foggy windows of the bus. 

The day started at about 630 am for us. Emily was awake before me, getting ready, because we were being picked up from the hotel at 725 am. 

We were down in the lobby at 7, and te bus ended up being early. I was expecting a coach bus, but this was more of a 20 seat job, but it was alright. 

We were the first ones to be picked up, so thankfully the driver, Travis, wasn't too creepy. We made small talk while we drove around picking up a few other people from different hotels before meeting up with the other bus that was also doing pick ups. The other bus was the bus we would be on all day, with the other driver whose name was Allan. 

I knew I would get car sick at some point so I had snagged the front row on our bus, intending to get it on the second bus, but then an Indian couple were complaining about the cramped leg room and the driver told them they would have more space in the first row. When the doors opened I meant to take the first row anyway, because motion sickness should take precedent over pickiness, but Emily didn't want to make enemies so early in the day so we went to the last available row - which was 3 rows from the back. 

Good thing I carry Bonine in my backpack at all times!

We ended up in front of a married couple from Boston, behind two girls from Swindon England (near Bristol) and another couple from Argentina. There were a few groups of Korean girls, Cantonese and Japanese couples as well. The only annoying ones were the two in the back of the bus - a guy from Switzerland and a girl from Brazil who were insufferable. His laugh was the most annoying high pitched squeal on the planet, and he thought she was the funniest thing to walk the earth. They laughed and talked over the drivers commentary and even when people were trying to sleep. 

At the first stop, which was just a 10 minute lookout point at a nice beach, we were told going down to the sand and back up would take too long so to just get on the lookout path. The Swiss and Brasil ran down to the sand and everyone else looked at the driver like, yeah can we leave them behind? Like for real? Lol

Then everybody trekked back onto the bus (and the annoying twosome were still being annoying) and our next stop was a little parking lot on the side of a river. We went over to the picnic tables where Allan brought out the instant coffee packets and tea bags, thermoses of hot water and plastic cups, and three loaves of breakfast breads. Banana walnut, blueberry, and something else. I had the banana walnut, Emily had blueberry, and then we walked along the river and stuff.
Saw some black swans.

Then the clouds got ominous and it was super cool - but it didn't start raining until we all started making our way back to the bus.

Our third stop about 15 minutes later was the start of the Great Ocean Road, which has this really cool archway. That's the back of our driver's head, and the two Korean girls.

Most of us snapped one picture of the arch and then ran down this path to the beach, because lets face it, when given 10 minutes to take a picture of an arch that needs only 20 seconds, it's just cooler to run down on a shoreline for a bit! Everyone loves waves and sand.

I left my mark.

"CBBC" stands for our group of friends' youtube channel, where we make little video updates on our lives and post them for each other. We wanted them all to be represented in Victoria, Australia ;)

The thing about this day was, according to Allan the driver, was the worst weather they had in the last 6 months, and we all just so happened to be traveling during this time. Not that it mattered to me - I LOVE beaches and rocks and waves and beautiful scenic drives, so even though it was raining and even though it was a bit cold, I was perfectly fine.

The only thing that wasn't fine was that the bus' windows fogged up and would not stop, despite Allan keeping up with blasting the heat and then blasting the air conditioning. Everyone tried to use their sleeves or tissues or towels but nothing was working.

For about 20 minutes we drove along the Great Ocean Road, past a bunch of scenic lookouts that we didn't stop at because it would take about 15 minutes each time for everyone to get off and get pictures and get back in the bus and whatnot.
Even through the foggy windows, the entire drive along this road was GORGEOUS. I don't have any pictures because I was on the opposite side of the bus, but it was just gorgeous coastal views and little hidden beaches and rocks and tidal pools and shades of blue and green that just don't exist in America.

I popped another Bonine around this time because the road was winding a bunch, if not for the ocean in view, it would've been like driving up to Silver Bay.

Our next stop was the highest part of the road, looking down into this gorge which was apparently named "suicide gorge" because a lot of people have thrown themselves off of it. Which was just lovely. the view - not the suicide thing. In fact, a lot of the "fun facts" that Allan gave us were all about the war and the deaths of the ANZACs and how many people had died building the Great Ocean Road and how building the road was designated to ANZACs back from the war and the work drove some of them insane / to suicide at places like this gorge.

He also played music with elderly Australian men singing about the deaths of the ANZACs.A song I remember distinctly that he played was called, "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" please look it up on youtube if you get a chance. It's about 8-minutes long.

The bus, and another car.

There's no way to show you how high up we were. I wish that cameras showed depth. Basically, we were high enough up for people to die jumping off.

After this, we continued along the road, down slopes and past more incredible, stunning, picturesque-despite-the-weather ocean. Our next stop would be Apollo Bay, one of the premiere vacation spots for Aussies.
It was here that we stopped for lunch, which was paid for as part of the tour cost. It ended up being this little Thai restaurant off the main road. Allan had passed a menu around on the bus earlier in the day and everyone wrote down their name by what they wanted, and at another stop he called it in so it was ready when we got there. I ordered Pad Thai with no peanuts.

When we got to the restaurant, the man who owned the place said that they didn't get the memo about the no peanuts, so whoever ordered that would have to wait a bit. When it was my turn to get my food, I saw that they had the Pad Thai already made with the peanuts, so I told them I would eat it so it wouldn't be wasted. They tried to accommodate the no-peanuts order but I was like no really, I prefer it without but I don't have an allergy. He said he didn't want any law suit and I said no don't worry about it, I'm good. So I took it.

It was delicious anyway. Thankfully it had been sitting there in the steam long enough that the peanuts had softened anyway, so I couldn't even really tell it had peanuts at all. It was my first pad thai and it was great. Emily had a stir fry, and we both ate it (I pretty much inhaled mine) and then went off into some of the shops. Emily wanted to find a hoodie because it was still so cold, and I walked across the street to the beach by myself.

 On the sand dunes there were tons of little shells, completely intact from small critters. They were perfect spirals so I ended up collecting a bunch of them. I love beaches. I can't stress that enough. See how green and turquoise that water is? Imagine how it would look in the sun!

Then I met up with Emily in her snazzy new hoodie and went back to the bus. Our next stop was a camp where we would be spotting wild koalas. Allan said that in all the years he has done the tour, not once has there never been at least one koala where we were aiming to go. He said up the road there would be scores of them, but at this one patch where everyone ended up staying, there were 3.

  

 There are two of them. The third one was too high up to get a good picture. They were all sleeping, so we all pointed them out to each other and people took pictures and whatnot, but the real scene stealers ended up being the flock of King Parrots, as seen in the pictures below:

They got on pretty much everyone! We were just looking at a koala when we heard some screams and a lot of flapping of wings, so I thought they had all just up and flew away, but no, I look back and the whole crew has one or more on their shoulders and head - Emily included.

So I run back, and one lands on my shoulder (pictured above). It was great that I had my iPod camera with me this time as well as my regular camera ;)

Allan is in the picture above, our driver, and apparently he had some sort of bird seed. Once it was gone, they were all just milling about, so Emily went back to the bus to get the granola bar she packed as a snack. The birds went CRAZY! 

 

I looked them up on the bus - The green and red birds are King Parrots, and the Red birds with Purpley feathers are Crimson Rosellas. (A crimson rosella is in the above picture, pecking the ground in the corner) and the picture below is a King Parrot. 

 They were just so cute. Their claws were sharp though. So Emily fed them her granola, gave the bar to me and then they were all over me, and then another bus full of people came out from a different tour and since I had a bunch of granola left I gave some pieces to a few people who wanted to get flocked by wild parrots. They knocked themselves out lol.
I made small talk with a woman from Boston and she has a terrible bird phobia so she was freaking out about it but she still insisted on taking my camera and taking pictures of me with the birds on my head and arms. I don't post those because I look terrible, and please excuse me one shred of vanity as I write about my vacation on this public forum. (the irony is not lost on me, I know.) 

(I realize at this time, that we actually stopped for the koalas/parrots BEFORE lunch at Apollo Bay, but I don't feel like cutting and pasting the whole sections.....)(I took over 1000 pictures with my camera from the start of the trip, so halfway through the tour my camera started numbering the pictures differently, so the whole album is out of order)(IMG_999 was taken mid-day so then the next photo, IMG_001 - comes up in the album first but is actually from the afternoon....etc)(I'm rambling)

Our next stop was the Mait's Rest Rainforest Walk, which ended up being a very nice pathway through the rainforest. It took about a half hour to walk through the whole thing. Emily and I broke off from the trail a few times to look at some bigger trees. I admit I was sort of freaking out about the bus leaving without us so I was the killjoy of the situation...I own it. Here are some pictures.

 The big-ass tree that Emily found, had a path around it so we went off the trail and found that the tree was hollow on the other side.

Then we caught up to the rest of the group, where a bunch were taking photos in this other tree hole, so I made Emily get in it with me. We talked to Allan about where we were from and how we met at uni and how long we were here and how we couldnt find a job. He echoed the same statement that our morning driver said - that yeah, retail places don't hire temporary people usually. To which we said, yeah, getting that impression now after three months. 

The next stop was really what the whole tour was about. 

The Great Ocean Road is lovely and has an amazing scenery as I've said, but really the gem of the whole thing is the 12 Apostles.

The 12 Apostles are limestone stacks on the southern coast of Victoria. There aren't 12 of them, I think there are only 7 or 8 still standing (but there weren't 12 to begin with when they were named).

 Here is a confession of mine - after graduation and coming back home to NY, I started browsing Facebook profiles of people from high school, people who I hadn't looked at or caught up with since high school, and one of them had studied abroad in Australia. She posted an album and some of the pictures were of the 12 Apostles. I was like, my lord, I want to be thereeee. So I put it on my bucket list of life.

It really was several months before Emily put the offer out there for us to move down to Australia, and months before I even fantasized about going there in the nearish future. 

Where I am going with this - is that I wanted to see the 12 Apostles before I even wanted to move to Australia. I had been dreaming of seeing these things ever since knowing they existed.

The only thing that I was even 1/1289th upset with was that the sun was behind them when we got there, and not upon them...but I got over it quickly because they were as gorgeous as I'd hoped. 

Look at those sun rays. Look at that coast. Look at the cliffs. Look at the stacks. Look at everything. 

 Again its impossible to see the depth on this camera, but those cliffs were massive, the stacks were massive. THe waves were at least 10 feet upon breaking on the sand. The sand was VERY far beneath our feet.

I mean, it looks so close but if a person were standing down there, they would be dwarfed by everything.

The lookout path was very big, and crowded. There around the bend is another part of the 12 Apostles.

 Here are two of the other stacks, on the other side of the peninsula pictured above. These had the sun upon them, instead of behind them. Look at the COLOR. Like jeez. Look at those cliffs. Look at the color of the water! This picture is literally the background on my computer and I don't think I'll ever change it.
 

 So I walked around a bit more, Emily and I had split up, and then eventually made way back to the little shop. There was an option when we first got there to do a helicopter ride along the coast and see everything from the air - but it cost $95. Excuse me that I didn't end up doing it ;)

Got a popsicle at the little shop and ate it outside the bus. I got some joking comments from fellow passengers that it was so cold yet I was eating ice cream, but Allan and I both said it didn't matter the weather, we don't turn down ice cream. Boom.

Then we waited for everyone to get back, but a few people didn't make it in time and the sun was getting dangerously low, so he went ahead and drove those of us who were on time to the next location (he'd go back for the others though).

The next place was Loch Ard Gorge.
Now I felt that the highlight of the trip would be the 12 Apostles.
But....then we got to Loch Ard Gorge.

The history we got of the place was that there was this passenger ship that was sailing along, and got stuck in the currents, and while getting sucked into the area of the gorge, it sank and there were only 2 survivors out of several hundred (another uplifting story from Allan and the Great Ocean Road). One was a boy, who swam to shore, and the other was a girl who lost her entire family, and was clinging to debris. He heard her screaming and swam all the way back out to get her and bring her to shore.
Allan said that he was a national hero, famous to the area, and if it were a Disney film the two would have gotten married - but the girl was so depressed that she was the only survivor of her family that she went home to Ireland (who can blame her). The boy who saved her ended up dying from natural causes at age 27.

One of the paths we could have taken was to the exact place that the ship sank. With our time limit, Allan recommended we go to the third path first, then if there was time, double back to the first path - as the second path with the ship wreck was unimpressive visually.

Everyone followed his advice.

The third path ended up being another highlight of the trip. I literally found myself saying over and over, out loud, to no one in particular - "Oh. My. God. Ohmigod. Oh. My. What? How?" and just smiling because it was just. Like.....wow.
Pictures can't do it justice, but I tried. The top of the lookout:

The steps to the beach:

Now, here's the thing. I had just discovered the Widescreen setting on my camera, and had it set on a different light adjustment setting, so all of the pictures from my camera from here to the end are awful. It kills me. It was a good thing I had my iPod with me to take some decent ones with or I'd be crying. But either way.....this beach....REALLY? This exists? In real life?

Then as soon as I had pulled it together a little bit, literally feeling like I was in paradise and i needed to build a house or pitch a tent for the rest of my life right on that sand - Then this happened:

My ugly face? No.
No people.
A RAINBOW. A RAINBOW OVER THE WHOLE THING. WHAT.

So then I was like....where's my tent? Where is it? How do I live here?

But then we went back up the staircase and back to the parking lot, where I chose to go down the other path really fast, just to see what the other good view of the area was.
It did not disappoint - and I had to RUN back to make it in time for the next so I wouldn't be left behind - it was beautiful but I had my camera on the wrong setting, so naturally the pictures are bad, but even the bad pictures don't obscure the beauty of the place.

So after taking these, I RAN back to the bus (it was also raining, so I looked great) and made it. I told Allan that the Argentinean couple were on their way back, just a bit behind me, so we waited for a few minutes and then he ran out to tell them to run and then they made it and we drove off to the last stop.

The last stop was London Bridge.
Now having seen the actual London Bridge, I found this to be more impressive ;)
It's another rock formation, completely natural, but it made big news because it used to have two arches, but one collapsed in 1996. There were a happily married man and woman who were stranded on the far side of the collapse for several hours before a helicopter came to rescue them.
The media were going wild, and once they landed wanted an interview about their long time being stranded, but both very aggressively didnt want to appear on camera.
It was revealed later, that they were indeed happily married - just not to each other.
HA.

So here is London Bridge:

 They were massively tall and as you can see, no way down and no way up - no way onto the bridge ever since the piece missing collapsed.

 and there's a good picture of me, I guess, that the Argentinean woman took for me :)
It was windy and still rainy, and the sun was behind the clouds. But it was still great. I can stand near the surf forever. (at least until a hurricane comes - then I'm out).


So that was the end of the tour.
It would've taken about 4 hours to get back to Melbourne if we drove back on the Great Ocean Road, so instead we went inland on the highway. We didn't stop until we got to this little town that had a whole heap of food options for a quick 30 minute dinner stop. I chose McDonalds. I went alone, got a big mac combo with a chocolate shake and sat down, prepared to eat alone with the newspaper, but then Emily sat down with me. Then my french fries inspired her to also get french fries.
We ate and talked about jobs and the rest of the trip and other things, keeping an eye on Allan for when we needed to leave. No reason to run back to the bus if the driver is sitting there with his quarter pounder, eh?

 Then we got on our way back to Melbourne, getting dropped off right at the door of our hotel, where we had been picked up.

Emily and I got ready to sleep, because we would be taking a 3:30AM cab to Southern Cross station, where we'd be getting the 4:10 AM bus to Avalon Airport, where we would be getting on the 6:15AM flight to Sydney.

When initially planning the trip, I had decided we could save money on the hotel and right after the tour, get the 11 something PM bus to avalon airport and sleep there - but it was a good thing I researched it beforehand because that airport closes and no one can sleep there. So....we had another night in the hotel paying but only slept for 4 hours TOPS.

Win some and lose some right? 4 hours of sleep for that glorious day tour and then four great days in BEAUTIFUL Sydney?

I'd do it again in a heartbeat.