Great Ocean Road Adventures

Since I am already in the southern hemisphere I figured I should probably catch up with the people I know on this side of the world before heading back to Canada. I caught up with April and David in Melbourne and have a fair few friends in and around Adelaide that I would like to see so it only made sense to make that my next destination. I did however want to do some exploring in between so I booked a tour along the Great Ocean Road and through Grampians National Park that departed from Melbourne and ended in Adelaide.

I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning and made my way well before the scheduled pick up time but still managed to stress myself out that I had missed the bus when it was running late. While I was waiting I met a German girl named Britta who was going on the same tour so that helped calm my nerves about the delayed bus and helped convince me that the bus was behind schedule. Really that is the only logical possibility anyway, when have you ever heard of a bus running ahead of schedule? Never, that’s when! The bus was running about 15 minutes behind schedule but once I was onboard I wasn’t really worried about any further delays.

The first couple hours of the trip were pretty boring as we made our way out of the city and on to the Great Ocean Road. Once we made it to the famous road the day got much more exciting. We stopped for a coffee break at a place that I want to say was named Geoffreys Bay but I could be making that up (and the itinerary is vague and not helping me at all). Whatever it was called it was a beach along the section of the highway known for its iconic surf locations so while everyone else was drinking coffee and tea (gross) I was watching surfers ride the waves.

We drove through some pretty cool looking towns but unfortunately didn’t have enough time to stop and explore them We did however stop for pictures at an arch marking the beginning of the Great Ocean Road as well as a campground for some koala spotting. There seemed to be more parrots than koalas kicking around but I still managed to find one asleep at the top of a tree.

From there we made our way to Apollo Bay for some lunch. The sandwiches provided left a little something to be desired. I was going to say that I shouldn’t complain about free food but it wasn’t really free, I paid quite a bit to be on this tour so it would be nice if the provided lunch was more than one sandwich and a small bottle of water. Having such a small lunch though did leave some free time to explore the town before hopping back on the bus. I took a short stroll along the boardwalk then checked out some of the booths at that were set up for a festival going on in town.

Our next stop for the day was at Mait’s Rest in the Otway Rainforest. We went on a walk around a short loop, which was fairly uneventful aside from a really rude family we encountered along the way. About halfway down the trail there is a giant tree with a big hollow at the base of the trunk. This family thought they would take about 600 family photos followed by several photos of groups of two or three and then of individuals. You couldn’t even walk past them without feeling guilty about ruining their pictures. So we stood there for about 10 minutes waiting for them to finish up their photo shoot and when they finally finished they stood in front of the tree, blocking the trail, arguing about which direction they should walk. It was all I could do not to scream at them! It’s a freaking loop! Walk the opposite direction from the way you came!

The next destination was the one I was most looking forward to, the twelve apostles. The twelve apostles are a rock formation that were given a catchy name in an attempt to attract more tourists and it seems to have worked even though there are only really 7 rock stacks still standing and one of them has actually collapsed and is a tiny rock barely poking out of the water. I was given the opportunity to go on a 10 minute helicopter ride over the apostles for $95 and while I have set a fairly tight budget for myself I thought this was something I might regret if I didn’t do it and so I coughed up the money. If you are ever given this same opportunity I would recommend giving it a miss. Walk to the viewpoints instead. The apostles were particularly busy on this day and so they cut all of the helicopter rides short and didn’t offer to give the passengers any of their money back. I was pretty pissed off to be honest.  Especially since I had to wait in line for so long that I didn’t have enough time to explore the apostles from the ground before I had to get back on the bus.

We stopped at a few more scenic lookouts for some stunning pictures before veering of the Great Ocean Road and heading to Grampians National Park where we would be spending the night. Our hostel was just an old house that had been converted in to a hostel, and by this I mean that they put a whole lot of bunk beds in the tiny bedrooms and called it a hostel. It was pretty warm outside and the house didn’t have air-conditioning so sticking 4 people in a room designed for one person made for an unbearably hot night. The bunk beds were old and creaked and swayed every time someone on either bunk made the slightest movement so between that and the heat there was not much sleep involved.

Breakfast was served at 5:45am so this didn’t really help the situation any. When I booked this trip I must not have read the itinerary because the ridiculous o’clock wake up call was almost as surprising to me as the fact that we would be hiking up a mountain after breakfast! This was so not on my list of things to do. I am in terrible shape and this was made evident at several points throughout the day. Most of this hike was okay, but the last 400 meters were a scramble not a hike and I almost died about 6 times.  The views from the top were pretty spectacular though so I guess it was worth it even though I almost died a few more times on the way back down.

I was under the impression that we would be driving to the rest of the locations for the day so I was again surprised that we were actually going on a number of hikes. We covered approximately 12km over the course of the day and the last hike to the base of a waterfall included climbing something like 237 steps to get back to the bus. It was 37 degrees. This was not my idea of fun and while the things we saw were beautiful I was thrilled when the days activities were over and all I needed to do was sit on a bus for the rest of the day.

I arrived in Adelaide a little after dinnertime and since I was exhausted I had a pretty low-key evening. I did however have the most amazing shower in the history of the world. It felt so good to wash all of that sweat off! It was an action-packed couple of days and I super excited to try and catch up on some sleep in my air-conditioned room.

Fiji To Melbourne

I feel like so much has happened since my last update even though it has only been a few days! My lazy day ended up being much more social than I had anticipated. I opted not to make the trek into town; spending time on a bus in 98% humidity doesn’t rank too high on my list of things to do, and decided to hang around the hostel instead.

I spent a good chunk of the day relaxing in the café since they had both free internet and air-conditioning but when the power went out I headed back to my room to read. I ended up chatting at length with a couple of my roommates, a girl from Finland and another from Germany (I can’t remember their names because I’m a horrible person) before we decided we should all go out for dinner together.

The person who sounded like they were dying in the bathroom earlier that morning had checked out and since the bathroom wasn’t completely covered in either feces or vomit I figured I would never find out what happened in there but I was wrong. One of the girls who had just checked in to our room was actually friends with the dying guy and invited him to join us for dinner. It turns out he was actually having a seizure on the floor of the bathroom. He was very embarrassed and I felt like an asshole for assuming he was experiencing explosive diarrhea and not checking to see if he was ok after hearing those moans/screams but we were both able to have a bit of a laugh about the whole thing after a quick chat.

We went to the resort next door for dinner and ended up waiting over an hour for our food, which was pretty ridiculous. I know Fiji runs on “island time” but we ordered two burgers and two soups, and the amount of time we waited was not acceptable. And they staggered the delivery of the food so we weren’t even all eating together. It was a good opportunity to chat with some new people though so I guess it’s not all bad news.

The following day I had another lazy day. Part of me wishes I had done more exploring while I was in Fiji but the other part of me knows I went to Fiji specifically to relax so I shouldn’t feel guilty about it, especially since the next few weeks are going to be so action packed I’ll barely have a chance to catch my breathe in between adventures. I would have preferred to do my relaxing in the sun but didn’t want to get burnt worse than I already was so avoided being outside as much as possible.

When it came time to head to the airport I made my way to reception and asked them to order me a taxi. The receptionist proceeded to walk down the street and talk to someone in a car. She then walked back and told me that was my taxi. The word “taxi” did not appear anywhere on this car, nor did it have a meter inside of it so I was slightly uncomfortable getting into this strangers car and this feeling was only amplified upon the realization that my seatbelt didn’t work. The drive to the airport took so much longer than I remembered so I was starting to worry that I was right to be wary about getting into this unmarked car. I was probably minutes away from a major freak-out when we finally arrived and was incredibly relieved when he actually charged me the previously agreed upon rate.

The airport, much like the rest of Fiji runs on island time so checking in took ages but since I was nice and early (as always) I had plenty of time to spare after clearing security. The airport in Nadi is also quite small with very few shops and not many food options so the wait seemed to drag on. The flight wasn’t much better as it was lacking in entertainment even though it was a 5-hour flight.

The real fun started when I landed in Melbourne. I was able to bypass immigration by using the self-serve machine and while it was nice not to have to wait in line, I didn’t get a new stamp in my passport and that made me sad. After collecting my bag I joined the ridiculous line for customs. It looked like the line zigged and zagged for miles and I was starting to think I would be spending the night at the airport when after a zag I realized that most of the people I thought were in front of me were actually in a separate line and I was only minutes away from being able to leave the airport.

I missed the airport shuttle bus I was hoping to take thanks to the couple in front of me who felt the need to ask a million questions. I still don’t understand what they needed clarification on. The bus is $18 one-way or $30 return and travels from the airport to Southern Cross Station with no stops in between. It doesn’t seem like rocket science but they asked questions for a solid 5 minutes while the bus I had hoped to be on drove away.

Even with the lineup at customs and the couple who asked a million questions I still managed to make it to the station in time for my train to the hostel but only just. I ran through the doors and they closed about a second later. I was so relieved to be on this train. It was the last one of the night and if I didn’t catch it my options were to walk a kilometer in the dark in an unfamiliar area or get a taxi and I’m not a fan of spending money so I wasn’t a huge fan of either of those options.

The next day I woke up bright and early to meet up with my friends April and David. We all worked together back in Blackpool and it has been almost three years since the last time we saw each other so it was great to catch up! We started our day by taking a scenic ferry ride down the Yarra River and ended up in a hipster neighbourhood where we grabbed an ice cream. To be completely honest April and David did such a good job of showing me around the city I can’t actually remember everything we did. We walked through some of the shopping streets, checked out some awesome graffiti, ate some yummy pasta, and took a stroll along St Kilda beach. My favourite part of our day together was probably the evening. David has recently started to LARP (live action role play) as a hobby and it just so happened to be LARP night in Melbourne.

Since David is such a wonderful host he had originally planned on skipping this week’s session but I was so intrigued by the whole thing I pretty much insisted he go. I spent a good chunk of the day asking him questions about the different characters people dress up as and the different rules and I think he thought I was taking the piss but I really wanted to know more about it. It turns out LARPing is crazy popular and there were about 300 people at the sports oval by the time the main event kicked off. Some of the costumes were really impressive, others were funny, and most of the girls were dressed like prostitutes.  David told April and I that all costumes needed to be historically accurate so April and I had a lot of fun picking them apart while we were waiting for the action to start. We decided that as long as you had an interesting enough back-story you could dress up however the hell you wanted and no one would care. I also learned that the white tarp in the middle of the field was a bottomless pit and the pylons on the ground marked out a river and only people with a limited amount of armour are able to cross the river and others sink and die if they were to fall in. The fighting was much slower paced than I had imagined so it wasn’t much of a spectator sport in that aspect but it was still a great time!

After one round of LARP capture the flag April and I decided we had had enough fun for one day and she took me back to my hostel. I know I have done a terrible job of describing our day but I saw a lot and got to spend time with two great people so I was a pretty happy panda at the end of the day. I was also exhausted and needed to be at a bus stop by 7:15 so I grabbed a shower and crawled into bed.