Great Ocean Road to 2010

The Twelve Apostles

For the next stage of our trip we acquired the services of backpacker tour operator Groovy Grapes to see that we didn’t miss anything of importance along the Great Ocean Road, a road which spans along the coast from Melbourne about halfway to Adelaide. It’s along the first part of this coastline we find popular surfing spots like Bells Beach and this is where clothing brands like Rip Curl and Quicksilver originated. On a very good surfing day it is apparently hard to get your hands on doctors, lawyers, accountants and the like, because everyone will have trekked to these beaches to surf.

Waves were not impressive when we were there though. :(

The point of Great Ocean Road is to have a look at all the different rock formations that have been created out of the soft sandstone and the wild ocean that crushes into the shore.

The most famous one is “The Twelve Apostles” (pictured above) which is not really twelve but originally fourteen, now nine because they have eroded and fallen into the sea. Our tour guide, Whales, also pointed out that the formation was originally named the sow and piglets, but it was deemed more stylish for tourists to rename it “The Twelve Apostles”. Looking back at our drive along the Great Ocean Road, what we remember best is that in the end we were just stopping for another rock and then another rock and then another, and it soon grew rather repetitive.

Ivy, Kit and Fredrik by "The Twelve Aposteles".

If I’d have to choose one of the rock formations that I preferred, it would have to be Loch Ard Gorge (pictured below), which comes with a rather fascinating shipwreck story. The coastline here is infamous for it’s many shipwrecks and this particular story got interest at the time in the media because there were only two survivors. One was the rich, merchant’s daughter; the other was the lowly deck boy. Naturally there were all sorts of rumors about a romance between the two, but the rich daughter didn’t want anything to do with the deck boy and refused his proposal (it is believed that the deck boy didn’t really love the daughter, but rather felt he had to ask out of curtsey since he had seen her naked body through her white, wet nightgown).

In the Loch Ard Gorge there is a cave called “the Lovers Cave” after the two of them.

The good thing about going on an organized trip, other than not having to think for yourself and being force fed information, is that you get to know a lot of new people. In our hostel in Melbourne we had already shared a room with Franscesco from Milan in Italy who, funnily enough, is doing the same Sparkling Chardonnay trip from Melbourne to Alice Springs with Groovy Grapes as we are. Franscesco is a magnificently sociable and hilarious person who has recently finished his studies in robotics. Most notably Franscesco says the words “nOthing” and “dOn wOrry” like he was spat put of an Italian mafia film. It gave us loads of good laughs (together with him).

We also got friendly with a pair of sisters from Hong Kong, Ivy and Kit. Ivy lives in Melbourne and her English is very good which is uncommon for Asians we have met so far, and it was great to experience a new cultural mind set. I dare anyone reading this to guess Ivy and Kit’s age (pictured above with Fredrik). We don’t know because they didn’t want to tell us, but because of Ivy's position in her professional career, we have to assume she is at least past 30 years old, which is incredible.

The Grampians

The next stop on the trip was the Grampians, a little (read big if you are from England) mountain range between the coast and Adelaide, which holds some cultural significance to the Aboriginals. The mountains used to be at the bottom of the sea and have with the years been pushed up and the coastline has receded. This makes for weird and unnatural patterns in the rocks. The Grampians has also been attacked by bushfires, like so many places in Australia, and some of the places we went you could still see the blackened trees. The good, and slightly weird, thing about the Australian trees, most notably all the different types of Eucalyptus trees (or gum trees) is that they need the heat of the bushfire for their seeds to become potent and grow into new trees. And even though it has been just about a year since the bushfire ravaged the sides of the Grampians, green sprouts can be seen on all the soot stained trees and there is definitely life growing. Bushfires is then actually just a part of a cycle here.

We stayed in Hall’s Gap, a little town and mostly camping holiday destination in a valley. Australians come here to go hiking in the mountains. We only did one hike, to the Hollow Mountain where you have to crawl through a cave to get to the top. It was a decent hike (albeit an easy one) and we can understand why this is a popular holiday destination.

Hollow Mountain

While staying in Hall’s Gap, Fredrik, some of the French people we were traveling with and I, stumbled across a huge mob of wild kangaroo, which was a mesmerizing experience. Especially when one of the larger, male kangaroos started following one of the smaller, female kangaroos around, holding her by her tail trying to reproduce. The female kangaroo was a right tease and kept almost letting him get to it, but then jumping cheekily away. In the end the feisty female had six full-grown males chasing her. We don’t know how that ended as they jumped out of sight, but it was hilarious to watch.

MacKenzie Falls
Spot the rainbow and Germans Fabian and Michael underneath it.

The Kangaroo Sign

The last stage of the trip was an all day drive (one New Year’s Eve) that took us to South Australia (where the time is set 30 minutes back, don’t ask me why they bother, but they do) and Adelaide.

It was time for New Year celebration.

New Year's Gang

We celebrated with most of the crew from the Groovy Grapes trip by going out for a cheap meal and then joining a pub-crawl, which took us around to different places in Adelaide. We had an enjoyable New Year’s thanks to our new found friends and loads of randomers we met out on the town. Especially the two German guys we were traveling with, Fabian and Michael, knew how to make anytime a good time.
These two guys stand as the milestone for our perception of Germans. Every second traveler you speak to in Australia is German, (there are actually rumors that Australia has discontinued the Working Holiday Visa for Germans, but I don’t know if that is true) and so far on our trip Germans have proved to be boring and uninteresting people. After meeting Fabian and Michael every German we have met has been a pleasure and good fun. Go figure.

From left: Fabien, Franscesco, Michael and Trine
(with loads of free stuff we got in one of the pubs on the pub crawl)

Randomers

I have to mention that a thing that surprised me the most about this New Year’s, was that I still had money left on my phone after calling everyone. That NEVER happens in Norway! ;)

Chinatown in Adelaide

The next day we had to explore Adelaide, which was a waste of a day. Adelaide is the most boring city I have ever been in, and I am so happy we didn’t spend longer there than we did. Apart from the fact that there is nothing to do, it is also completely impossible to orientate yourself. You would think that a planned city, which has a web of straight streets, would be easy to navigate, but when we suddenly were back in front of our hostel, without any of us knowing how that had happened, we almost gave up.

We did however take the tram to the beach area, called Glenelg (pictured above), where we met up with Ivy and Kit for dinner. This area was nicer, but was sporting a bone chilling wind. We ended up in a steakhouse called Outback Jack’s where you can do the Outback Jack challenge, which is finishing off a 1kg steak with vegetables and potato wedges in 30 min (and you get it half price and a t-shirt).

None of us did the actual challenge, but Ivy and Kit ordered the 1 kg steak to share.

The face on the waiter was priceless.

Ivy and Kit digging into 1 kg steak

I’d like to mention here in relation to the last blog where I mentioned that Asians are annoying.

That comment only applies to Chinese and Japanese staying in Sydney.

Hong Kong people are amazing!!! ;)

The Kangaroo Island Crew

Now it was time for some wildlife with a trip to Kangaroo Island. This island has a lot of special and rare flora and fauna because it has been isolated from the mainland for a long time. The ferry that brings you over takes about 45 minutes and if you want to go over with a car it will cost you about $300 (£150/1500NOK) just for the car. As the same distance on a ferry in Norway will cost you under 200NOK ($40/£20) we were outraged.

Whales

Again we had Whales (pictured above) as our tour guide (the original guide had called in sick), which we appreciated. He is a good guide, laid back, relaxed and a sarcastic man with a good sense of humor.

Kangaroo Island proved to be a place for animal spotting. We saw loads of seals (pictured below), both Australian and New Zealand seals, and Whales (being from New Zealand) gave us loads of reasons why the New Zealand seal was way better than the Australian seal.

Fredrik and the Australian seal

We stayed over night in a stone cottage where wallabies and kangaroos were jumping around outside while a koala was hanging lazily in a nearby tree.

Koalas have us slightly bored at the moment as once you have seen them they kind of just lie there and don’t do much else than look at you with a lazy, bored face. They are cute yes, but for entertainment and comedy value I’d rather watch the kangaroos that are extremely fascinating. In particular what has me enchanted is the fact that they use their tail to move around. They actually lean on their tail, which is so clever, and looks really funny. Everyone should come to Australia just to experience the sheer joy of studying the movement and facial expressions of the kangaroos. I love them.

A Kangaroo using his tail to move

Fredrik and me decided to show our adventurous Norwegian side and slept outside amongst all the animals in swags. Swag is like a sleeping bag outside your sleeping bag, which is wind and waterproof (-ish, not the best on the last respect).
It was a good night sleep and none of the animals bothered us. There will be some swag horror stories in the next blog.

First swim of the year happened on the second of January, a little later than usual and in warmer waters, but to save face we will mention that the waters we swam in are technically shark infested (although our guide did not tell us that until we came back up again.) ;)

We also went to Little Sahara and had a sand board competition, which was won by Franscesco, although Fredrik made it to the finale race.

Little Sahara

Fredrik winning the semi finals

And like so many places in Australia, there were more rocks to ogle at. These were however REMARKABLE rocks (the actual name of the place) and were a lot of fun to take pictures around.

Cousin "it"

One thing we did not see on Kangaroo Island was the platypus (nebbdyr), but we did see it’s closest relative, which is the echidna (pictured below). It looks like a porcupine/hedgehog, but has a really long, narrow snout. It was awfully cute.


On the last day before we left for the outback, we took a day trip into Barossa Valley to do some wine tasting. We are unanimous when we say that Jacob’s Creek was definitely the best place we stopped by. They had a loved Shiraz reserve to satisfy Fredrik, and a nice, sweet, sparkling Muscat wine for Henriette and me. The sparkling Muscat is a new release and has only just reached the shops here in Australia, so be on the look out when it finally comes abroad.

Jacob's Creek Sparkling Muscato
(on the left side is Fredrik's Shiraz reserve)

From left: Kongji (from Korea), Henriette, Chris (from Korea), Trine, Fredrik
Front: Franscesco and Lee (China)

STILL TO BE CONTINUED TO THE OUTBACK