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

A Very Different Christmas

And thus the next chapter of our perilous adventure hath begun. It has been aptly named the “U-turn adventure” from the obvious U-shape created on the map by our three-week journey which will take us from sunny Byron Bay via Port MacQuarie for Christmas, small pit-stops in Sydney and Melbourne before we grandly celebrate New Year’s eve in Adelaide before we begin the last stage which will take us via Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) to Alice Springs.

And to join us two fearless travel chicks, we have enlisted the fish doctor Nils Fredrik himself to ditch University and celebrate a slightly different Christmas and New Year’s with us.

Nils arrived in Byron Bay after a staggering trip, which lasted about 40 hours and had left him without much sleep. Considering previous experiences with Nils when he has had lack of sleep, he did really well and stayed awake all day enjoying the beaches and shops of Byron. He joined the Havainas fan club and quickly developed some colour (although slightly on the red rather than brown side) as Trine forgot to remind him that an spf of 30 would be excellent to wear (Might also add that Trine got burnt for the first time as well since she didn’t think shopping would pose a sunburn threat. The sun laughs in my face, more precisely my pink nose, at that one).

At 11 o’clock that night we said goodbye to Byron, Teri, Toby and the juggling fire throwers in the park and settled down in the overnight bus to Port Macquarie. At 5.40 the bus hummed into the station. The town is bigger than Byron (which means it has a shopping centre and MacDonald’s) and has the air of just another sleepy beach town. Unable to check into the hostel, Ozzie Pozzie Backpackers, because of the early hour, we left our luggage behind and tracked down the Koala Hospital for the 8 am feeding.

Nils to the rescue!!!!

The koalas turned out to be the amazing bear/monkey looking animals that we know from pictures, and they have huge claws and drowsy looking faces. The hospital took care of koalas who have, for instance, been injured by dogs or cars, and they also help Joeys (koalas who are less than 1 years old) learn how to climb and get back into the wild after being saved from a dead mother koala’s pouch.

Family pic

Devil Emu

We had more animal encounters in Port MacQuarie as we took a trip out to Billabong Wildlife Centre where we got to pet Dingos, Koalas, reptiles and even hang out in a compound where the kangaroos and wallabys jumped around freely and ate dried sweet corn from our hands. Especially a white albino kangaroo charmed us all because it would grab our hand with both paws and stuff it’s face full of food.

The hostel we are staying at is very sweet with a tangibly relaxed atmosphere and a friendly and sociable staff whom you get to know quickly. It was a nice place to celebrate Christmas. Since Norwegians celebrate mainly on Christmas Eve (not on Christmas Day like you British retards;P) we had that day to ourselves.

the label says Kangaroo Steak Herb & Garlic... Mmmmmmm....

We decided not to replicate a Norwegian Christmas, but rather go full Aussie and have a kangaroo steak on the barbie with potato- and Caesar salad with cold beers to follow. It was a lovely meal topped up with a (not so lovely) ginger bread cookie house we got for half price from a bakery that was closing for Christmas. We also enjoyed (or me and Henriette did, Nils reluctantly joined in) the always-present “Tre nøtter til Askepott” (“Three wishes for Cinderella” Chezc film about Cinderella which is a Christmas eve tradition on Norwegian television) at exactly the same time it is aired in Norway (cause that is how cool we are, not a coincidence ;).

We named him Napoleon, exclusive resident of Port MacQuarie

After three nights in Port Macquarie it was time to turn our noses to Sydney so that Nils could get his token “by-the-opera-house” Kodak moment.

Kodak Moment!!!

Sydney turned out to be a disappointment as it rained all the time on the first day and was foggy all the second day. Our hostel also turned out to be a disaster. To start with it looked shabby and worn down from the entrance hall to our room. Our room was filled with stuff from the several people who must have been staying there for a very long time (stuff includes dirty boxers on the floor and condoms on the smoke detectors), the beds nearly fell apart when we tried to reach the top bunks and we found something on the walls that looked disturbingly like dried sperm, but this might have been the heat of the moment as we were at this point really frustrated by the moldy duvets and loud music from outside the window. Then again it was only one night, we are still alive and honestly we were lucky to find a hostel within walking distance of the central station during this time of year. Most hostels we looked at had a minimum stay of 7 days during the Christmas and New Year’s period and we had already resigned to pay for a hotel for the one night we needed in Sydney when I suddenly stumbled upon this hostel that didn’t require anything. Obviously we wondered what the hell was wrong with it, but thought through one night we could survive anything. The prude Nils barely survived it ;).

We countered the horrible hostel by staying out all day.

We wandered along Darling Harbour laughing at the discoball and kangaroo decorated Christmas tree (pictured above), and while Henriette enjoyed the shops, Nils insisted on buying a ticket for the aquarium as a Christmas present for Trine. It turned out to be the most massive aquarium either of us had ever been to and we had to run through some of the six vast rooms to make sure we didn’t leave Henriette alone for too long. The only downside was that the platypus (nebbdyr) didn’t want to peek its beak out of its hollow, but we did see massive sharks and crocs (picture below).

When everything started closing we opted for a cinema that finished at midnight, so that we didn’t have to spend a second too long in our room.

“Sherlock Holmes” is thus highly recommended.

What annoys us slightly about Sydney, especially Henriette and Nils, is that Sydney is filled to the rim with Asians (we are mainly talking Japanese and Chinese, not Indians British readers). You wouldn’t believe that you are in Australia, but rather that you have stumbled into Beijing. It is not in itself a problem if it weren’t for the fact that they are exceedingly rude and mill around like ants. Annoying. (Obviously in the most non-racist way possible;)

A positive surprise was that our four male roommates, who were not in the room when we got back, were really quiet when they got back at 4 am in the morning, which in turn made us really quiet when we got up at 6 am to go on a trip to the Blue Mountains for the day. This is where the fog becomes annoying (pictured below).

Go to Blue Mountains... Enjoy the AMAZING view... Yeah right

Now this trip we went on basically takes us about an hour outside of Sydney to the Blue Mountains, so called because the leaves of the Eucalyptus trees that grow there produce a kind of oil which reflects blue when the sun shines on it. We saw some blue glow through the white mist, but other than that it was a day where we basically went to a lot of viewpoints and invented our own views on the white background (again pictured above). It did turn out a nice trip though as our guide was funny and had loads of interesting things to say about plants and rocks (the ones we actually could see) and he taught us how to make aborigine facepaint (pictured below).

It's uncanny... we're almost like proper aboriginies...

The highlight of the trip was a train ride that took us up from the bottom of a steep valley to the top. It took us backwards up 52 degrees (Henriette wants to point out that there was not a lot of security involved) to the tunes of Indiana Jones. The trip also involved some waterfalls that we were able to spot through the clouds, but being Norwegian we were rather unimpressed.

When we got back at six o’clock we had a quick dinner before we yet again settled down in the Greyhound bus and this time prepared for a 12 hour trip non-stop to Melbourne in a bus where the air-conditioning was malfunctioning which resulted in a period of extreme heat followed by a period of extreme chill. We did manage to sleep though and arrived safely in Melbourne, yet again early in the morning, where we threw our luggage to the All Nations Nomads Backpackers before we trammed to St. Kilda, Melbourne’s beach area, just as the sun finally started breaking though the cloud blanked.

We LOVE Melbourne! Melbourne has a lovely big city energy mixed with the calm attitude of a small city. The beach is right by the city, there are areas with small cafees, vast park areas, beautiful buildings and the riverbank area is the spitting image of London (by Bank and the Tower of London, made me miss it).

YAY! MASSIVE centre about movies!!!! WUHU!!!

We must admit that after rainy, shitty hostel, Asian infested Sydney, sunny, nice hostel, Italian and Greek infested Melbourne is a breath of fresh, peppermint air.

The city is a hub for arts, cinema and fashion in Australia, which is immediately recognizable by the huge art galleries and the massive moving image centre (pictured above) in the middle of Federeation Square (the Trafalgar or Times of Melbourne if you will). It is truly a shame that we only have one day to explore this gorgeous city, and both me and Henriette have a feeling we will be wanting to come back and work here later on.

This statue was aptly named "Cow up a Tree"

In the evening we went to the Docklands (pictured below) and had a rather nice dinner (Christmas present from my mum) by the sea. We indulged in appertizer, good wine and Nils and I had a well made kangaroo meal (yes it is THAT good) while Henriette enjoyed a chicken wrapped in cheese and parma ham.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Thanksgiving in Oz

Toby and Teri making the dinner

One small entry before we start traveling again.

Because we’ve gotten to know Teri from Chicago, we ended up having Thanksgiving one Thursday about a week ago. We provided the house and Teri provided the cooking (together with Toby (see picture above) who has seven years experience as a chef and couldn’t stay out of the kitchen…the slight bickering between the two over gravy and turkey was quite hilarious) while we invited Amy and her sister Tori, and Teri brought along some friends from her hostel.

from the left: Cecilia (Sweden), Amy (Aussie), Hennie (Germany), Andra (Germany) and Tori (Aussie)

All in all we were three Aussies, two Norwegians, a Swede, two Germans and an American enjoying a lovely and tender turkey breast with an excellent stuffing (crackers, onion, chicken buillion and bacon) as how Teri’s mum usually makes it, mashed potatoes, sweet corn, gravy and cranberry sauce with a succulent apple pie to finish it off. We all agreed that we quite like this American holiday where the premise is to stuff your face with food and we enjoyed listening to stories of Teri’s Thanksgivings back home where the basics is women cook in the kitchen while they bitch and gossip, and the men watch American football.

from left: Cecilia, Amy, Trine, Tori, Teri, Henriette, Toby, Andra and Hennie

There is also apparently a tradition to start your Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving and stores will open at 4-5 in the morning with massive limited sales and people will queue from midnight on Thanksgiving to get the good stuff. At least a couple of people die each year from the fights and crowds that ensues. Crazy Americans.

Trine, Teresa and Teri: The Three Ts :D

Teresa (co-student from Contemporary Media Practice at University of Westminster) came over to visit one weekend while on her trip along the coast with her parents. Teresa is also staying for a year of working holiday in Australia, but will be based in Sydney at first. We had a hell of a weekend going out and introducing her to the wonder that is goon (cheap Australian wine on a box, don’t ask us or them why they call it goon, they just do) and taking her to Buddah Bar where they brew the local Byron Beer (oh yes they have their own beer). We usually prefer to drink a low-carb beer that they until recently called Bimbo (“may I have a schooner (pint) of Bimbo please?” I had fun saying that) but someone complained that it was offensive and they have now changed it to Blonde (I am sad :( ;) ).

Now Christmas has arrived in Byron Bay. We can tell by this wonderful, plastic Christmas tree (pictured above) they have decorated the main road with (oh yes it is as ugly as it looks). We are rather trying to forget that it is Christmas and hope that we can fool ourselves to believe that we are only on a very long summer holiday :D

Right now there is a big school holiday in Australia, which basically means that the entire Gold Coast, especially Byron Bay and Surfer’s Paradise (Aussie’s answer to Miami) are filled to the rim with “schoolies”, also known as 17-18 year-olds. As you can imagine, us now into our twenties don’t find it so amusing to walk around and be reminded of how much of a twat we were only half a decade ago, so we are not all that pleased. What schoolies basically has meant for us is a hell of a lot more police around and everyone being asked for ID. Still, it is a testament to how small this place is when the other day this was one of the main headlines (see picture below).

I for one found it rather sweet that someone would ever write this in bold and put it at the front. But then again the other week one of the newsstories sporting three pictures in the free local newspaper Byron Shire News, was the graduation party of the level 12 pupils of the local high school (and we are talking nice dresses and suits, not robes and funny hats;). This makes us realize just how small Byron is.

Another thing that made us realize how small Byron is, was the other day when Toby took us to Tweed Heads for the day (50 minutes drive north of Byron). He was going to do some team building there with his job and suggested that Henriette and myself go check the city out for a change of scenery.

The first ecstatic moment came when we saw a McDonald’s on the way there!!! Byron only sports a couple of Subways and a lonely Domino’s to prove that there is a world outside it’s borders. The rest is locally owned and run restaurants and cafés, which we appreciate, don't get me wrong, but it was a rather exotic moment to glance upon the big, yellow M again and feel like you were approaching civilization.

see if u can spot the surfers...

There were even tall buildings and shopping malls!!! :D
Henriette and me practically spent all our time in Tweed Heads and the neighbor city Coolangetta (from 8.30-16.30) going through a shopping centre and a shopping street. It was not that we bought anything, but it was just so nice to go through different shops than the ones we trudge through in Byron. And just the mere size of them were astonishing. We did manage to take a little scenic walk however around Point Danger (named so by Captain Cook to warn people of the treacherous rocks below). The ocean was teeming with surfers and they all rather looked like little sea ants from the viewpoint we had (pictured above).


This area is apparently an important stop for professional surfers (as opposed to Byron where there are mostly beginners) with long and unbreakable waves making it possible to surf for upto 1500 metres in one go. It really was a beautiful beach, with Surfer’s Paradise (pictured above) popping out of the sea like a science fiction city in the distance and a lowly Christmas tree (pictured below) trying cheerfully to pretend that the decorations he had been given were any good.


The fun about this place is that the border between New South Wales (NSW, where we are staying) and Queensland (QLD, further north) is just in the middle of Coolangetta. And as we were jumping from one side to the other of the line they had painted up to signify the border (pictured below), we realized that we were actually time travelling, jumping one hour back and then one hour forth again in time because QLD doesn’t have any daylight-saving time so when we were in NSW the time was 12.00. Then we stepped across the line and it was 11.00!! Fun times!!! We heard rumours that there is a pub built exactly over the border and that on New Year’s Eve they simply have two countdowns! Now that would be a fun New Years ;)

Tours have been booked for the end of December, so then we will be getting out of here and we are quite happy to. Byron Bay is, as I have stated a lot in this entry, a very small city and can only be interesting for so long. We have gotten to know loads of fun people, but now we feel ready to travel and see some more of this vast country.

I would like to point out that this was originally a half a page entry, which has now turned into two. Hope it isn’t too long for anyone, I must obviously enjoy writing these ;)