Travelling Post 30 - The Great Ocean Road

Many Backpackers hire a car then take three or four days to drive along the Great Ocean Road. To do this Many Backpackers would have friends to travel with who can split the cost of petrol and car hire. For those who do not have the advantage of friends that Many Backpackers has, there are day tour options that you can take. I took one of these.

The whistle stop tour along the coast line was excellent taking in an Aboriginal Culture Centre and the light house from an old Aussie children's programme 'Round the Twist' before even getting to start point. Along the Great Ocean Road we took in many sights including 12 Apostles, The Razorback, Loch Ard Gorge and London's bridge, we passed through local towns with strange names such as Torquay and Anglesea and undertook and arduous 30minute walk through one of the many isolated rain forests in the area.

Apart from being the worlds largest war memorial the Great Ocean Road probably keeps a vast majority of Melbourne's car hire places in business, and with good reason. This long windy road just begs to be driven upon (something, should I become like Many Backpackers, I want to do) plus this coastal road has some of the best views any road in the world has. In some sections the Ocean attacks the coast with a ferocity that makes you think She doesn't like Land. The rocks are constantly beaten on a daily basis which serve to reshape them in such a fashion that if you visited every year the differences in their shape would be noticeable. If anyone ends up in Melbourne and leaves without seeing the Great Ocean Road, then they left without visiting the best thing about the city, its proximity to this road.





















Here I am at the lighthouse where Round the Twist was filmed.

















Here I am at the start of the Great Ocean Road
















And here I am at a viewpoint looking out over The Great Ocean and it's Road.
















Oh look, me again, this time stood down on the beach after walking down Gibson Steps
















Once more, me, and here stood with the wonderful backdrop that is the Twelve Apostles - although only 7 remain.
















final picture of yours truly at our penultimate stop, Loch Ard Gorge.

Travelling Post 29 - Melbourne (or how I finally ended up in Prison)

Having planned to spend just 5 days in Melbourne I've ended up staying 9, and am leaving this Tuesday. I have been on one day trip 125km away and go on another to the Great Ocean Road tomorrow, so it really has been only 7 days in Melbourne itself. I have taken my time in visiting Melbourne, you could easily do the city in a week, including the 2 day tours, but i didn't want to hurry, nor after two and a half months of hard labour did I have the energy.

After an 8 hour journey from Melbourne to Mildura, I simply ate and went to sleep. My first full day was spent just wandering and looking around like the gormless tourist I was. I first headed to where my Lonely Planet guide recommended me to first head - the Visitor Centre, and arguably the most well put together visitor centre that I have yet been to. Set on the edge of Federation Square this underground centre is part of a specifically designed, highly stylised complex housing a variety of galleries, museums, cafes, restaurants and bars. It is an example of the amazing variety of architecture on show in Melbourne's Central Business District.. and I have no photos of it.

I picked up a pamphlet on exploring the old Eastern Suburb with its Victorian architecture so decided to amble along this short 2hr walk, which took me though the Treasury Gardens and Fitzroy Gardens, passing Cook's cottage before heading around the Eastern suburb. I didn't take many photos as these Victorian houses were still lived in, although I did take this photo of a converted Church, which is now a set of flats. As you can see it was a bit cloudy, it has been a bit cloudy all week.

Cook's cottage, which was Captain Cook's parents home in Yorkshire. It was dismantled and rebuilt in Melbourne's Fitzroy Gardens and if it weren't for the skyscraper in the background you might think I'd sneaked back home and not told anyone. I haven't.

On Monday I visited the Chinese Museum in Chinatown, whose exhibts chronicle the history of Chinese Australians. It was interesting enough, but had a bizarre display on Chinese criminals in early Australia, why? I just didn't understand.

On Tuesday I checked out Victoria Markets, which were not as good as Paddy's Market in Sydney, and then headed to the Botanical gardens via the Shrine of Remembrance. The Shrine is a war memorial to all those Australians, particularly from Victoria, who have fought to protect their country. It offers a fascinating insight into individual soldiers rather than heavily detailing specific wars. It is also worth the entrance price alone (a donation but I would have willingly paid for a ticket) for the views of Melbourne.

Above, a view of Melbourne's CBD from the Shrine, below the Shrine itself.

On Wednesday I went on a day tour to the Penguin Parade at Phillip Island, with a very enthusiastic tour guide. The company was recommended by IEP, through whom I got a wonderful $9 discount (every cent counts!) Our first major stop was wine tasting and then we went off to Maru Koala and Fauna Park where I got to stroke a wombat, feed a Koala, an Emu (which was dangerous) and Kangaroos (again.) I also saw a Tasmanian Devil, which look nothing like their cartoon counterpart, in fact they are pretty ugly creatures and have jaws that will snap your bones in two.

The Penguin Parade was an up close, natural, wildlife, experience; there was a specifically built platform heading into the Little Penguins habitat and I got to see them come out of the ocean and waddle to their homes. It was amazing, these Little Penguins swim 20-30km out to sea then return to the same spot at sunset in waves, there are around 60,000 penguins in on the island including the 6,000 or so that lived in the habitat open to public viewing. To be that close to nature, that wasn't a zoo or a wildlife park, was great and something very different, at one point there was only a wire fence that separated me from the penguins waddling home. It was a shame that photos were prohibited but understandable.

Above, a wombat at Maru Koala and Fauna Park; below, I got to feed Kangaroos again; just a bit further below, a Koala bear.

I spent Thursday amongst even more wildlife at Australia's oldest Zoo, Melbourne Zoo, I even got my own personal tour guide, it is amazing what you get if you just ask, and had a great day.

Above. a Tree Kangaroo,

Above and Below, Melbourne Zoo had the most amazing Butterfly Palace I can ever imagine entering. I got to walk amongst hundreds, if not thousands of Butterflies, and with a tour guide I learnt how they were kept in the zoo. I'm not telling how though, you'll have to visit yourself - oh what's that? You're several thousand miles away? Tough!

Below, a family of Simiangs

Now onto Friday, I didn't do much. Yesterday I visited the immigration museum which is pretty self explanatory as to what it is. Today, my final day touring Melbourne City, I went to Gaol, well I had to end up there some day and I'm just glad it wasn't Thai and they let me out after a couple of hours.

The Gaol was, arguably, the best museum I have been to in Australia. It was an Melbourne's oldest Gaol having been built in the mid 1800s. The displays were informative and interesting but importantly brief, keeping to the point without wandering, thus keeping my attention. This was the same prison that Ned Kelly that infamous outlaw was finally hanged, but despite this tourist pulling fact there was nothing glorifying him (except in the shop), which is unusual for Australians. They could have done with giving a discount to backpackers though, they did give one to students after all!

This was taken on the top floor with the only night light the inmates would have had would have been from those neon 'Exit' signs. Dead give away for escapees if you ask me.

Melbourne has a European vibe to it, but I prefer Sydney, I can't tell you exactly why I do I just do. It is not a logical thing, but there seemed to be more to do in Sydney and it does have that iconic status with that bridge and that opera house. Preferences aside, I still really like Melbourne as a city, verdict: - I'd come again but wouldn't necessarily want to live here.

Tomorrow I'm off to do a a day tour of the Great Ocean Road and then next stop Adelaide.

p.s. I found a picture of Federation Square, or more accurately a number of the buildings that it is comprised of, they are at the bottom of the picture below.

Travelling Post 28 - Six months in, a mini review

On November 2nd 2006 I nervously and excitedly left Heathrow Airport, and with it Britain, behind. My destination, the world. On November 3rd I arrived in Hong Kong, after two nights I left Hong Kong on November 5th and arrived in Sydney, Australia on November 6th. It's now six months and four days later, I've been away from home for 26weeks and 3 days or 185 days and I'm just over one third of my way through my trip.

Since I arrived in Australia I have visited four cities in three states. I have spent 92 nights in Sydney, 2 nights in Canberra, 1 night on the road, 78 nights in Mildura and am about to spend my 9th night in Melbourne. Despite that amount of time (it has flown by) being in Australia, this far away from home, still seems a little surreal. Technology today makes it difficult to imagine the distance between Australia and Britain, I have text, emailed, instant messaged, sent messages through Facebook and spoken to family and friends back home using that new invention known as the telephone, and all at relatively little cost. If I wished I could even set up web conversations and see who I am talking to via the miracles of the Internet. This is truly a small world (even if it is the biggest thing I will ever step foot on) and getting smaller, but not so small that there aren't any differences between countries and people.

The weather is always a good place to start when talking differences and Australia certainly has different weather. Not only are the seasons at different times of the year (summer being winter, spring being autumn and vice-versa) but the weather within those seasons is different, the most obvious being that the seasons are hotter and (when you're not in the sub tropics of the North) drier. Currently Australia is in a ten year drought, the worst in a hundred years, and water could run out in the Southern states in the next decade or two unless the drought breaks or another solution is found, many dams are down to 10-15% capacity. I had written a long critique on how the Aussies may have left fixing the shortage too late, it pointed out that some of the problem solving methods that have been suggested will just harm the environment even more and by being the biggest producers of CO2 gas per person in the world doesn't help the situation, but I decided against doing that and thought about pointing out to the wider world how global warming, caused by the entire world, was affecting this one country where water may soon become a commodity like oil. And just leave it at that.

The climate thus affects the landscape and Australia is far less green and lush than home, fields are often red, yellow, brown, grey and light green rather than a strong green colour that covers much of Britain. Some of this is due to the drought, much of it is natural though. I find the green grass something I miss more than I expected. What I also wasn't expecting was to notice the difference in the sky at night. I knew that the star systems seen from the Southern Hemisphere were different but I never thought I would notice it, I can't name more than 2 or 3 star systems in the North and rarely just stare up to the sky but one of the things that became apparent quickly was how different the night sky looks. However I don't miss our Northern Sky.

Now onto the people, well they talk a little different down under, they sound very similar throughout the regions I have been to but they do use different phrases, for example if you are visiting Sydney you are not very likely to hear 'g'day mate' but if you're in the rural areas, such as Mildura then you will, regularly. I've also heard Aussies use the word 'chucker' for 'food!' They have different names to us for various food items, courgettes are known as zukinis, peppers are called capsicums and eggplant is their name for aubergine. Some brands have changed their names, Galaxy chocolate is known as Dove, Walls ice cream is branded Streets, Vauxhall cars has changed to Holden and Cillit Bang (and the dirt is gone) is now Bam (and the dirt is gone). What is something I shall never understand is how they call flip flops, thongs! They also have a term for the English they like to call us Poms or Pommies which stands for Prisoner Of Mother England, this is a friendly phrase although it takes a little getting used to as pommie is often followed with a swear word.

So throughout the past six months those are some of the things I have observed, I have noticed other differences but forgot them as I haven't wrote them down. Six months on I'm still having and I'll leave you with these fun facts about Rob's trip so far - although they aren't very fun but I'm gonna post them anyway.

(Not so) fun facts
Since I left home I have:-
been to the cinema 18 times,
watched 27 films on DVD,
read 17 books (and am on my 18th),
been on 4 day tours (going on my fifth tomorrow),
been on 1 overnight 'camp'/safari,
won at poker 0 times,
posted 22 times,
visited 4 zoos/wildlife parks,
visited 4 gardens, botanical or otherwise,
visited too many many museums,

I spent my 1st day in Australia in Sydney,
I spent my 181st day in Gaol!