Saturday, October 2, 2010

The Great Ocean Road: Day 1

The Great Ocean Road is a road that runs along the southern coast of Australia.  It starts about 45 minutes southwest of Melbourne in a town called Torquay.  We learned today that the Great Ocean Road was built by soldiers returning from WW1.  It was a program devised by the 20 year young nation of Australia to ensure their troops had employment.  God, are we thankful for this wonderful idea. 

Our first stop after driving through Torquay was Bells Beach, a famous surf beach that hosts an annual surf championship.  It’s also the home of the surf brand Rip Curl, or, at least I think it is.  It’s a beautiful beach set between two cliffs.  The place where the surfers paddled out was along a rocky part of the coast.  It was a little beyond our “intermediate” skill level, so we set out on our next journey…

KANGAROOS!!! It took a month, but we saw kangaroos.  There is a golf course in a town called Anglesea where the ‘roos run rampant.  We parked the car and walked along the fairway no more than 20 meters before we saw Skippy.  That’s what we named the first Kangaroo we saw.  Skippy was surrounded by heaps of mates (Australian for tons of friends).  They are odd looking creatures.  You can walk right up to them and they don’t seem to mind at all.  It’s a little scary at first because they’re about our height when they stand.  They’re actually taller if you’re short like Erin.  As captivating as our first wild Kangaroo experience was, we had to hit the road again…

There were many breathtaking views, a stop at a pretty cool waterfall called Erksine Falls in the Otway National Park, and then…

KOALAS!!!  Yes, that’s right, kangaroos and koalas in one day.  First, some background:  To see the Koalas in the wild you park at a little café (called Koala Cove Café) and walk up a dirt road called Grey River Road and according to several websites are GUARANTEED to see koalas.  We walked for a long fucking time without seeing koalas.  But, we did not falter.  Well, we did turn around to walk back to the car.  When I married Erin I knew she had many talents, but I didn’t know she was a great Koala spotter.  There sitting along the side of the road we saw a big fat Koala chilling at the bottom of a tree.  And, with the exception of the occasional yawn, that’s about all it did for the next 15 minutes.  Amazingly, it was the most captivating 15 minutes of this journey so far.  We snapped many pictures, see facebook link below.  Before leaving, an older couple helped us spot a few more, one of which had a baby.  Want to know an interesting fact about koalas?  They’re stoned on eucalyptus pretty much all the time.

After we checked into the motel and got some dinner we went back to Otway National Park to see glow worms.  This was a pretty scary experience.  We drove for 1 hour round trip and saw 9 CARS!!! 9 cars in an hour!!!  To see the glow worms you have to drive 6km up a dirt road into the dark and then get out of the car and walk to an embankment where they rest.  I’m not too proud to admit that we sat in the car with the doors locked, but were able to see the glow worms once we turned all the lights off. 

One of the most amazing things about Australia is how scarcely populated it is.  It’s amazing that you can be somewhere so beautiful and it’s not littered with commercialized tourist attractions.  None of these wildlife spotting were commercialized, although we may have felt safer if the glow worms trip was.  While pretty much everyone wants to come to Australia, its remoteness must be a strong deterrent.  We’re glad we made the journey and hope you do soon.  Days like this really make us fall in love with this country.  And, we expect tomorrow will be almost as good…

PHOTOS LINK: Great Ocean Road Pics