Layers

It was so cold last night that I woke up wearing 7 layers of clothing. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a beautiful day though. We went to the Immigration office first thing this morning to apply for our second VISA. If it’s not approved before the 15^th, we will be granted a bridging VISA to stay legal in the country. After paying the immigration people, we had just enough money left to buy some coffees.

We headed back to the Salamanca area and checked out the local shops. They sell a lot of things made from highly prized Huon Pine. We walked up “Kelly’s steps” between the old warehouses to get to Battery Point. Battery Point is a historic section of Hobart with many heritage buildings. One of the buildings we saw was a bakery called Jackman & McRoss. We didn’t know this at the time, but it is described as the best cafe experience in all of Tasmania. It had gourmet breads and pastries – so we bought one of each (a sourdough olive/rosemary loaf and a chocolate/pistachio tart with strawberries). It was such a nice day out so we went back to the waterfront and enjoyed the sunshine. We saw an octopus in the water and watched him moving around and then slowly disappear under the kelp.
Next it was off to Mt. Wellington, which dominates the Hobart skyline. Normally its summit of 1270m is covered in clouds, but it was really clear today, so we walked the Zig Zag track (3.7km) to the top. We took pictures of the amazing views of Hobart along the way. Once we got to the top, there was nothing to stop the wind, so it got really cold. On the information boards there were pictures from the winter of a snow covered mountain top where we were standing. This evening we drove to Mt. Field National Park and passed many fields of hops growing (for beer). We camped right along the Tyenna River at Land of the Giants campground. There were a lot of fat wallabies and possums invading our space. I’m pretty sure we scared one with our flashlight and heard it fall into the river.
Side note: I found a new, creative way to keep warm. It involves boiling water in the kettle and then sticking the entire kettle under my layers of clothes, sit there, and hug it.

Abandon Ship

We are Ridiculous! I don’t know how both of us managed to sleep through this, but we did. We woke up on the ferry in an absolute panic because the lights were on, everyone around us had cleared out already and the boat had docked in Devonport. We could hear announcements being made for specific people to return to their cars as cars were already driving off the boat. We frantically packed up our stuff and started running down the stairs, only to realize that we had failed to take note of what deck we left our car on. We ran by a door that was open and spotted Ted!

Everyone was in their vehicles waiting and just as we threw our stuff in the car and started the engine, the cars in front of us started to pull forwards. We were half asleep and couldn’t really comprehend what was going on. As we were driving off the ferry, we realized a few critical issues.
1. We still had a bag of fresh fruit/veg that we were supposed to eat for breakfast/leave on the boat because of strict quarantine restrictions in Tasmania.
2. We hadn’t picked up our LPG cylinder and we don’t know where to pick it up.
Needless to say, the quarantine officer was less than impressed with our bag of fruit we handed over, and then informed us we could pick up our propane tank ahead.

After that whole debacle, we were officially in Tasmania – and had no idea where to start, but we knew we had to end up in Hobart (on the other side of the state) to extend our VISAs before they expire in 3 days. We drove down the midland highway and satisfied our cravings for some scones at the Christmas Hills Raspberry Farm. We drove a little further to Deloraine and stopped at 41° South Salmon Farm to sample some smoked Tasmania salmon. We entered the town of Launceston, but nothing was really open because it was a holiday. We visited the Cataract Gorge that is just minutes away from the town. We crossed the gorge via the suspension bridge, and then hiked along the edge of it to the old power station. It was a really beautiful gorge, but you can hardly call it a gorge compared to the ones we hiked through in Western Australia. On the way back, we saw a blue tongued lizard, which was cool because we haven’t seen one since we first moved here (we had seen one at the university).
We made a quick stop in Cambelltown because we saw these sculptures that had been carved out of massive tree trunks. Nearby, there was an old red bridge built in the early 1800’s, but I was more interested in feeding the ducks in the water below. I didn’t have any bread, but I think they enjoyed the rolled oats just as much.
We drove into Hobart late afternoon and took a walk around the harbour, the Salamanca Place and Battery Point. Again, it was a holiday and not much was happening, so we’ll have to come back to explore the shops tomorrow. It was a COLD night, perfect for a hot pot of chilli and beer. We met a Swiss couple who had been travelling Tasmania for the past 2 weeks, and they shared all of their favourite spots with us.

Beach House

We feel kinda bad for sleeping in until 10am this morning, but we blame the bed for being so comfy and the fact that we haven’t slept in one in a long time. Mat and his girlfriend made us bacon and eggs on the bbq for breakfast, and after the 4 of us headed back to the CBD to catch the Birdman fundraiser at Moomba. We missed the guys flying off the ramp into the river wearing ridiculous costumes/homemade flying devices, but we saw some entertaining replays.



We walked through the well known Crown Casino for a quick peek inside. Then we took a trip down to Brighton in search of these colorful beach houses that I’ve seen in many pictures and paintings since living in Australia. They are just a row of painted shacks on the beach, but hold significance because they were built so long ago, they are the only ones like them and no more can be built, so people hold onto them for a hefty price. Now I have my own picture of them, and I’m happy we found them on our journey. We enjoyed some drinks at a patio on the water and then said goodbye to Mat & Shona (even though we’ll see them at grad on the 23^rd).

We had a few hours before we needed to board the ferry to Tasmania so we wandered along St. Kilda beach, and came upon the Ironman finish line (that will  be held here in a couple of weeks). We drove down St. Kilda road and saw the “Spirit of Tasmania” in the distance. We knew at the quarantine/security check that we would have to surrender our LPG cylinder but we still needed to cook our dinner tonight. So we cooked Tacos and ate them in our car while waiting in line to board, sour cream and salsa in the cup holders and plates on our laps – keepin’ it classy.

What The Hook?

We’ve been keeping tabs on the weather in Northern Victoria and New South Wales because there’s some serious widespread flooding going on and we don’t want to run into it on our way back up to Sydney. This morning we completed our Great Ocean Road drive with a stop in at Bell’s Beach. It’s a major surfing beach that hosts the Rip Curl Pro surf competition every year around this time. We drove through Torquay and made a pit stop in Geelong for a walk along the waterfront before driving into Melbourne.
We drove over the West Gate bridge right into the Melbourne CBD. Not only do you have to watch out for buses, trams, trains, pedestrians and horse carriages, but also hook turns.
A hook turn is where you make a right hand turn from the left lane. Basically, you establish yourself on the far left, so you’re almost in the pedestrian crosswalk, and then wait for your light to turn red and the other side to turn green, then you can make your right hand turn, keeping in mind the traffic is backwards to what were used to back home. Simple eh? We avoided a hook turn for as long as possible while driving in the CBD, but eventually had to turn right, and luckily there was a cabbie in front of us we could follow. It’s crazy because you are actually blocking traffic on the other side from making their right hand turns even if it’s clear. This system is designed to avoid being T-boned by a tram.

We decided to let someone else do the driving, so we hopped on a free tour bus around the city. We passed the federation square and Flinder’s Street Station, the cricket ground, streets filled with cafes, University of Melbourne, Queen Victoria Markets (aka Melbourne’s Flemington), Dockland’s waterfront, Southern Cross train station, over the Yarra River, past the Crown Casino and into the Royal Botanical Gardens past the Shrine of Remembrance. It was a great way to see the city in a few hours.

We sat down on a sunny patio in Federation Square called Time out for some drinks & appies, and watched all the people pass by. Then we went to check out Melbourne’s MOOMBA Festival. We listened to some live music, watched trapeze artists and a water-ski jump competition. Willy took part in the World’s Greatest Shave which is a fundraiser for Leukemia, so at least he looks the way he does for a good cause.





We capped the night off with some amazing fireworks over the Yarra River. Our friend Mat was nice enough to let us stay at his place for the night. It feels weird not setting up the tent tonight and sleeping with an actual roof over our heads.

Long Weekend

We booked our trip to Tasmania! We leave on Sunday and are very excited for the last 2 weeks left of our journey.
We eventually left Apollo Bay and got back on the road. We finally saw what we thought the GOR would look like – a road with sweeping views of the ocean along the drive. It didn’t take long to find the first great lookout. We sat there and really enjoyed the view of the ocean.

There was a road sign that was completely covered in stickers, so I decided to add one of my own that I had been carrying around since Queensland. It was a “Cut the glow, to help turtles go” sticker, so if you ever see it yourself one day – that was me! Mid-afternoon we stopped at a small coastal village called Lorne and took a nap on the beach.
I woke up and Willy was gone. I spotted him swimming in the waves; I didn’t recognize him without his cast.
It was getting late in the day so we continued on to our final destination. I decided to stop on the side of the road, near an area that had access to a beach. It turned out to be Fairhaven beach at Aireys Inlet (which is the Great Ocean Road’s best-kept secret).  We walked along the beach towards the Split Point Lighthouse and back. Towards the end of the GOR, we found the roads to have more traffic than usual, and as we headed into Anglesea we remembered it was a long weekend! Good news is that everyday feels like a long weekend and we were able to find a spot to stay the night.

Koala Central

Today we continued our journey down the Great Ocean Road. We took a short walk along a quiet beach near our campsite before heading down the road. We didn’t really know what to look for today because we saw so many of the highlights yesterday. We decided to turn off the road and take a small detour to see the lighthouse. As we were driving down the road, we noticed a lot of people getting out of their cars and taking pictures of something in the trees from the side of the road. At first we thought they were just birds, but then Willy unexpectedly said “there’s KOALAS!” I grabbed his arm in excitement because we have been trying to find a koala bear in the wild this whole trip and we thought our chances of seeing one were long gone. 
We started to take photos of a few we saw in the trees above, and eventually realized there were more than 3, there were like 10. Then we realized they were ALL over the place. As we drove further down the road we must have counted at least 20 or 30 koala bears and stopped at every picture taking opportunity. Some of them were fairly active for the middle of the day, and the other ones were in comas, not to be bothered by all the clicking of cameras.
By this point we didn’t even care about the lighthouse anymore, but we still walked to the lookout. After the lighthouse, we went on a short walk through a section of rainforest called Maits Rest and there were some rather large trees that were probably a couple hundred years old. We made it to Apollo Bay by mid afternoon and never ended up leaving. It’s a great little town with lots of little shops & cafes. I think we’ll stay here until tomorrow.

GOR

Where did we wake up today? – Oh yes, the city of Warrnambool because we’re hitting up the Great Ocean Road for an epic day. We obviously started off by taking our traditional picture under the sign at the beginning of the road. 
Our first stop was at Cheese World, and we ended up buying some local Brie cheese – yum. Then after driving for a while, I questioned if we were even on the GOR because all I could see was dairy farms (hence Cheese World). The road eventually made its way towards the water to The Bay of Islands, which gave us a small preview of what was to come. We did a short walk along the coast (part of the Great Ocean Walk), which lead us down to the beach where we met some fellow Canadians. 

The 4 of us joked about how we were all lectured by some lady about our parking jobs. The next major attraction was ‘The Grotto’. I thought it was a really romantic area with an archway forming a window to see the ocean waves and a calm pool of water underneath it. The next attraction was ‘London Bridge’. There used to be two arches that formed the bridge, but back in 1990 the arch closest to the mainland collapsed. All of the formations are really interesting because they are all eroding away slowing year after year, but they also all have the potential of collapsing down into nothing at any time. The next attraction was ‘The Arch’. This one was an impressive formation, although hard to appreciate because the lookout was so high up. Once we passed Port Campbell, the next big attraction is one I have been looking forward to seeing for a while – ‘The Loch Ard Gorge’ There were a few walks along this area, all leading towards something incredible. 

The first lookout was at the ‘Razorback’ which was a massive, thin slice of rock standing alone in a bay. The best lookout was of the gorge from the beach. It is definitely one of my favourite places; it’s too bad so many people know about it. The last area we saw here was called ‘Thunder Cave’. It cut so far into the rock you could not see the end of the cave. We saved the most anticipated attraction for last –‘The Twelve Apostles”. 
There are only 6 remaining of the twelve, and you could actually see where the last one crumbled in 2005. 

There’s just something about giant rock formations all cut differently and standing alone in the water. Hopefully our pictures have captured something amazing, because I don’t believe all of these ones will still be standing in our lifetime. We ended our evening by heading down ‘Gibsons Steps’ to the beach and walked up and down the super soft sand before setting up camp at  Johanna in the Otways National Park. 

Top Of The World

This morning we ate breakfast with the kangaroos and a little bird that landed on Willy’s leg. We got ready to walk the 12.2km Mount Stapylton circuit by running the first couple km’s before the rocky uphill track began. From there, it was a never-ending walk to the top. At about 45 minutes into the walk and reaching a nice lookout I stated that “this must be it, this is the lookout”, but I was wrong. After more winding, rocky paths and some caves that sheltered us from the wind, there was a straight upwards climb right before we finally reached the top. It was an amazing 360° view and we could see the lookout that we were at yesterday, it looked so tiny because it was so much lower than we were.

We had never actually climbed to the absolute top of a mountain before (even though it was only 230m change in elevation); it was still an exciting achievement. What goes up must come down so we made our way back to the car and drove to Mackenzie Falls and the Balconies Lookout for some more amazing scenery and landscapes. 

Spikes

Today we visited Mount Gambier, which is the last town before leaving South Australia and crossing the border into Victoria. Mount Gambier is known for this massive vivid blue colored lake that holds the town’s water supply, so we didn’t go swimming in it, but it was tempting. Our next destination was The Grampians National Park to do some rugged walks up the mountains. When we got to the park we saw this creature crossing the road. It looks like a porcupine, but it’s called an Echidna. 

It has a really long nose, and when you get too close to it, it burrows itself into leaves and dirt so only its spikes are visible. We hiked up Hollow Mountain which had some steep sections and really narrow paths through rocks. We saw a few rock climbers practising and studying different holes in the rocks, so Willy and I decided to make up our own names for the rock holes. The views from the top were mainly of the surrounding farmland, which was neat because we usually don’t see mountains around our farmland back home. 

We made it down the mountain before dark just in time to set up our tent and build a cozy campfire. We are sleeping at the Stapylton campground so we’ll be ready to climb Mount Stapylton in the morning. 

Hops

We saw the biggest kangaroo this morning while walking around the campground. He wasn't scared of us, so we kept a safe distance from him, his arms were intimidating. We decided not to go to Kangaroo Island for a few reasons – we don’t have a lot of time to spend there, there’s not heaps to do and it’s very expensive (even lonely planet thinks so). So we decided to do a 6.4km walk along the coast which is a part of the famous Heysen trail with views of Kangaroo Island in the distance. 


The water was so blue that it doesn’t even look natural in our pictures. We came across some lazy kangaroos lounging in the sun as we made our way down to the beach. We had some driving to do today, so we headed on to a small town called Victor Harbor. 
We ended up spending a couple hours here because there is a walkway built from the town to a small island called Granite Island which is home to a couple thousand little blue penguins. 




We walked over and did a loop of the island in hopes of seeing one, but they were all gone at this time of day looking for fish. We drove into another small town called Goolwa and stopped at a microbrewery called Steam Exchange where we sampled a few delicious dark beers. We drove a little further and crossed the Murray River via ferry to set up camp in Coorong National Park between two lagoons. 

Free Ride

We love Adelaide. If we could live anywhere in Australia it would be here. The city isn’t too big, there aren’t any high rise buildings, there is lots of green space and biking trails everywhere. Everyone seems so active and this morning everyone was out walking, running or biking around. Even kids are outdoors on scooters and bikes which was great to see. We figured we’d complete our Adelaide Triathlon today by biking to the Adelaide Hills – an area outside of the CBD, on a hill. The city rents out bikes free of charge so we got there first thing in the morning to pick out some good ones. We followed the scenic bike trail along the river and crossed it a few times. Adelaide is extremely lucky to have such a great bike trail through the entire city and surrounding areas. It was a 40km return ride, and near the end we stopped for picnic, a rest, and took a nap along the riverside. It was harder to bike around the city with all of the events going on so we returned the bikes and went on one last walk through the CBD before saying goodbye to Adelaide. Tonight we drove further down south along the Fleurieu Peninsula to Deep Creek Conservation Park where we set up camp and threw around the Frisbee. We could hear the Kookaburras laughing at us in the trees. 

Wet Feet

This morning we took a walk along West beach to get our feet wet. Now we can officially say that we’ve been on a beach on every coast in Australia. There was this golden retriever on the beach that was barking and trying to swim after birds he saw in the water, and shortly after the birds flew away he started swimming further out towards a group of kayakers. We were pretty impressed that this dog went swimming for that long and that far out in the ocean. We were jealous of the swimming dog, and the water was too cold for us, so we headed to the Aquatic Centre for a swim. 
When we arrived, we realized that the Australian Olympic Trials were being held here in 12 days! It would have been so cool to see all the swimmers racing for a spot on the Olympic Team and the comeback of Ian Thorpe. 
This is by far the nicest pool we have ever swum in. I asked one of the lifeguards how old the pool was, she looked at me and said “old? This pool was built in May”. So it was definitely the nicest and newest pool we had ever swum in. We swam a few km’s then took some fun underwater pictures with our camera. It felt really good to be in the water again. 

We went back to the city for the evening and found some street markets and bought some hilarious t-shirts. We've decided to definitely stay here one more day.

City Life

Today was our day to explore Adelaide. This city explodes in numbers at this time of year because of all the events going on. There is the Adelaide Festival, the Fringe Festival, the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercars, Soundwave Music Festival; Taylor Swift was here, Writers Weekend, Womadelaide and more. The city was packed with all kinds of people and it was fun to be a part of the crowd.Adelaide’s CBD is organized in a large rectangle with parallel roads. We parked in North Adelaide and walked to the CBD because it was easier than trying to find a parking spot.
It’s orientation for uni students this week, so we walked through The University of Adelaide in hopes of attending a few free bbq’s. The campus is situated along a river and also beside the botanic gardens. It’s a really beautiful area. There is a bike/walking path that runs all the way from the beach to the Adelaide Hills which would be fun to ride because there wouldn’t be traffic and it’s along the Torrens River. After winding through the Botanic Gardens, we walked the roads of the CBD. 


We past lots of pubs and restaurants, and ended up walking through Rundle Mall and into Chinatown. After walking for a few hours, we took the free tram back to where we started from, and then we walked some more. Adelaide has some beautiful old buildings and is great for walking around. We stopped at PJ O'Brians Pub for some free beers, and then got cravings for burgers and potato wedges. So we went back to our campsite and made homemade burgers Aussie style, with potato wedges, sour cream and sweet chili sauce.