Adelaide - Jan.17

We finally made it to Adelaide. What a drive it was to get there, it was almost 3.5 hours in the car but it was worth it. We planned ahead and booked two nights in the Our Backbackers that was impossible to find. It was located on a side street and I drove by it about 3 times and was starting to get frustrated. We got settled and I went and got some Subway. Adelaide was a very nice city, it was a lot less busy than Melbourne and was just as clean.

We finally got our bank information taken care of thanks to Jess. She figured out how to call oversea's much to the dismay of her phone bill and being on hold for almost an hour. I went down to the atm to check and we had MONEY again yay! We had a sweet tv in our room so I watched quite a bit of the Nadal tennis match that night. I had looked in a few of the brochures and found a few things for us to do. The first of which was Cleland Wildlife park. We originally wanted to go to the beach but it was supose to be cloudy and not that hot so we figured we would check the wildlife park out.

It turned out to be the best decison we made ever! This place was truly awesome, there was no other word for it. We had looked in the brochure and saw that would could cuddle a Koala  and pet any of the animals. The lady at the desk told us when all of the pet feeding times were. She also told us that you could feed any of the free roaming animals and it was only 18 dollars, way cheaper than the zoo and turned out to be way better. When we went inside the Kangaroos, wallabies , emus were all walking around and laying under the trees. The dangerous ones like dingos, tasmanian devils and reptiles we all in enclosures.

The Koala close up was at 11 and we just got there on time. Jess and I ran over there straight away and got in line. You cold pet and take pictures with the Koala, which was really awesome. I never thought we would ever get that close to one of these amazing creatures but we did. It was really lucky we went that day when it was cloudy too because the last few days it was too hot and they couldn;t bring the Koala's out in the heat because they got upset. They had to change the Koala's every 30 minutes because they didn't like being over handled and all needed something to eat. When we went in with the keeper the Koala that was there was named Hazel and she was 9 years old and was considered a mature Koala since they generally live about 12 years. However they live a bit longer when they are in captivity because of how well they are taken care of. The Koala was so soft and I couldn't believe how fast they eat, they normally move so slow but as soon as you put so fresh gumtree leaves in front of them they come alive. The keep said we could pet them but not to touch around their ears because they are really sensitive. Jess was the happiest person on the planet when we did this she was so happy.

We spent the whole afternoon here and it was so much better than the zoo just because of the close interaction that you could experience. 

Theses birds were everywhere

These little southern Brown Bandicoot's were everywhere.

Jess and her favorite new friend Hazel

So excited!!!

Jess thinks we look alike...

buttlefly's everywhere again

This is a Big Red Kangaroo, and let me tell you he was big when he stood up.

There tongues were very soft and furry.

This one walked right up too me!

Jess pet this baby for about 15 minutes

These Emu's made quite loud noises

This guy was from a group in the back that were very friendly

There was only one Wombat outside the rest were sleeping.

Wallabies, Jess found a little guy to feed.

We got to the Dingo's Just after feeding time but they were still crunching down on the bones pretty good.

The view from Glenelg jetty. 

After Cleland we went beach scooping. I had looked in the brochures to see which beach was the best and it said Glenelg. After an Frappuccino to cool down, one long wait to get out of the parking lot we headed of ever to Glenelg. This beach was beautiful and white sand as far as you could see. There was a small vibrant little beach community there as well. It was a good day and we were both popped so we headed home for some dinner.

Coonawarra

The next day we were up early all excited for, wine tasting Woohoo!!!!! everything we had been told about the region and having to book tasting and getting charged for them was wrong. Our first stop was Majella wines, this was suppose to be on of the best Cabernet Sauvignon's in the region and top red value wine for the last five years. It didn't disappoint at all. The tour was great, Steve showed us their entire facility and also made us the first coffee we enjoyed. It was called a long white,  it was delicious.

We then tasted through their wines, which started with a Riesling, rose, a blend of cab sauv/merlot, then the value shiraz, then another higher value blend, then their top tier shiraz and then the sparkling shiraz. There wasn't a bad wine in the line up. It was all good, we walked away with the lower value cab sauv/ shiraz.

Next stop, Wynn's Estate. This is the oldest winery in the region established in 1891. This was a really informative winery, it was really nice inside with lots of displays and a tasting from the first vintage on display. their vines looked like tree trunks and we later found out that these are called prayer vines because you have to get on your hands and knees while you work them like your praying.

We then went to brand Laira, it was one of the recomnedation from the guy (Steve) at Majella. The Cabernet Sauvignon was the best we tried but the highlight of this winery was the event room they have. The owner who jsut sold the winery is 94 and has a private wine colection in the origanal farmhouse building on the site. It was really neat and dusty, check out the pictures below.

 

What a sweet room to have dinners in.

Man I hope I have this much wine one day

Next stop was lunch, we went to Hollick wines because we were told they were serving lunch. However when we got there, no lunch. We tried their wines that weren't as good as some of the others, the only one i liked enough to buy was a the Semillion/Sauv. Blanc blend. It was pretty tasty for a 22 dollar price point. We then headed back into Penola and stopped for some lunch. We went into a little cafe downtown and grabbed a wrap and sandwich.

Terra Rossa soil that makes Coonawarra so unique.

We then travel back down the road and stopped at Katnook Estate, We walked in and were very thankful for the A/C. The lady behind the bar tasted us through all their wines which we both enjoyed. The lowest tier Shiraz was not as good as the Cabernet Sauv. But the higher tiers were amazing. The 40 dollar wines were not that much better than the 20 dollars ones so we just got two of bottom level cab. sauvs. The top tier was 100 a bottle and were both spectatuclar but were too broke to buy wines like that right now. The Cabernet was like velvet on your tongue and finished with a long ripe plum vanilla character. All the cabs here have a really distinct mint character on the nose.

The rest of the day was driving. We spnt almost 4 hours in the car driving into adelaide. It was a very beautiful drive. It was very flat most of the way up to adelaide until we got about an hour outside. The hills we were climibing were kilometers long, the car ran good again. We kept climbing and finally it was all downhill for about 10 minutes straight into adelaide.

We pulled into a parking garage and walked over to the back packers. We both were pooped and thankful to be somewhere for a few days that we didn't have to lug our luggage again. I went and got some subway while Jess at some leftovers and we settled in for the night.

Almost there now!

January 16- the day after the great ocean road

After the long trip along the great ocean road, a good nights rest was needed. We both got to swim in a pool to cool of that night too which was really helpful for me at least. This little holiday park had a nice cabin for us, with a little kitchen, nice TV and a good shower. It was nice to settle in and change out all the clothes in our suit cases and get some blogging done. We both had a lot of sun that day and were pretty wiped. The next morning we got up and out by 10 just like every other morning, no sleeping in for us. We hit the road after Jess swiped all the instant coffee from the room. We were about 15 minutes out town when the scenic turnoffs started again, I was happy to turnoff and check it out. The road was nice and small barely fitting two cars side by side, but sure enough 80km/h. We pull up and to it and check it out, I saw a path that was before the platform where people had walked. I said hey lets be a little adventurous, it wasn't nearly as busy as the the other sites along the great ocean road, so we took a walk on the wild side and went out on the cliffs. Ignoring the warning "unstable cliffs, you may die." The picture below shows that it was worth it.

 

We didn't see much else along the way, and were really tired already from all the walking and hiking the last few days and decided we would head to Portland. We had looked in the booklets we in Port fairy and decided a nice relaxing day on the beach would suit us nicely. We flew along down into Portland on the way we saw a huge wind farm, there were hundreds and hundreds of wind mills along this road. They had a tourist spot too check it out but it was 38C outside we were not game for being in the heat with out the ocean. I sweat a lot on this leg of the trip, the air really got dry. We hoped out of the car in Portland right at the Port, and walked down the stairway on too the beach. Let me tell you the brochure didn't lie that this was a nice beach.

Our first Jellyfish expierence!

 After a good 3 hour stint on the beach, a couple health burns and a good shower, we hit the road again. We made a pit stop for a nice cold drink from maccas (MacDonald's). We good some nice frappes and zipped out of town....

oh wait wrong way....

turn around....

O this way

 On too Mount Gambler. We hit he grocery store, can you tell what I had a craving for.

This part of the drive was the most movie like experience of Australia. It was wide open land, very burnt and grassy with a dry hit. In the middle of this drive toward Adelaide. It was the most continuous time in the car we had spent. After about 2.5 hours and almost 280km we pulled over at the petrol station (gas station) We both got some ice cream and of course had my first really worrisome car experience here. As i was getting back in the car I notice a nice coolant leak coming from under the car.  Pulled over to check it out, it was just an overflow because the dealer filled the coolant too high and we hadn't really run the car hard yet, crisis averted.

We stopped off in a little town before the Coonawarra Wine region called Penola. We stoped in at the Information center and asked the lady for some winery information and where the cheapest place was to stay. She gave us what we asked for and headed over. The Manger at this hotel was really awesome, he let us use the laundry in the back of the bar, told us what the good wineries were and booked us a sweet tour at Mejella wines with one of his really good friends that was the Vineyard Manger there.

The laundry was a a good thing but we didn't have time to dry all our clothes so we had to use the blinds to dry most everything. Everyone must have though we were crazy when they looked at our window.

Great Ocean Road 3/3

After a nice sleep in probably the most comfortable bed we slept in all week. The picture below is the view from our little budget cabin that we got for the night. It was nothing fancy but suited us just fine.

We knew that we were really close to the twelve apostles. We hoped on the highway and imediately saw a sign for Gibson's stairs, lucky I was quick on the trigger an pulled in. Turns out you get to walk down this gorgeous beach and see the first two apostles from the ground up. A lot of people seemed to miss this and it was worth the walk down a tight set of stairs. People were writing their names in the beach and taking pictures from up top on the cliff. This picture below is the view from the beach, and for the first thing we did all day could have been enough to keep me happy. We spent about an hour on this beech just walking in the water and getting soaked. The second picture gives you an idea of how big the cliff is that we walked down was to get on to the beach.

bucket list, cross it off

yep thats me!

 Next stop, the official twelve apostles stop. There was a big parking lot, kiosk and helicopter tours. Jess asked me if i looked up the how much they tours were, when I told her $600 she laughed and said " Geuss were too broke to do that huh?" We both laughed and started the 300 meter walk under the highway to the lookout. It was remarkable how well the sky started to clear up just as we got there. It really was hard to get great pictures because they keep you so far back from the cliffs. It is neat how they form, the waves crash against the base of the cliffs, erode away the bottom and cause a arch underneath the rocks. Then when the gap gets too large, the top collapses into the water leaving a stone form in the water. We read on the signs that the cliffs are moving back 1 foot each year. The salt water really erodes the limestone quickly. It was quite cool, it showed the original twelve too, they had a different name back in the 80s but I can;t remember off the top of my head what it was.

Next we stopped at the Loch Ard Gorge, the Razorback is one of the rock formations (below). This is a ridge of sandstone rock jutting up from the sea just offshore. Beyond it is Pudding Rock. The Razorback is really an elongated stack, which used to extend much further into the sea, but centuries of erosion have reduced it to the length seen today. Eventually the stack will be worn away. Also in the area is the Island Arch. Loch Ard Gorge is so named after a shipwreck in the area, there is also a really neat little cave in the back of the gorge.  

Just up the next path was Thunder cave. This cave runs back about 35 meters from what you can see in the picture, the wind was really wiping around when we ere standing there and the waves crashing into the cave made it really loud. Jess and I could ahrdly hear each other speak, we took the photos and moved on. You could really tell that that two currents were meeting here and the waves in two different directions. It was around lunchtime, Ross our boss at Flat rock told Jess that we should check out a cheese factory that was really close to this spot. We headed inland for about 20 minutes and hit up the Timboon cheese factory. We did a really good cheese tasting there and hard a delicious spread that had sun dried tomatoes, garlic and chives in it. We then got a plate of nachos that had the spread on top with brie cheese. It was delicious. Jess linked a picture of the nachos on her blog. I however just for my mother, took a picture of a beautiful flowers that were in the gardens surrounding the cheese farm.

  After we got all filled up on cheese we headed back down to the Great Ocean road. The next two stops The Arch and The Grotto were probably the most picturesque and best photos we took all week. The arch the first picture below was truly jaw dropping, the waves crashing into the side, the sun was blazing down as hot as we had felt yet and it was finally supper hot out, 38 degrees! The Grotto, the second picture below was on low tide and was in my opinion the best picture I had taken all week. The ocean behind, then the pool of water and rocks in front gives such a contrast to the picture.

 

The Arch

Next stop, London bridge. The was a piece of land attached to left of the arch now, in 1982 the bridge collapsed when two people were still on it. They had to get air lifted off.

London Bridge

The Grotto. Beautiful

After I just got crushed by a huge wave, Jess laughed.

The picture above is from the Bay of Martrys, we stopped in there because it was so hot we both needed to cool down. I felt adventurous and tried by hand at fight off some of the waves, needless to say its not fun getting pummeled by 8 foot waves. After a good walk down the beech, a run and race back to the clothes. We headed on to the bay of Islands. This bay has 35 islands all scattered throughout it, you can only see a few in the picture but there are so many we did not stop at all them.

getting some tan!

We did a little bit of driving after this, picked up some fruit and juice for in the car. We headed up towards, of course before we got there we had a pit stop at Tower hill game reserve. I saw this place at the last second and almost got in a car accident but it was worth it. We were driving into the conservation area, that had an elevated drive and out of the corner of my eye i saw some feet. I slammed on the brakes and handed Jess the camera and sure enough there it was...

Our first wild KANGAROO!!!

This was such a good spot by me and picture by Jess it happened so fast, we drove through the rest of this reserve and there were wild Emu`s all over the roads, walking in front of the car, beside the car. We were so happy to have a kangaroo picture it made our night. We headed into Port fairy and checked into a Caravan park and hope in the pool for a couple hours. We both were very hungry and a lady told us about a supper Thai place called Lemongrass. We checked it out and she was right, it was the best Thai Ive had bar none. I had a Roasted duck red curry with coconut rice and it was sooooo gooooddd!!! Jess got her pad Thai and loved it. Busy day,  that came with some of the most beautiful pictures and two pretty good forehead burns from the sunroof.

Great Ocean Road 2/3

We woke up too some clouds. which mad us both sad because we had booked a Zip Line tour last night for today and there was a chance of rain. We hoped in our cruising machine and hit the road. It was about 15 minutes until we hit the rain forest. We had about two hours to kill before we had to be at the Otway Tree Tour. The first thing we notice was the smell, immediately we could sense the salty ocean smell change to a musty pine smell. We climbed a pretty large hill and enter a very mountainous ravine, there were trees two stories high on both sides of the road with ferns about 2.5 meters high below them. the forest was really dense and moist.

We saw the sign for the Cape Otway Lighthouse, suppose to be "thee" lighthouse of Australia and decided to head down the road and check it out. This road was quite narrow and yup, you guess it, speed limit 80km/h. Along the way down through this National park we saw a bunch of cars pulled over to the side of the road and everyone was looking up in the trees. Sure enough there were Koala's everywhere in the Eucalyptus trees on the road. We pulled over and checked it out, they were really high up and proved not to be the best pictures. We continued down the road and people were pulled over again, but we decided to keep moving and get to the lighthouse, needless to say it proved to be a bust. They were charging 40 dollars to through the gate, down a 3km walk just to see the light house and go inside. For us too broke smuck's, it was too much money. The journey was not a waste of time though, we stopped again and found a smaller tree with Koala's in it and got tons of pictures.

 These two are my favorites, the one on the left is taking a stretch, jess got this action shot with some determination. We thought we had some good pictures and were happy with them until we walked back the car. We saw this little guy curled up right above where we parked. He is just in the branch above my head, sleeping away not caring that everyone is invading his home.

Next stop castle cove, we didn't know at the time when stopped here, our Zip Lining guide, Teeka told us that they found dinosaur fossils here. Pretty 'Swish' (means cool)

After the 40 minute drive to the Zip Lining place, we got all bundled up cause it was really cool and the add even said to dress warm in the summer months because not much sun comes through the tree canopy to keep you warm. We got there to do the Tree top walk first. This was an hour long walk where you descended through the Otway National park rain forest on a marked path. They give you a map with mark stations where your suppose to stop, there is information panels all over the place to tell you what your looking at, very neat. Half way down they have this quite elaborate catwalk system that allow you to walk 25m in the air through the tree tops. The ferns in this rainforest were sooooo BIG, you could walk under then very easily and made the forest floor look very deceiving from the catwalk because there is still 2 meters under those ferns when you look down.

This rainforest is made up of mostly Blackash trees. These trees are really unique in that they grow about a meter a year until their 30. Then the bases start to widen because of how much they sway with the wind. When we were standing on the platform in the Tree tops you could see the them moving it was crazy. These trees also shed their bark almost like a snake sheds his skin. The bark hangs down all along the sides, the reason for this is so that when the forest catches fire, the fire travels up to the top of the canopy quickly, heats up the blooming pods at the top making them open and reproduce before it burns to the ground.

This tower is 47m up in the air, it also swayed in the wind which made it interesting to walk up, but the views from the top was jaw dropping. We were as high as all the tree tops around us, it was so cool. I could stayed up there all day just listening to the wind and the birds.

The Zip Lining was very very very cool. After the walk we went straight in to do the Zip Lining, had do the safety stuff of course and then we were off. Our guide Teeka was very talkative and funny. He was asking me all different sorts of questions about hockey and Canada. I don't think I saw him do one normal zip all day. I took about two hours and there was one Zip that was 120m long over a bog that I decided to be cool and go upside down for!!! It was so much fun, Jess on the other hand didn;t quite make it all the way. Lightweight hehe. Teeka fished her in though.

At the end of the Zip line Teeka told us about a water falls that was really close to the Zip line place and that there was like a 30 minute walk and was worth the trip, it was late and we didn't have a place to stay yet but we decided to hit it up anwyas, why not!!!We got there and it was a million stairs down and up again, starting to see a trend with getting to all of these waterfalls! In the end it was worth the pictures and view,have a look. 

The Legend of the Forest, 300 year old Blackwood Ash

Triplet Falls, what a view!

A busy day comes to an end. We hoped in the car and drove into Princetown, found a budget cabin grabbed some pizza and curled up for the night. The funniest thing of the day hapened when we went through these pictures that night, my camera has a option to take a video blog of your pictures for the day, needless to say it starts with me in my boxers. But it has some really cool video ill show everyone when we get home.

Great Ocean Road Day 1/3

We left Melbourne on Friday, it was another cloudy day, followed by rain as we ran back and forth from the car to the information center. Jess and I are both relieved to get on the road, let the fun begin!!!

Our first stop was in Bells Beach, this is the Aussie surfing capitol. As we drove down the "one" lane road toward the beach every other vehicle had a surf board on top of it. When we drove up it was more then I ever expected, the surf was large about 4m high the water to the east was littered with surfers waiting for the big wave. This is the view from the platform at Bell Beach. The beach in the background is our first trip into the OCEAN. The water was pretty cool and the waves kept getting bigger the whole time we were there.

The next stop was Airey's inlet, this was an unexpected stop but we were so 'awh' struck by the first beach that we had to check the next one out. This beach was so long , it must have run for almost 5km along the road, there were tons of people walking there dogs and running along it. We took the opportunity to write everyone at home a little message....

We had no real plans as we were driving, the road is set up so you can pick and choose what you want to see or stop at. We decided to do everything we could each day, this proved to be quite challenging. We checked out the first lighthouse on the road, split point lighthouse. This light house marks the Surf coast and guides ships into the Bass Strait which leads into Port Phillip. It was really neat and the picture I uploaded in Facebook is the view from the viewing platform there.

 

 I have been driving the whole way and from my point of view its been like playing Mario Kart in real life or being in a James Bond movie even though Im not driving an Aston Martin. This is a typical view on the road full of elevation changes and U-turns around every bend. They mark the speed limit as 80km/h on this road and 65km/h through U-turns, needless to say one should not be driving that fast even in a two door sports car.  Jess has been clutching the passenger door handle pretty hard.It was a beautiful drive all day long, you could taste the salt on your lips a we were driving because of all the sea spray from the waves. Breathtaking drive thus far, every corner makes you look twice and not want to look away, gotta keep the car on the road :) We took about 400 pictures this day, unfortunately way to many to post on here at once.

Lorne was the next big town on our stop, it was really windy and cold when we went through here, which is asahamed because there was a large wave generated pier that had space for diving off with swim ladders back to the top. This pier we are standing on in the photo generates 1/4 of the power for this whole little town, pretty amazing. 

We headed through Lorne pretty quickly and decided that we would spent the night in Apallo bay, not by choice. When we went to the information center in Melbourne, she convinced us that it would be hard to find accommodation if we didn't pre-book anything and talked us into staying in a B&B for $150 when we found out later when we arrived we could have found much cheaper accommodations, wing it is still the way to go.

Just outside of Lorne was another pit stop, Jess was all sad at this point because she was seeing all these waterfalls on the map and we had not seen any signs to go to any of them and sure enough two minutes later there one was. This was no easy task let me tell you, this was quite the hike up about 400 feet of stairs then down, then up, then down until we finally heard it. It was mind blowing,  at this point I was really starting to regret not having a better camera, my pictures are good but I'm sure they could be better.

Victory!!! Some sweat and complaining but we made it.

We got out of there around six o'clock and realized we still had a ways to Apallo so we zipped along into too town and checked into the B&B and then went of for some fish and chips. Only had a really small ketchup and it was more BBQ sauce than the good old Heinz. We had a nice little walk around town and then hit the sack.