Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 04:13:10 -0800 (PST)
Subject: A big breakfast, a drive along the "Great Ocean Road", and into the heart of downtown Melbourne!
G'day again,
For breakfast I had 2 eggs scrambled, 2 pieces of buttered toast, 1 bite out of
1 sausage, 4 pancakes and maple syrup, and one bottle of orange juice. I took
the 2 pieces of regular bread with me, and did not eat the rest of the
sausage(s).
I was on the road at 9:30 AM -- ready for the scenic drive ahead.
The next 260 km took me until 6:30 PM. This was on the "Great Ocean Road",
which is an ocean road, and it is...... (let me think of a good word here)
................ great! For you U.S./Canada West-Coasters, it looks almost
exactly like Hwy's 101 and 1 from Portland, Oregon down to Santa Barabara,
California. Without the Golden Gate Bridge in between.
The first half of this road doesn't really have too many views of the ocean
from the road itself, but if you park the car and are willing to walk about 5
minutes from the parking lot, the views are spectacular!!! Just bring along two
fly-squatters (one for each hand), and empty a bottle of insect repellant on
you before starting out. Without doing that, this is the drill at every
viewpoint:
1. Before pulling into the parking lot, while you're still on the highway, roll
up all windows in the car.
2. Park the car.
3. Take off seatbelt.
4. Pick up camera, put it around neck.
5. AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE, open the car door, get the hell out of the car,
and close the car door.
6. Using both hands, wave off the 30-40 flies that just swarmed around you.
7. Blow your mouth so the 5-10 flies that are sitting on your lips fly away.
8. Wave those off with both your hands too.
9. In general, do a little dance with both hands flapping all around your body,
keeping the 35-45 flies off you.
10. Walk to the viewpoint, repeating steps 6-9 as necessary (translation:
"continuously".)
11. Take your pictures etc, and walk back to the car, repeating steps 6-9
continuously.
12. Now this is the really tricky part: Getting into the car has to be done
EVEN FASTER than Step #5! This is practically impossible, so at least 10-20
flies are bound to come in with you.
13. Start driving back on the highway and open all 4 car windows so the flies
get sucked out, and hopefully, DIE A MISERABLE DEATH by crashing into the
windshield of the car behind you.
And I'm being serious. The flies here are unbearable! And I couldn't even buy
insect repellant anywhere because "anywhere" was always closed for christmas!
Well, the flies aside, the views are superb. A couple of places have limestone
formations, a few arches with the waves crashing under them, all of it really
quite nice.
Except for the flies.
The second half of this road has fewer flies, fewer viewpoints, but more views
from the road itself - as you're driving. Not too many places to stop on the
roadside though. And this section reminded me the most of the Pacific Coast Hwy
in California... Big Sur/Carmel: exactly like that!
Now I'm in Melbourne, staying in a downtown hotel, with an 8th-floor view of
"the prettier part" of downtown, and a view of the Yarra river below... and I'm
here for the next 3 nights, meeting a couple of friends tomorrow morning who're
going to show me around the city :>
54 pictures taken today....
http://www.callmewanderer.com/austrlia/aus0405/
(will be added to as time goes on... up to December 23rd is complete with both
pictures and journal entries; December 24th and 25th are complete with pictures
only so far but will have everything in the next hour or so...)
Along the Great Ocean Road; the last couple are Melbourne:
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