Melbourne & The Great Ocean Road

Tuesday 11^th November

We rose early, packed the car with our last stuff and said goodbye to Haley before she went to work.
We were heading towards Goolwa beach, where the family member, Phil, from the party last saturday had set us up for a free surf lesson. He really wanted us to enjoy surfing as much as he does, and he was sure the reason for us not to like surfing, were because of our bad teachers in the past.
We wanted to give it a third go, and it is much appreciated that he spend his time with us, and tried to get us to like it – and he even did it for free.
Despite the good intentions all the three of us had, Erik & I still weren’t hooked after about an hour in the water. Phil almost didn’t believe that we didn’t surf more in the past than we did, he kept saying we were natural talents, and by the way we acted on the boards, he thought we had had at least 10 lessons before. Even though we got these nice compliments, the waves were perfect beginner waves and all the circumstances were right, we still didn’t enjoy it as much as we should – none of us got that special kick, where you just know this is it.. We know the feeling from snowboarding, but the surfing dosen’t give us anything like that.
As written before, it’s too much effort for the little fun you get out of it, plus we both hate to get washed over by the waves.
Well, at least we tried it again and are now 210% sure that we won’t use more time on that.
Well, Phil was a beautiful person and even though we let him down, he took us for a spin in the little town and showed us where the Murray River empties into the sea. Then we drove (by ourselves again), a little backwards down to Victor Harbor (Yes, that’s the correct spelling).
Just off-shore of that is Granite Island, which we wanted to explore. There’s a causeway from the city you can either cross by a horse-drawn tram or by foot. We needed some exercise, so we choose the last option. The island is only 2,5km in diameter, and easy to walk around.
The main reason for exploring it, was to see the magical little penguins, but unfortunately there aren’t much of them around anymore. There used to be thousands, but the numbers had unfortunately declined dramatically the last decade. Unfortunate for us there wasn’t a big change of spotting these beautiful creatures. Anyhow the island were magnificent with immerse boulders all around it, and the power of the waves hitting them, made us once again realize how powerful and fascinating the ocean is.
This was the most active we’d been for weeks. That car sure makes us lazy as f…! The rest of the day we drove east towards Melbourne.
Our dinner was absolutely horrible – unfortunate caused by my eternal seeking for new tastes and dishes. To begin with I thought I could cook the bad taste and “cat food” smell away, if I just cooked it long enough, but it kept being uneatable. What else to do than to force it down, and think of something nice meanwhile!? Tried that in Asia so many times so why not now!
Apparently we had watched Wolfe Creek too early. The older couple camping next to us, seemed strange to me, not that I had any special reason to think this, but they didn’t greet us when we got there, and that’s basically what I base my opinion on. I just knew I wouldn’t have had those thoughts, if we hadn’t watched that stupid movie.

Phil and his little surf trailer

The little  horse-drawm tram

Granite Island

Wednesday 12^th November

Luckily we survived the night... Ha ha. Erik was busy already in morning with people writing him concerning the car he had put for sale online. There were a lot of people contacting him, interested in the car and he planned to meet up with people already thursday afternoon and friday morning, which was great, but on the other hand we didn’t want to rush through the most magnificent and stunning drive in Australia – The great Ocean Road. Apart from having world-class surfing (we love watching surfers by the way) and calm seaside towns, it’s got the world famous sheer limestone cliffs right of the coast (it’s the once you have never been able to avoid on any folder/add/commercial/postcard from Australia – well at least we haven’t), and the area has got Australia’s biggest population of wild koala’s as well. It’s the best win-win situation you can get.

Before crossing the S.A-Victoria border where the fun begins, we explored the Umpherston Sinkhole near Mount Gambier. This place was created when the top of a limestone chamber fell to the floor, caused by waves and water from the sea, it collapsed and people created a natural sunken garden in it. It’s stunning and a great quick escape from the road. 

Afterwards we crossed the border and began our drive on ‘The Great Ocean Road’. We made six stops on the coast where the Twelve Apostles are the most famous one. They’re rocky stacks that have been abandoned to the ocean by the headland. All the stops were mind blowing and outstanding. By watching the sunset from a look-out point, away from the tourist crowds, we felt that we’d got as much out of it, as we possible could. While I was writing blog Erik made sure we got to the right camp spot, at Johanna beach. We went to bed straight away.  

The Sinkhole

We didn't quite agree with this sign...

....Because unfortunately this was what welcomed us.. Poor Koala! 

The Great Ocean Road

Bay of Martyrs

Bay of Islands

The Grotto

London Bridge

Lord Ard Gorge

The 12 Apostles ( I'm aware that there's only two on the picture, but they're separated from the others)

Another part of the 12 Apostles

Thursday 13th November

In the morning we only brushed our teeth, before we left Johanna beach again. We were in our continuous search for milk for our breakfast. I was also very obsessed with a morning shower. 

The Great Ocean Road had changed from steep limestone cliffs, into small windy mountain roads with rocky beaches. We stopped at Kenneth River for two reasons: 1. To spot the wild koala’s in the area. 2. To get a shower in the Holiday Park. 

Just when we entered the sleepy village Erik thought he saw a dog in the side of the road, but by the way it walked we could quickly - and to our big surprise see, that it was a koala that had ventured out to the road. We pulled over immediately and I jumped out of the car to take pictures, I didn’t want to scare or stress the poor guy, so I kept a fair distance to him. There was a fence into the campground behind, so the koala had a hard time escaping from me, although he found a little walking path that lead into the campground, and there he could crawl back up into the trees where he belonged. I was speechless - this is exactly what we have been aiming to see – WILD koalas. 

We parked near the campground and went in, to spot more of these furry, fantastic and unfortunately extinct creatures. Erik spotted one more up in a tree – we spend quite a while watching him. It was amazing. Our so called shower wasn’t as big a success though, the doors were locked = we had to pay for it! High on emotions we left the park without a shower. 

Next stop was our breakfast stop, and we found a “cheap” $3,2 (16,5 Kr) milk to enjoy with our cereals. At the holiday park in the back of the kiosk, I went to pay for my shower in the reception, and my bad luck just wouldn’t let go of me, so I didn’t get my much needed shower, because they didn’t let strangers into the park. A short time after, Erik booked a hostel for us in Melbourne, the good news made me see the light in the end of the tunnel – we were gonna get washed later!  

After a little chaotic tour through the city in peak hour, we eventually found Hotel Oslo in St Kilda. A crappy hotel with a very uninviting façade, and no staff to welcome us, or check us in. We ate our lunch in the common kitchen while we waited for the staff to come back. When they came back from their coffee break, they offered us a private room for just $6 more than 2 dorm beds ($50 in total = 260kr). It was perfect since we had to empty all our stuff out from the car, in order to get it cleaned and ready for the future owners. After circling around St Kilda for a while, we eventually found a carwash, where we cleaned the car completely and wiped all surfaces, so it looked brand new – there wasn’t a dry eye when we were done. 

The night was spend in our new home/room, where Erik started to get nervous if we could get the full price for the car, and some of the people he was in contact with texted him, that they’d already bought other cars, so it seemed like there was less people, meaning smaller change to sell the car for the full price. 

We were both excited for the next morning, where Erik had arranged to meet up with three couples, who still seemed very interested. We had a heart-attack kebab for late dinner, and went to bed with our minds set up for getting rid of Migaloo the next day. 

The cutest wild animal we have seen, and also the laziest. They sleep 18-20 hours a day!

 There was plenty of wildlife to discover in the Holiday Park

The Aussie's claims that they drive in the right side of the road, but if they drive in the right side of the road, why do they need to put up signs that tells people which side do drive in??

The Great Ocean Road video

Friday 14^th November

Poor Erik wasn’t even hungry in the morning – he was too excited. 

We met up with the first people at 9.30am. A young German couple who lived in Melbourne at that moment, but were gonna start their travels in Australia, in the beginning of December. We already knew that they had seen other cars, so we thought that they would be picky, especially because they still had a couple of weeks, before they needed a car. We showed them how the bed worked, and they both tried if they could fit in it, but luckily they weren’t taller than us, so they just fitted in there, exactly like we did. 

We showed them all the storage space in the car, and all the equipment that came with it. The German guy went for a test drive with Erik by his side. And afterwards the German girl tried it, with me as passenger… When we came back to the guys, it was clear to us, that both the Germans had a hard time hiding there smiles. They knew they had to decide quickly, since Erik already told them about the next couple that should see the car. They talked a few quick lines of German, and turned towards us and told us, that they wanted the car, without a doubt. 

I then started to ask if they were sure, but they seemed confident and sure about their decision. I also asked if we should meet up tomorrow and arrange the paperwork and money transfer – but Erik quickly disrupted me, and said that if they had the time now, then he thought we should do it straight away. Apparently his experiences have taught him, never to give people time to reconsider if they already had made up their minds… Luckily it was alright with them to sort it out already, so while Erik and the German guy walked, me and the girl drove the car to there bank. When they had got the money ($5000), we went to their house and sorted out the paperwork. We shacked hands, and wished them all the best for their travels. 

We were relieved to get rid of the car so fast, and even earn money on it (we earned a bit more than $1500 on it = 7800kr). It has been a bloody long journey around this massive country. The world’s longest highway, highway 1 is 14,500km, if you do the trip anti- clockwise it is 6,5 km shorter, because you are travelling in the inner lane all around. With all our detours and small trip away from the highway, we ended up travelling around 25000km in Migaloo. It wasn’t JUST happy days. In times it seemed like our roadtrip was a too big mouthful for us, and it seemed unmanageable from time to time. Now we wouldn’t be without it, and we wouldn’t have been able to decide which parts we wanted to see – cause we DID want to see them all, just as we did. So it’s been the best decision for us, and next time we hit Australia, we know that the WEST IS THE BEST. 

Anyway, we walked away from Migaloo and his new owners. It was time for public transport again. 

We bought a couple of tickets for the tram, and eventually found our way back to Grey street in St. Kilda. We stopped by at a bottle shop on our way to the hostel, and bought 4 liters of cheap red wine – it was time for celebration. While Erik was at the counter paying for the wine, I kept reminding him to get cash out, so we could pay for our accommodation – but Erik kept telling me that it wasn’t necessary, even though we both talked about it in the morning. He gave me time to re-think the situation, but that didn’t help – it wasn’t before he reminded me that my purse was filled with 50 and 100 $ notes, that I knew why it wasn’t necessary to take more cash out… Stupid me! 

We walked back to the hostel, and while I prepared us our last can food from the car, Erik went to the nearest Westpac bank with most of all the cash.

The night went by with drinking wine, skyping with my friend Musse. We were really happy that we ended up earning money on the car, even though we’d had it for 5 months and drove over 25000km’s in it.

We ended the night on Carlisle Street, where the street party atmosphere already had sat in. Erik swallowed a big Burger and I had a portion of fish and chips, before we escaped from the noisy street and back to our comfy room.  

Don't mention the war...

Saturday 15^th November

We started our day with a skype date with my parents. We are 10 hours ahead now, so it’s harder to get in touch with each other, not impossible, but it just needs to be arranged ahead. It was already noon before we had breakfast, so half of the day had passed already, but it was good to be updated with news from home though – and we didn’t plan to do much anyway. 

We went for a stroll in St. Kilda. On the pier there’s a colony of over 1000 little penguins, so off course we went out there, with the hope to spot some of these cuties. They live underneath all the big rocks which form the St.Kilda Breakwater. By the time we got to the breakwater, we found out, that the best time to spot the penguins is around dusk and dawn. The reason for this is because the adults swim to the bay in the morning to catch fish all day, for themselves and their chicks. And at sunset they return home, and feed their chicks by vomiting. It was in the middle of the day when we were there, so not any big chances of seeing penguins. 

But the good thing was that there weren’t any people either, so we had loads of time to look in between all the rocks, and see if we could find any chicks – and we actually found 5-6 penguins, so our mission was accomplished. 

We then left the cold winds on the breakwater and strolled through the streets of St. Kilda We saw the little amusement park on the Esplanade, called Luna Park – not exiting at all! 

We had finally ate the rest of our can food, so tonight was time to do some real cooking again, I made a big portion of green curry to the big envy of all the other backpackers in the common kitchen area. Many of these people only know how to cook pasta (or rice – Asians). So their worlds totally stopped for a couple of minutes, when I unpacked all the vegetables for our Thai green curry, and started chopping it up. 

We ended up eating at the same time as other people that were only cooking pasta. But the fact that many of these young people, probably never have been cooking before they started travelling, makes it a bit hard for them – even to cook pasta… Yesterday I saw a young girl coking pasta for 2 people, but when she added salt (which a lot never does), she added two HANDFULS to it… I would have loved to see their faces when they had to eat it! My green curry was the best to date, so I still keep improving it! 

The night was spend on drinking the other half of our 4 liters of red wine, and moving around our stuff in the room, as it had started raining outside, and we apparently had a couple of leaks in the ceiling.

 The city

 Luna Park

Sunday 16^th November

The weather forecast predicted predominant cloudy weather and rain – which gave us the perfect opportunity to get updated with our blog. We spend the day on Peter Pan’s travel agency and used their free wifi connection. 

Erik booked tickets to Fiji and researched on all kinds of stuff, while I was doing the hard work – putting the blog together online. Unfortunately it’s a nightmare most of the time, due to the webpage that sometimes won’t let me insert text to the pictures, removes the pictures for no reason, and changes the font from one to another etc.etc. It’s really frustrating and with my short temper it’s not a good combination.

It was almost 5pm before we had our lunch, which consisted of leftovers from the day before. I had become grumpy already before this and I wasn’t happy with the fact, that our lunch had gotten postponed half a day, and the blog had made me angry as well. It leaded to an unnecessary discussion and it didn’t really end, before I had something to eat. 

In a much better mood, after eating, we decided to see some of the city. The weather had changed to the better and we still had 3-4 hours of daylight, plenty of time to explore and see another suburb. We took the old fashioned tram to Richmond. It’s a bit complicated to travel in this city compared to other big cities, because most of the trams haven’t got any loudspeaker that tells you which is the next stop, and the maps aren’t showing all the stops. In the days we traveled with the trams, we didn’t figure out any easy way to do it, except for telling the driver where we wanted to go off, and at the same time checking Erik’s navigation system on his phone, in that way we managed to get off at the right places. Even on a cold Sunday afternoon, the main street in Richmond was lively, and there was a lot of bar hopping going on (Sunday Sessions). 

We wandered along the street and did a lot of people watching on our way. We were actually just in the mood for a stroll, but the temptations of cheap drinks made us stop at one bar, and sit down for a short rest. After another stroll, we both had become hungry, but we both felt indecisive. The restaurants was about to close, so we didn’t have all the options we had hoped for. Final decision fell on Nando’s (a Portuguese food chain). It was all right, but we remembered it being better last time we had it, in Kuala Lumpur. The trams stopped running before midnight, and we caught one of the last once home. 

Melbourne tram 

Monday 17^th November

I was dying to try the Restaurant Tram that takes you around the city, while serving a 3-4 course lunch or dinner menu – to my disappointment it was fully booked the whole week. It was a shame, but there was nothing to do about it. We couldn’t have booked it in advance, because we didn’t know it existed before we got here. I blame Lonely Planet! 

Anyhow we got up early, like 8pm, had our delightful cereals and left with the tram to the city. The visitor centre had small maps of self guided walking tours in the city. We were especially interested in the laneway and arcade tour, which is, as far as I’m concerned, Melbourne’s “trademark”. It’s where the great café environment takes place. We weren’t exactly hungry yet, so we started on Federation Square where we visited the Australian Center for the Moving Image. A center dedicated to moving images in all forms from the last couple of centuries. When we got back outside to the daylight, we wandered along the Yarra River and crossed the different bridges, one of them had information about the foreign population in the country, last updated in 2001. The Danish population back then was 47666 people.  

It was hard to figure out the weather this day, we took our jackets off several times, but only to put them back on a few minutes after. They say that Melbourne can have four seasons in just one day, and there’s definitely something about that saying. We started our laneway tour near the river and it took us through the heart of the city’s restaurant and café area – which is also home to some of the best galleries and bars in the city. We wanderer in and out of lanes, alley’s and arcades, and every arcade and lane are all breeding grounds for café’s, the city’s biggest café society takes place in there, some of the cafés are so small you can barely stretch and stir your tea. It’s very intense, and forget all about personal space when you eat/drink. 

We sat down on one of these café’s (Olio), the walking path was right next to us and the café on the other side was not more than a meter away, so that gives you an idea of how intense it was, when people were walking between the café’s. Our food was delicious, Erik had a pizza and a beer, and I had a prawn and chorizo salad and white wine. People couldn’t help staring at our food when they passed by, it’s a human instinct I guess, and surprisingly enough, did we not get annoyed by it. 

It was busy on every little café and the waiters there work for their money, you would blame yourself if you came sleepy or hungovered to work as a waiter here. Not fun! The service we got was world class, compared to the price we paid ($59 = 307kr). This food experience was more brilliant than I had dared to hope for. 

Afterwards we strolled along more beautiful and unique laneways, alley’s and arcades. We ended our trip back at the visitor centre, on Federation Square. The sun was finally coming out, and apart from having too much clothes on, it was nice to sit in the sun and enjoy it for a bit. 

Back home at the hostel, after getting off the tram one stop earlier than planned, due to tiredness and disorientation, we rested our old bodies in our hostel bed with a movie. My knee has started to hurt when I walk longer distances, maybe because the word exercise currently isn’t existing, so my so called muscles is turned into natural human fat, after sitting in the car for so long… Or maybe just because there’s something else wrong.. Age! Time will tell. It’s definitely time to become a bit more active again! 

We hadn’t really made any new friends or contacts at the hostel, it has been a bit hard because most of the people were French, and they tend to stick together and socialize with their own ones, plus a big percentage of them are absolutely horrible at English, so for us to talk with them takes quite an effort, because they don’t understand what we’re saying or they’re just not on the same page. We just couldn’t be bothered! 

The rest was Germans and seemed to be traveling together, so it was impossible to interact with them as well. We just couldn’t be bothered to even try! 

At sunset we walked, me with a small limp, down to St. Kilda Pier to watch the penguins come onshore with their catch of the day, and vomit it out to their babies, who had been waiting for a meal all day. It was packed with people, so after seeing a few penguins coming in from the bay we left again. 

The night went by with packing our stuff into grocery bags. Through an add that Erik had posted online on Gumtree.com, he had arranged a ride from Melbourne to Sydney the next morning. It was a guy going in that same direction anyway, and as well as us he just wanted to share the costs of the transportation. He already planned to rent a car and drive to Sydney, because he hates flying, so he didn’t even want us to pay 2/3’s. We should just pay $50 each, and then he would be happy. A day bus would have cost us $90 each and would have taken much longer, so this was apparently the best solution for everybody.

 Federation Square

 School uniforms are very common here.. They get a thump up from us, it might seem old school but it's better for everyone.

 Art of Melbourne..

 ...Or what they call art

Isn't that Franenstein!?

 Olio Restaurant 

Little penguin

Haha

Tuesday 18^th November

It’s was almost embarrassing to leave the hostel with all our gypsy bags, luckily most people were still sleeping at the time we left. The Chinese guy, Gen that picked us up gave our bags a weird look as well, but was polite enough not to say anything. Erik quickly told him why we had the bags, but apparently Gen didn’t hear it, because a little later he politely said he thought it would be easier for us to travel if we bought a luggage case instead of carrying eight bags around. We then told him about our circumstances, and how we sold the car faster than assumed and that our backpacks are back in Sydney, then he caught what we were on about and understood why. 

We were happy that we didn’t have to be seen outside with our stuff more than one time more, before we got back to our beloved backpacks. Gen was a nice guy who’s been living 16 years in Australia now, all though he haven’t forgot ALL of his Chinese manners, for instance he put all of his used gum on the dashboard in the rental car, and the sticker from the apple he ate, was placed on the steering wheel.. Still wonder if he’s gonna clean up after himself before he deliver the car back.. 

Well we arrived at Malene’s place in the Sydney suburb Ashfield around 19.30, and were greeted by her, with her always sweet and helpful personality. So nice to be back! Because Malene already had another Danish backpacker living at her place, in the room we stayed in last time we were here, she had asked her son, Adam, if we could borrow his room for 1,5 week? Which he had agreed on. So after carrying all of our gipsy bags up to the room, Malene was ready with a bottle of red wine for us.. That bottle didn’t last for long, so another one got opened – then one of Malene’s friends came along with a third bottle of red wine so the night eventually ended up as a party, where we got turned all of the world’s problems. Malene’s friend Mary was one of the most hilarious people we’ve met in a long time, we laughed our lungs out, because of all her crazy stories and not at least the way she told them… Such a good night – that ended up in a good split: 4 people = 4 bottles of red wine.

Arrived safe and sound at Malene's.. Thanks to this guy.