The Great Ocean Road Part Deux

Well, here we are, on the Great Ocean Road. Depending on where you are dictates where the Great Ocean Road Starts. After we left Torquay, we were truly on our way! As we started driving, it was amazing to look out over the coast/ocean and have amazing views such as the above photo. If you are expecting to be able to travel the Great Ocean Road in under 3 hours, you are sadly mistaken. I guess if you do not want to see anything or make any stops then you could make it in under 3 hours, but you would be missing one of the most amazing adventures of your life!

When you drive down the highway, where else can you see views such as this? Who wouldn't want to live in a house such as this? The first step could either be another step in life or else a great adventure!

These houses were built on steep slopes and have an amazing view of the ocean. Almost the whole coast is sandy beach!

I cannot count how many times we stopped to play on the beach, look at tidal pools or just to check things out. I believe we made very good time as we drove, yet I also think that we only averaged about 50 km/h! {partly due to traffic but also because of the number of stops we made.

I am not sure who was more excited on the beach. Was it the girls who wanted to check everything out {and very happy to be out of the truck} or the adults who just enjoyed nature, listening to the waves crash on the shore or watching the kids have the time of their lives {they played with everything: kelp, shells, sand, little critters, the waves, etc}. This was one of the cool beaches where the rocks were "carved" or eroded into perfect lines or blocks. We all thought this was one of the strangest and coolest things we saw on the trip {okay fine, the adults thought this not so much the kids}. The ladies were told when they got out of the truck not to get their clothing wet, yet when the waves crashed onto these rocks it did not take long for them to get their pants, shorts, jackets and everything else wet! They did however thoroughly enjoy playing in the ocean!

As we walked on the rocks, we found little pools with the various coloured anemonies everywhere. Everyone took turns touching them to make them close up. Alex was probably the bravest, touched the most and even wanted to take them home!

After a very long drive, okay we travelled 45 kms in just under 2 hours, we needed to make the all important food break. Some of us found the food exhilarating and our eyes were bigger than our tummies!

We spent the next hour waling through the town, checking out stores and food! The weather was beautiful, sunny and in the low 20s.

This is where our truly began, after breakfast.
After about a 5 minute drive, we came across this scene. What a bunch of haywire buggers! The waves were crashing against the rocks, they were getting soaked but never stopped fishing! Not sure if they caught anything but it sure looked amazing.
Not long after seeing amazing beaches, coves, deep blue and green ocean and amazing scenery, we came around a corner and saw our very first Koala. There were 6, just sitting in a tree that was hanging over the road. We walked to within 2-3 metres of the silly little buggers. As you can plainly see, they were terrified of us! The girls were beside themselves, here we all were, in Australia looking at a Koala. 2 of the koalas opened their eyes to briefly look at us, then went back to eating or sleeping. Must be a rough life!
As they sit in the tree, they look very "yodaesque". Many have have a profound look on their faces, lost in thought, actually it is probably because they are more than likely stoned from the poison in the Eucalyptus leaves!

From inside a forest back to a beach. It is fantastic to see how the ocean and waves totally alter and destroy the coast! When you watch a wave crash against the rocks and spray up, it makes you realise how small and finite humans are. No matter what we build and protect, the ocean reclaims it all!

Five Things I Love About Living In Australia

Every Thursday my friend Peanut over at Weenuts posts a blog about 5 things that she loves. She comes up with some really great things. I always think about what she has written and compare my mental list to her written one. This week I thought I would actually post my own list on a frequently asked question - "How do you like living in Australia?".

Five Things I Love About Living In Australia

1. The silence

We have no cell phone, no answering machine and only one phone in the house. It is rare that the phone rings and if it does it is usually only 1 of a handful of people. That's the beauty of living in a place where you don't know anyone. The old saying "if it's important they'll call back" really holds true in our house. Having said that I really would love a blackberry when we get back to Canada.



















2. The food

By this I mean the food when you are eating out. There is an abundance of food of different ethnicity available where ever you go. Even the food court at the shopping centre gives a variety of choices including Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Italian and Greek. The Thai restaurant that is located a short 5 minute walk from the house is reputed to be one of the best. Yummy!



















3. The clothes line

Yes, this seems relatively simple but honestly there is something to be said for hanging your sheets on the clothesline to dry and then crawling into a great smelling bed. It turns out it's good for the environment too. Who knew?



















4. The school

The school the girls are attending is literally a one minute walk down the street. There is a lollipop man (crossing guard) so you can cross safely to the school. During the school day the girls get a lot of physical activity. They get sport (PE) at least twice a week, drama, music, art, German and religious education in the curriculum. A lot of these activities can take place outside because of the favorable weather. The day is long for them (9 - 3:30) and they sleep very well at night!



















5. The house

The house we are living in here is smaller than our own house. This in turn means that there is a lot less to clean (only 1 toilet!). We do not have cable vision and almost no toys so the kids are forced to use their imaginations to play. We have had a lot of art work come our way and have played a lot of footy in the back yard. It's been good for all of us.



















I hope this some what answers the question about what we love about living here. There are many things about being here that cannot be explained: the people, the "no worries" attitude, the 10 minute commute to work. Having said all that, we love Canada and would not want to live any where else but while living here we have had numerous new experiences that we wouldn't trade for anything!

Driving in the Big City

The few times that we have actually driven in to the city Steve has been behind the wheel. I'm comfortable driving around our neighbourhood and on some main streets but driving in Melbourne is a whole other ball game. There is this great thing called a "hook turn". When you are going to turn right you stay in the curb lane, pulling up to stop in front of the traffic on your left side and wait for the turn signal to give you the go ahead. It's a frightening thing to watch and goes completely against every bit of logic I can think of.

Huh?



The bridge we wanted to be on was getting closer...

When we set out to drive up the Great Ocean Road we were trying to find a way through Melbourne on our way to Geelong. We took a few wrong turns and ended up in the heart of the city. The city where the roads seem to be half the width of a normal road and you can reach out and touch the trams that are going up and down the same streets in the middle lane. The city where you need to sit through numerous traffic lights just to sort out which signal you need to get where your going. The city where U-turns are completely legal and you need to take advantage of to get where you are going. We actually pulled a U-turn to get onto the freeway on-ramp that we needed.

and closer...

Yay! We made it. The city is behind us!

The girls can hardly contain their excitement...

The Great Ocean Road escape

Well, here we are, our first school vacation. 2 weeks of nothing but touring, relaxing and experiencing Australia with family. What ocould possibly go WRONG????? Our trip started with a joyous trip out of Melbourne. HOLY CATS, we thought it would be easy to head out and on our way, little did we know that one small mistake would take us through downtown Melbourne! I know, many of you are thinking, "how hard can it be to travel through Melbourne?" Well, if you ever get to see one of these signals, maybe it will cause you to rethink that! Oh, by the way, a tram was right beside us, in the center lane! After only 30 minutes in the city, 2 u-turns and help from a fellow driver, we were on our way! Onto the freeway and off to Geelong. It is only supposed to be about 1 1/2 - 2 hours to Geelong from our house yet we managed to stretch it out to only 2 1/2 hours. As one can plainly see, we finally reached the start of our trip! Our first stop was Torquay which is the start of the Great Ocean Road. The day was sunny, however there was a wind and the temp was ~18C. Beautiful beach! We were on the beach for over 3 hours. Kennedy and Alex played in the ocean with Steve while Rhiannon and Kelli lounged on the beach. Torqauy is like the ultimate beach village. The beach is beautiful with lots of endless sand and some really fabulous rock formations.

After Steve and the girls were done playing in the ocean we went for a walk down the beach to see what we could find.

We found a drowned rat!

I love the way the water leaves marks in the sand around the rocks.

We found loads of star fish.

We could have walked forever on the rocks.

Even more beautiful in real life!

Great waves for surfing!!

We spent a couple of hours in Torquay and then decided to head up the road to Aireys Inlet where we stayed the night in a cabin in a caravan park. Talking to people in Aireys Inlet they actually consider there town the official start to the Great Ocean Road. We drove up to Lorne to have dinner that night at a restaurant called Marks. I would have to say that when you have kids with you Marks is not the best choice of venue. There was actually fried lambs brains on the menu. No nuggets and chips or pizza but they served fried lambs brains! Who orders that??????!!!! After our very meagre dinner we headed back to the cabin to settle in for the night, slightly hungry but with bags of potato chips in hand.

The light house in Aireys Inlet (this one's for you Mom-haha).

The beach in Aireys Inlet

We were already enjoying our trip, especially with the angst of driving through the city behind us. We knew that if the rest of the Great Ocean Road was like what we had seen already then we were in for a fabulous trip.

Ballarat - part deux

When we came home from Ballarat we decided to take the long and winding road so that we could see a bit of the country side. We went through some great little towns and found some interesting places to stop. We found some sights that we considered truly Australian and some that we just went "huh?



Beautiful old building in downtown Ballarat.




Old church in the middle of nowhere.

Fence around a grave at the cemetary.

Cemetary beside the old church. There were headstones dating from the late 1870's up to the 1990's. Fabulous history!!

We stopped to have a picnic lunch at a park along the way.

In a moment of weakness at Sovereign Hill I bought Alex and Rhiannon harmonicas, so we had entertainment during lunch.

The rest of the family listening with great intent and trying to figure out what song Alex is playing on her harmonica.

A tired child after a full day.

There is a haze in the distance over the hills. That's the fire from Black Saturday still burning a month later. We were actually rerouted due to road closures.

A wayward echidna being escorted off the road by a policeman. Traffic was actually stopped while they did this. And no, they are not the speediest creatures on four legs!

Sovereign Hill

Labour Day in Australia falls in March. We decided to venture out on our first overnight road trip to a town called Ballarat. In Ballarat is a place called Sovereign Hill(http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/). Sovereign Hill is an area that is left over from the gold rush that occured in the state of Victoria in the 1850's. Many of the buildings have been recreated to give you the true feeling of life at that time. It is worth making the drive, we spent an entire day there and probably could have been there longer. For those of you that have been to Barkerville, you would enjoy Sovereign Hill immensely.

We started out with some gold panning. Apparently there is actually gold to be found but I can also say that Steve and I are both still working!

There are loads of people walking around in costume to give you the full effect of the time. They are really friendly and pose for pictures constantly.

Not that I noticed but the youngest 2 are a perfect fit...

We even managed a game of bowling. No pin setting machine or ball return here. You have to do it all your self.



We went for the required wagon ride.

A couple of the streets of Soveriegn Hill.

It is a working mine and this man was showing us how to make a gold brick from little gold peices that are smelted to get rid of the impurities. It was 99.9% pure and worth $150 000 Australian.

Of course we stopped at the candy store for a little treat!

By the time we left the streets were deserted. We went on the last tour of the day of the underground mine. It was super interesting and not for anybody with claustraphobia.

Funny sign on a building.