Little Maher
 Great Ocean Road trip Was reunited with Shira on Friday night and she also invited me out to join her at her mates birthday party near St Kilda. Was really good to see her and have a good catch up, and of course a fair few drinks! Th On Sunday Robert (I met him and Neils in Franz Josef Glacier in NZ) arrived in Melbourne from NZ. I had mentioned to Robert that I wanted to do a road trip down the Great Ocean Road (said to be one of the top roads trips in the world),and as he hadn’t done it yet and was due to fly back to Holland soon, he decided to come and join me. So on Monday morning, we picked up our little bright red car and set off. We arrived in Warrnambool (or Waterballon as I called it) 10 hours later, very pleased with ourselves. We had conquered the Great Ocean Road! We had seen the 12 Apostles and everything that we thought there was to see on the Great Ocean Road, we were very pleased with ourselves, that was until we sat down at the bar in our hostel and got chatting to the bar lady and some of the locals. They happily told us that we had in fact missed out what they regarded as the most beautiful and historical spots on the great ocean road after the 12 Apostles. What!!!! We couldn’t believe it, we were sure we had stopped off and seen all the main attractions and look outs, but we were wrong! We had missed out seeing the Loch Arch Gorge and the Bay of Islands!!! What’s the story with Loch Ard Gorge we asked, why is that so important to see. Answering that question was easy, they just referred us to the Outdoor laser show (Shipwrecked) that had been set up just up the road from the hostel which told the story of the coasts most notorious shipwreck and love story (every ship wreck has to have one!) Unfortunately we couldn’t get tickets to the show as it was fully booked due to the school holidays, but we decided that we should go back to the great ocean road and see what we had missed! Doh! The next day before setting off to the great Ocean Road we decided to quickly go and check out the Tower Hill Volcanic Reserve just up the road from Warrnambool. On arrival we were told that we could take a guided tour and hike through the reserve or we cold take a map and go it alone for free. Free being the word of the year we decided to go it alone…..We ended up scaring each other something stupid along the way! Whilst I was informing Robert of the dangers that lingered in the Australian bush (such as poisonous snakes and spiders) we saw a Fox in the distance (which Robert suspected was Dingo! No, it was a Fox.) and then as we continued Robert suddenly stopped me and excitedly told me that there was a big bird in the bush next to us ‘Where?’ I asked flippantly. He then pointed to a very large Emu! Now if you have ever seen n Emu you will know these bird are not the friendliest or pretty looking creatures. In fact they look dam well scary. I had also been told on a previous trip that they can also be very vicious! I old Robert this, to which he replied, ‘yeah, but I am sure that is only if they are mating’, to which at that moment another Emu stuck its head up! We sh@t our pants, and franticaly retreated back up to the info centre – we had seen enough of the reserve!! On leaving the reserve we saw a Koala crossing the road infront of us (my first wild Koala sighting!) and then we saw a whole herd of Emu’s (they are apparently very common in the area). We were glad to be in the car!!! We headed back along the Great Ocean Road and caught up on the sights that we had missed the day before – they were well worth going back for. Got back to Melbourne that evening. My first self-drived road trip was over. Really glad I did it.
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Diary Photos
| 3rd Apr 2007 | |
| Robert and I at the start of the Great Ocean Road | |
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| 3rd Apr 2007 | |
| 12 Apostles - Great Ocean Road | |
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