The South Melbourne Market Tram 96 stop near our place-here I am sending Jon off at the end of his stay.
Back in September, our friend Jon came out to Australia for a three week trip. Before and after his tours of Sydney, Western Australia, and Tasmania, he stayed with us in Melbourne. I've known Jon for about seven years. He was one of the first people to join the soccer team I started back in Denver, and he keeps the Smurf team going today! The Smurfs used to do a lot of camping, karaoke nights, parties, and BBQs together back in the day. It was good to reconnect with a Colorado friend.
Jon and I biked down to Brighton Beach on the afternoon he arrived, with a stop in St Kilda. We got some takeaway from Bala's and enjoyed our lunch on the beach. Luckily, we had a nice, sunny day for our ride.
The next day, I drove Jon down part of the Great Ocean Road.
He was lucky enough to get to see several Australian animals all in one day!
I spotted this echidna on the side of the road; it looks like it got its nose stuck in some sort of ring!
We saw plenty of kangaroos on the Anglesea golf course.
Jon has a pretty sweet zoom lens, so I used his camera to get this shot of a guy at Bells Beach.
We didn't go all the way to Cape Otway Road, but we saw plenty of koalas near Kennett River.
And while we were out of the car looking for koalas, I spotted a kookaburra!
So I'd say it was a pretty successful day trip down to the Great Ocean Road and hopefully a good start to Jon's Australian experience. He has some cool pictures of the other parts of his trip (and all his trips-he's quite the world traveler) on his website-check it out: www.sunlightpeak.com/travel/
Thanks for the cool pictures Jon, and I hope you enjoyed your time in Australia!
It wasn't easy, but we found a place in Melbourne that serves kangaroo for dinner!
Well, I already posted about our Mount Stapylton Loop hike and rock climbing days in the Grampians, but there are some other random pictures and stories I wanted to share, so this post is for that stuff!
Here is a cool plant, which Google tells me is Banksia spinulosa. I took this picture on our hike on Saturday.
We stopped at the Ngamadjidj (meaning "white person"-don't ask me how to say it) Shelter to see some aboriginal rock art. These drawings were done with white clay.
Mackenzie Falls is one of the most visited places in Grampians National Park. It's a pretty huge waterfall, and you go down a decent number of steps to get to the bottom of it. We enjoyed cooling off our feet in the chilly water after our hike.
There were lots of kangaroos around our campsite, especially early in the morning and at dusk. This one let me get pretty close before hopping away.
There were also a ton of kangaroos on the roads in the Grampians. Emily, our expert driver, was able to maneuver around them. We had one close call with a little brake screeching, but no animals (or humans) were harmed! They were gathered by the hundreds out in the fields, and we had several hop across the road in front of us.
Zack still remembers how to make an awesome campfire. This picture is from Saturday night after our hike. We drank some ciders and made S'mores, which is very un-Australian. We used graham crackers sent by my mom from the US; I never knew that was just an American camping tradition! We played a game of Rummikub with Emily and headed to bed in our tents. In the morning, the birds were SO loud and woke us up pretty early!
Check out my hunky husband!
We drove by this giant koala on Sunday, and I just had to get a picture for Morgan, my koala-loving sister. Anybody who knows her and is reading this should tell her to get the working holiday visa and get out here for a year!
Anyway, we had a wonderful weekend in the Grampians, and we'll be back for sure! Yes, our zip-off pant legs are around our ankles in the picture below, and it looks dorky. Don't judge us!
We had spent three days at the beach over Christmas but hadn't done any surfing yet, so on the morning of December 27, we packed up our camping things at Johanna Beach and headed down the Great Ocean Road in search of the perfect place to surf. We decided on Wye River. The waves were a good size, and we had fun practicing our skills. Afterward, we rinsed off and attempted to wash our hair in the beachside shower. This is the lovely knot I had to brush through after three days of boogie boarding, hiking, surfing, and no showers. Yes, it took FOREVER to get through!
Zack and I have a tradition of getting dressed up and going out for a fancy steak dinner right around Christmastime. I always get filet mignon, mashed potatoes, and creme brulee for dessert. Since Zack's now a vegetarian, he gets a fancy fish dish. Well, since we're in Australia, our Christmas dinner took on a new twist. We didn't really dress up and instead went to dinner at a nice seafood restaurant next to the pier in Lorne. Zack got some fresh snapper (it was delicious), and I got a kangaroo filet! For dessert, we had the most amazing passionfruit creme brulee. SO good!
This guy was in the tree above our tent for awhile.
There is another free campground at Wye River, off a dirt road up in the woods, so we stayed there for the night. We saw a couple of koalas, including one right near our campsite. He was making grunting noises at night, which sounded like a wild boar or something! There were also a ton of kookaburras flying around. They really do sound like they're laughing, and their calls woke us up early in the morning.
We camped near this guy!
The next day, we drove to Anglesea for some more surfing. Traffic coming from the other direction was ridiculous. Apparently everyone comes down the Great Ocean Road after Christmas, because the lines of cars (especially heading into Lorne and Apollo Bay) were insane. We were glad to head back to Melbourne after a few hours at the beach. It was a very memorable Christmas holiday in Australia spent camping and surfing along the Great Ocean Road!
Yes, that is a wallaby hopping past our patio door!
After our first day on the Great Ocean Road, my family and I stayed at Fauna Australia Wildlife Retreat for the night. We were in the Kangaroo Family Unit, which wasn't extremely luxurious, but we were there for the wildlife experience. And we got it! This place has Australian animals all over its grounds, and the owners even leave you a bag of carrots, encouraging you to feed them and get up close and personal with them. So we did!
Wombats look like a mix between pigs and koalas!
Wallaby and baby
There were wombats, emus, wallabies, various birds, potoroos, etc. Most of the animals were in enclosures, but several wallabies roamed free and hopped all over the place! By the way, a wallaby is basically a smaller version of a kangaroo. There are other differences, but you can Google it if you care.
Morgan's a little scared of the hungry emus!
After dark, we went outside again and saw all of the nocturnal animals come to life. Sugar gliders were jumping, koalas were climbing up and down trees, bandicoots were running around, etc. We left a carrot on our porch, and it was gone in the early morning. The wallabies chased each other in loops that passed by our patio door while we ate breakfast.
Picture perfect koala!
And a little more wildlife commentary from Morgan…Later in the morning we got a chance to have some time with the koalas, which were extraordinarily tame, and anticipated the food of their caretaker by coming to the gate like little dogs. They were all around us, not afraid to come right up and grab the eucalyptus from our hands. One even bit me! These koalas were brought from Kangaroo Island, where there is an overpopulation problem, and have been raised and bred in captivity so they can be used for educational purposes at schools, programs, etc. It was fun to have everyone surrounded by friendly koalas!
Aubree here again...Morgan had been having all the fun holding and petting koalas up until this point in the trip, so it was fun for the rest of us to get the chance to pet the furry friends. They were so funny, climbing up the trees, running around on the ground, and eating the leaves we gave them. The picture below cracks me up; my mom was a little freaked out when Banjo the koala made a sudden move for her branch!
It's just a koala, Mom!
A cute one of Morgan and a koala.
If you're looking for somewhere to stay along the Great Ocean Road, Fauna Australia Wildlife Retreat is good fun. Don't expect anything fancy, but do expect to see lots of awesome Australian animals!
More from my family about their visit last month...It is I, Justin.
I can now add something to my bucket list and cross it off right
away. I have surfed in
Australia. We hauled Aubree
and Zack’s surfboards with us on our car trip down the Great Ocean Road on Tuesday, November 15. We stopped at the first good spot to
surf (Torquay), and I promptly volunteered to try it out. It took some effort to fit into Zack’s wetsuit, but
eventually it was on, and I was looking official. Surfing is not that easy because there are too many
variables that keep changing, so it is hard to learn from one’s mistakes and
improve for next time. There is
the left to right balance, the front to back balance, the paddling as the wave
approaches, and the getting up on the board. When it all comes together perfectly, it is a lot of
fun. The waves don’t always
cooperate, but I did well considering.
I did wipe out quite a few times and swallowed tons of salt water, but I
finally got up and rode a wave for a little bit. I would do it again as falling down is less painful than the
time Aubree taught me how to snowboard in Colorado. Yay for Australia and surfing.
Do I look like a good teacher?
He got up! Time for some fish and chips for lunch!
Morgan on the wildlife report…On our way down the Great
Ocean Road, we made several attempts to see wildlife. Some were more successful than others. Golf course in Anglesea with supposed kangaroos…not
so much. We made a stop at Kennett River, which had “guaranteed” koala sightings, and Aubree spotted the
first one high up in the eucalyptus trees. We were pretty excited, and then some tourists on the same
trek tipped us off to one closer to the ground. We inadvertently discovered that the sound of peeling out on
the gravel road in our van made the koalas bellow and grunt, which was a little
unnerving, but helped us find a few more.
We were still reveling in wild koala glory when BAM, there was one just
sitting on a post on the side of the Great Ocean Road. We pulled over, and got up close and
personal (as close as we thought was okay with one in the wild), and watched
another tourist try to get close enough to get his face ripped off by the
koala’s claws. As far as we know,
he escaped being maimed by a wild koala.
Yes, this is a real koala sitting on the side of the Great Ocean Road!
So amazing to see them in the wild!
We decided to make a detour to see the Cape Otway
Lighthouse, and found ourselves distracted by koalas in the eucalyptus
trees. At first we were excited to
see one, and then they were everywhere.
It only took a little looking to see them in the trees. It seemed to be the waking hour, with
koalas walking on the road, climbing trees, reaching out for food, hanging out
with their babies (Cindy saw the first little one!), and every cute thing a koala
could possibly do. We spotted at
least three dozen koalas, with little effort! We later learned that this population of koalas is
significantly higher than is sustainable for the area, and they were introduced
approximately thirty years ago.
Magnificent sights for us, but many of the eucalyptus trees in the area
were stripped of their leaves, and the future of this koala population is not
too bright.
This guy was just walking along the road!
How many koalas can you spot in this tree?
Just some of many koalas we saw.
This guy was huge!
We didn’t get to see the lighthouse up close (it was already closed for the day), but that mattered
little, because on our way back from our detour we saw somewhere near 100
kangaroos in a field. And not
little kangaroos, but big ones!
There were so many, and it was like a herd of deer, or as Justin put it
“deer that could box.” The largest
of the bunch were a little intimidating.
Cape Otway ended up being quite the wildlife detour!
Aubree here now: It was awesome to finally see kangaroos and koalas in the wild in Australia! On top of that, the scenery of the Great Ocean Road is incredible. I didn't get to fully appreciate it, because I was driving, but the water is SO blue, and there are so many gorgeous beaches. If you come to Australia (or already live here), I think the Great Ocean Road (with the Cape Otway detour) is a must do. Scroll down past the scenery pictures to check out a rather entertaining video of my brother and dad hanging out with those kangaroos Morgan mentioned! We didn't make it all the way down the GOR on our first day, so the next few posts will be about the cool place we stayed overnight and then the Twelve Apostles and other neat things we saw. Thanks for reading!
Mom enjoying the sunshine and scenery.
Bee-you-ti-full...and only a couple of hours from Melbourne!
Jon and I biked down to Brighton Beach on the afternoon he arrived, with a stop in St Kilda. We got some takeaway from Bala's and enjoyed our lunch on the beach. Luckily, we had a nice, sunny day for our ride.
So I'd say it was a pretty successful day trip down to the Great Ocean Road and hopefully a good start to Jon's Australian experience. He has some cool pictures of the other parts of his trip (and all his trips-he's quite the world traveler) on his website-check it out: www.sunlightpeak.com/travel/
