My friends Mark and Mike decided to plan a weekend trip to the Great Ocean Road and then up to the Grampians - Halls Gap this weekend so 10 of us embarked on a road trip in two rental cars starting on Friday. Since you have to be 21 to drive a rental car in Australia, me and my friends Chris and Becca were the drivers. However, Becca was absolutely terrified of driving the cars (the Aussies drive on the left and their wheels are on the right - essentially everything is opposite!) and began hyper ventilating on just the drive from the rental car place to RMIT village, I was the one to drive one car and Chris drove the other.
We set out around 5 pm from Melbourne and journeyed along the Great Ocean Road, seeing koalas and beautiful ocean scenery, getting to our destination in Apollo Bay around 9 pm that night. After getting some chow, we enjoyed the breath-taking stars on the beach. It was so clear that we could see the Milky Way! It was very cool to look at because a lot of the constellations, including Orion, were upside down! That night we stayed in a YHA hostel in Apollo Bay, which was a very nicely accomodated and clean hostel.
In the morning, we got up to be able to leave at 8 am. I went to eat breakfast in the kitchen, and managed to meet a nice woman who had just gotten back from working in Antartica for several months. She said that about 30% of the people there are scientists and the others are carpenters who work on the base. She was a part of the carpentry team and said that since their flights home fly through Australia, New Zealand, or Hawaii, they are able to stop off and travel on their way home, which is what she was doing. She also said there were these birds who had managed to distinguish which type of food they had on their trays and would dive bomb the trays in order to get to the food. A good way to mess with people around there, she said, was to stick a muffin in the hood of someone, who would then get dive bombed by the birds!
After breakfast, we set out on the Great Ocean Road. After about an hour, we got to the Twelve Apostles, which is one of the most famous stops on the road. They were beautiful! Don't worry, I'll have pictures up soon! We then went to Loch Ard Gorge and explored around there and another stop after that! Then we went to Port Campbell, where we got lunch. I ordered a hamburger, but honestly, I can tell you that was NOT a hamburger. I don't know what it was, but it tasted more like a veggie burger than a hamburger. Sigh. Oh well.
We then proceeded to sunbathe for a couple of hours on the beautiful beach at Port Campbell. It was funny, there was a surfing club at the beach and a bunch of little kids that were a part of it were having a sand castle making contest. They had an announcer and everything for it!
After our sunbathing (the guys were more into it than the girls...), we set off to the Grampians - Halls Gap. Because of the flooding, however, we had to take an incredibly long detour in order to get to Halls Gap. It was fun, though, because we saw wild emu and wallabies on the way!
When we finally got to Halls Gap, we checked in to the YHA hostel there and once again found somewhere to eat (pizza again! we were going to buy food and cook it in order to save money, but the grocery store was closed by the time we got there).
In the morning, we got up, found a bakery to get breakfast and sandwiches for lunch, and set off on a hike. The weather wasn't the best, it was a bit cloudy and misting out, but it was still beautiful! There was a mini waterfall and then when we got near the top, the last part of it was climbing on boulders - my favorite!
After the hike, we set off on the drive back to Melbourne. The only mishap of driving that I had was when I tried to turn right when we were in the city of Melbourne. It is quite difficult to turn right! I was very close to getting hit by a tram/car/hitting some pedestrians, but I successfully maneuvered the situation and everyone was safe! Phew! All in all, it was a fun weekend! Pictures are soon to come!
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