Right so EVERYONE is dying to hear about my trip to Australia right?! Right. I'll do my best to include all the cool parts, but really 2 weeks is a lot to catch up on.
I got into Kyenton on Saturday morning. After quite the stressful layover in LAX and proceeded with a 16 hour flight from LAX to Melbourne. I was a little tired but still had a bit of fight in me. We hung out for a majority of the day and let me rest and then headed to start the Great Ocean Road in Warnambool. The fun didn't end there though as we went to Tower Hill (old dormant Volcano) and spotted a few kangaroos along the edge of the road! Woohoo and on my first day too!
Sunday we got up, had some breakfast at the hotel and started on our way. First stop of course was the Cheese Factory (sorry I don't have any pictures) I never knew how much I loved Chedder Cheese until we stopped there... Seriously.
Then it was the Bay of Islands which was incredible.
A large part of the day we were chasing storm clouds and rain which made it a tad bit chilly and quite windy! Like a national park, this road involved a lot of driving and getting out at one stop to look around and getting back in the car. Luckily Richard was very keen on me seeing every spot so we stopped at each spot to look out.
Richard was also keen on me driving. We tried to pick the easiest spot (no highways or dense urban cities) and I hopped in! I only drove about 5 minutes (which trust me was plenty) but I think I did pretty well! Especially since I was still adjusting and had only been here about a day!
Above is another view of Bay of Islands. The rock formations are mostly composed of limestone which is quite soft. Not much climbing around you could do I'm afraid.
One thing that might make you laugh is I drank this huge milk shake and while we were out exploring one stop I suddenly had to use the toilet like NOTHING before. It couldn't be helped so since we were at a stop no one else was at. I walked up the path a bit futher and went in some bushes. Let it be known that I, Amanda, am not afraid to pee in the bushes in different countries... If i have to go bad enough.
Also by the end of my adventure, I was pretty much set on the left side driving. I've been encountering minor panic attacks while driving on the left side in parking lots and facing round abouts (there are a lot more roundabouts in Australia) Glad I can adapt so quickly. haha
It was a stormy day but I saw a tony of variety in the water color which makes me happy!
One of the sunny moments! Look at that water! I love the Arches in Moab dont get me wrong, but I sure love this... just a little bit more :P
London Bridge... well Richard started off with a terrifying story of how the island used to be connected to the mainland via a second arch and one day that just collapsed with people on it! Luckily no one died but they did have to be rescued... (or so he says) I do wish I had been here when you could walk out on that island and see the full London Bridge formation. I bet that was really neat.
Water colors everywhere! Seriously I was transfixed by it half the time. One of my favorite stops was the Grotto... mostly because the colors and that you got to go down all those stairs :P
Just so everyone knows.... I took all of these pictures with my S5active. No filters, no professional quality. Just a nice camera phone and some AMAZING landscapes!
We stopped for lunch in Port Campbell, but the next big town after that is Lourne, which honesly if I lived in Victoria... this would be my Holiday spot. It is stunning and so relaxed!
This is actually another angle on the above picture. There were caves carved out of the limestone and all sorts of shaped islands!
This is normally the beginning but for us it was the end. One of THE most scenic highways in the World especially out of the Coastal highways. I loved it! The last part of our journey was a drive right along the water on curving roads... I loved to look out at the water but after some time of being quite sleepy... I got quite car sick and had to take a nap.
For one of my all time favorite spots on the great ocean road, the Loch Ard Gorge area was my favorite. Also known as Shipwreck coast. The two photos above are both from this area and look at that water! It was clear up to a certain depth and the sand down on the beach was soo soft. If it wasn't so cold and windy I probably would've tried to at least wade in the water. You wouldn't really want to swim here I'm afraid as the currents do crazy things. The beach went back pretty far and had lots of vegetation along the back walls. This was probably the coolest natural sight I saw in Australia.
So as not to offend the 12 Great Apostles, they were pretty incredible too! This was pretty close to the end of our journey after we'd seen all those other sights, not too mention this one was packed, so we mostly walked around the viewing platform, took some pictures and headed out.
We did make a trip through the mountain areas as well and visited lesser known Johanna's Beach. (Supposedly the world class surfers comer here when Bells Beach isn't offering the best waves) For me it was very desolate Jurrasic Park feeling and I loved that!
The last stop for our Great Ocean Road adventure is Bells Beach (world class surfing beach) There weren't much in the way of waves today but they get pretty big!
All in all for only my 2nd day in Australia, we killed it with the sight seeing and I had an amazing time. Enjoy the pictures!
~Amanda Rehak
Comments
Post a Comment