Melbourne & The Great Ocean Road

Melbourne Rocks!! Just thought I'd get that out there first off. What a great city!! It's buzzing with life and culture. Both Nathan and I agree that this has been the best city in Australia we've yet to visit!! We had only 8 days here in Melbourne but are hoping to make it back one more time before we go home. It's pretty cold here though, being winter and all. I think the average temperature all week has been +18 or so. Seems reasonable right?? Add on the rain and winds and that makes for a cold city!!

Well you can't come to Melbourne and not visit The Great Ocean Road... so that's exactly what we did with a tour company called Otway Discovery. We were picked up at our hostel early morning because we had one full (and long) day ahead of us. We had about an hour's driving to do before we reached our first stop... Bell's Beach. This is one of Australia's most famous surfing beaches. I mean I'm no surfing expert but the waves would come in and break so perfectly and peacefully. There were tons of surfers out there and they just made their sport look so simple that even I thought I would be able to master the art in no time. Ya right... Nathan probably could but I doubt I'd be able to. This beach was also featured in the final scene of the movie "Point Break"... how cool is that??

The remainder of the day consisted of short stops and look-outs points all along this scenic coastal drive. We made a stop at Kennet River to see the wild koalas roaming about and feed the lorikeets. It didn't take long before we were on the road again heading towards the Twelve Apostles - probably the main attraction for this drive. Once we finally arrived here we had the option of either going to the look-out point or taking a helicopter flight over them. There was absolutely no hesitation for Nathan and I as we instantly decided on viewing these from the air. I've never been in a helicopter before and I must say this was way cooler than flying in any plane!! I got front seat beside the pilot and it's really trippy because the front windshield (?? is it called that ??) comes right down to about your feet so it feels like you're just being propelled through the air in nothing!! Our flight was approximately 10 minutes and it was pretty spectacular!! Hard to describe so I'll let the pictures do the talking. Make sure you all check them out!!

After we were back on the ground our bus headed towards our final look-out... Loch Ard Gorge. We spent approximately half an hour here before heading home. It was going to take us approximately 3 hours to return to Melbourne via the inland highway. Sunset had come and gone and I believe we didn't return to the city until 8:30 pm or so. It was a great day that just kept getting better!!

So on Saturday night Nathan and I went to our first AFL (Australian Football League) game held at The Melbourne Cricket Grounds. It was a different experience... cool because of the energy from the crowd and seeing how much Australians love this sport. Not cool though because both Nate and I think it's a stupid sport. Rugby is much better.... AFL is basically a bunch of 'pretty boys' running around all over the field kicking the ball to each other and then trying to kick it between a couple goal posts. There is absolutely no skill or logic to the game!! It's surprising to us that this sport is so popular over here.

Anyway... our time in Melbourne is up. We fly to Cairns tomorrow morning but I can say we're both excited to get there. We'll once again be in hot weather and have no need for the 2 layers of clothing we've been sporting all week. If we see everything we need to see before this trip is finished I think we'll be visiting Melbourne again.

That's about it for now... until next time...

E&N