Melbourne is my favorite place so far. Or maybe I'm just finally embracing this whole traveling thing and appreciating where we are! Our hostel is great. Our meals are a little limited though. Raisin bread for breakfast (except they call raisins ?!?), lunch on the go, and chicken nuggets with carrots for dinner. And Tim tams for dessert! It's nice being independent and getting up and cooking and exploring and grocery shopping and doing all that stuff Im spoiled with at home (thanks mom and dad!). I think this means Im becoming a grownup. Ugh. Turning 25 is gonna be terrible.
There are always people around and it's exciting learning about new people and cultures and getting ideas about new places to travel. As karina says, we have the travel bug, and we have it bad! I think our next adventure will be Eastern Europe. Maybe for our third of a century crisis (Australia was the solution to our quarter of a century crisis--or at least mine!).
Anyways. Tuesday we went on a day trip along the Great Ocean Road. It's the stretch of land that runs from outside of Melbourne along the south east border of Australia towards the western part of the country. It was a gorgeous scenic drive with jaw dropping cliffs, rainforest and turquoise blue water.
We learned a lot about the history of the coast and about movies that were filmed there. Here are some fun facts and details:
-Two of the biggest bush fires in Australia history (Ash Wednesday and Black Friday) happened here (apparently they're a regular occurrence around these parts) were set by firefighters and destroyed tons of land!
-Dad you'll appreciate this...we drove past Mel Gibson's beach house in the movie Mad Max.
-The first RipCurl store (surf apparel) is located here in the the town Anglesea...it's tiny!!
-Went to Bells Beach...gorgeous beach where the movie Point Break takes place (Keanu reeves and Patrick Swayze)
-Drove by Memorial Arch...famous Great Ocean Road sign
-Saw koalas sleeping in trees!! Apparently there are over 700 species of eucalyptus trees in Australia but koalas only eat 12 kinds so they're running out of food...they need to stop being so picky!! They don't bathe or drink water and they sleep 22 hours a day because eucalyptus is poisonous and it takes them that long to digest!
-Went to a pretty beach town called Apollo Bay...nothing exciting but it was pretty!
-Hiked around Maits Rainforest; they have the biggest flowering tree in the world and the second tallest tree in the world (tallest is the California Redwoods! Go America!). Back in the day they used to carve out the trees and make the prisoners sleep there over night while the guards got drunk
- Saw the 12 Apostles, which are these huge amazing rocks standing in the ocean...kind of like Stonehenge but way cooler. Google them!! I'm not really sure of their significance but they were awesome
-Also saw Loch Ard Gorge and London Bridge which are other rock formations in the ocean. Check out the pix!!
After our three hour trek back home (I slept the entire way of course...poor karina did not), we played trivia with some friends we made on our trip. Note: Australian trivia is not like American trivia!! There was the normal trivia questions, most of which we're about American things (like what's the capital of north Dakota...who the heck knows the capital of north Dakota?!) and space...but then there were bonus questions which involved trading clothes with someone on your team and seeing which team could make the longest clothing chain! Some guy even got naked right in the middle of the bar!! Aussies are crazy! We came in third place and won a free bar tab for the next night...go Team America!!
After trivia we went out on the town to dance the night away at a place called Curtin (i think?) with a big group from the hostel. What a Tuesday!!
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