great ocean road

lyds and i celebrate our 3 year anniversary by sleeping in separate dorms, but shared the same dream. but let me explain.

650km. 10 hours. 0 roos run over. 1 great ocean road.

we had said goodbye to st. kilda and left early in the morning for adelaide via the great ocean road (gor) and the grampians. our bus was not the super cool, ultra modern ones we hade seen previously while traveling. our bus did not have a crazy and colourful paint job, dvd player or other gadgets. our's was the beige and brown express. a little engine that could with small seats, a broken microphone for our guide, and just enough spirit to make the trip.

note on the gor: the gor is an amazing 200km rugged coastline drive. it runs from torquay to warrnambool, and was commissioned by the aussie government in tribute to the australians who fought and died in ww1. it must have been some reward for those soldiers who survived the war, only to come home and be asked to build the most physically challenging road possible. the actual marker for the beginning of the gor keeps being rebuilt and moved as it is constantly being burned down by bush fires.

the first leg of the gor is the surf coastline that runs from torquay to lorne. we stopped at bell's beach, famous for being in the finale of the movie point break. it is also famous for its surfing (6th best rated surf beach in the world) and the site of the annual rip curl pro classic surfing competition. the reef breaks perfectly at the beach. the waves are apparently as serious as the cliffs that surround it in early march. also not to be taken lightly are the great whites that are found where the shallow reef ends and the bottom drops out of the ocean. a surfer here lost a leg 3 months ago to a great white, or a "white pointer" as they call them here. people who surf here know what they are doing, and no lifeguards are present as this is the general feeling of them as well. most of the surfers we saw going out were older surfers who changed in the parking lot into full length wet suits. i hope i am that cool when i am 60. my interest in the beach was mostly for its inclusion in point break, but i quickly saw that the beach used in the movie was not one and the same. the movie, i learned, used a beach in california. no keanu or swayze fights, but worth a look.

we got back into the beige beauty and continued down the surf coast through the towns of lorne and anglesea. we passed into otway national park which is home to, surprise, the otway ranges and rainforest. lyds and i viewed tree ferns (10 ft high), waterfalls, massive pines, and flowers galore. all of this is due to the ocean winds bringing in cooler temperatures and higher rainfall. we stopped near kennett river and saw koalas in the trees sleeping. it was so much cooler seeing them in the wild. just round tuffs of grey and black eyes and claws. you knew they were there before you could see them as the defoliation gave them away. cute locusts as it were. when we reached mait's rest (17 km west of apollo bay) we did a mini rainforest walk. the giants (trees) were too tall to even conceptualize as they towered above us. each base was easily more than twice my wingspan. lyds and i took turns standing at the base and looking up at them. some trees had molded together as they grew so they all had interconnecting trunks.

the last section of the gor was the shipwreck coast where the most famous sights of the gor are found. nasty and picturesque coastline of unpredictable weather, crazy winds and jagged limestone rock formations. it is a graveyard for vessels, and there are dark poems about all of the sailors and ships lost here. we stopped at gibson's steps, the 12 apostles (8 remain), london bridge (which has now partially collapsed and at the time stranded two people having an affair), and the lord ard gorge (named for the shipwreck of the lord ard in 1878). at most stops we were assaulted by flies and chines tourists, but more importantly, amazing beauty. at gibson's steps we encountered something even our guide had never seen before. there were actually saw the weather change, the air change in colour and transparency around us like a ghost passing. within moments we could no longer see the cliffs or the ocean. it had all disappeared.

along our tour the guide talked to us about the many environmental issues facing australia. there has been a drought for over 10 years, temperatures continue to rise (highest feb in history), rainfall continues to decline, bushfires are becoming more numerous and severe. the lack of water is apparent everywhere, and the country has been told to increase its water efficiency by 100% by 2025. there is apocalyptic talk in the news that agriculture and farming here will soon be extinct. global warming has raised the temperature around the great barrier reef high enough that it has begun to die. he also was very clear to explain the government's mistreatment of the aboriginal people, and how such acts are not taught in the classroom. generations have been lost, and for a verbal culture this has relayed into aboriginals not knowing their own legends and history. the best story he imparted was regarding a british convict who escaped from a penal colony and made it into the outback. after struggling for months for basic survival he returned to the colony to give himself up only to find they too had packed it in and headed for home. the convict ended up collapsing in the outback where aboriginals found him on the grave site of their chieftain. little did the convict know that the culture believed that the chief would return in a new form. he was revived and became there chief for 20 years. he forgot english, fought wars and was eventually pardoned by the british government when they learned his amazing story. aussies always refer to his luck when you have a slim chance.

as darkness approached we entered grampians (gariwerd) national park. the park is massive (167,000 hectares) - half the size of ireland. the drive to hall's gap where we were staying for the night was stressful as everyone had to keep an eye out for the kangaroos that darted across the road. last trip the guide took he ran one over. same the trip before that. we broke the chain. on our arrival as a group we went out for dinner and ate aussie bush tucker (croc, barramundi, kangaroo, emu, buffalo, wild boar) and watched the kangaroos. after dinner we grabbed flashlights and went to look at the stars and hunt for more kangaroo sightings.

that night lyds and i had to sleep in separate dorms. little did we know that we ended up sleeping in beds sharing the same wall, and the next morning we would discover we had the same dream from different perspectives.