The Great Ocean Road, Australia 3-15-10

The next morning I packed up and left to meet up with six backpackers from CouchSurfing. One of the best things to do in Melbourne is to take a drive along the south coast, head west, and explore the Great Ocean Road. An event was posted on CS by Geraldine and all of us joined in to explore the area together. We had two cars and seven backpackers from all over the world. Sanjeev was from India, Geraldine from France, Ohad from Israel, Isabell from Austria, Leia from China (but grew up in France), Jonatan from Sweeden, and then Me from America. What a group!

Even though we had never met before, we all clicked immediately and already were joking with one another within the first few minutes of sipping coffee. We stopped at a visitor’s shop to pick up maps and a list of camping sites, and from there we made a plan of where we would go and what we would like to do for the next two days.

Jonatan, Isabell, Sanjeev, and I were in one car and Geraldine, Ohad, and Leia were in the other. Our car group sang the entire trip and we never stopped laughing. We nicknamed our group the Subaru Kangaroos (we were driving in a Subaru) and took tons of car group photos.

Along the drive we stopped to check out beautiful waterfalls, gorgeous beaches, and numerous scenic lookouts. We had lunch on the beach and later saw koala bears in trees on the side of the road! We set up our tents at a campsite in Apollo Bay and bought tons of food to BBQ for dinner. Ohad made the steaks and sausages while I cooked up the largest amount of stir-fried veggies any of us had ever seen. We ate till we couldn’t move, drank wine and beerm and ate tim-tams (Australia’s answer to the kit-kat or snicker’s bar). After cleaning up, Geraldine brought out her mini guitar and we all sang drunkenly loud for over an hour until the manager came out and told us we should probably retire.

In the morning we drove to another waterfall, did a tree-tops walk on wooden platforms hundreds of feet in the air, and drove and drove and drove along the coastline till we reached The Twelve Apostles (what the Great Ocean Road is known for).  The Twelve Apostles are limestone rocks peaks which jet out of the water from what seems like nowhere. They are scattered along miles of coastal water off the shore of the Port Campbell National Park and our group took hundreds of photos… smiling, jumping, hugging, we covered all the bases.

The drive back in the dark was fine, thankfully Jonatan had a GPS (which pretty much saved our butts the entire trip), and we made it to Melbourne in record time. We all said good bye but made plans to meet up the following day in the city for lunch and to exchange pictures.

Around noon we went out for Indian and Korean food (the restaurants were next to each other) and took our laptops out to exchange photos. We spent a couple hours talking about our roadtrip… funny how close a group can get in only two days, we really felt like a family. One by one we parted ways and our Subaru Kangaroo group made plans to meet up again in Sydney (where I was going next).

For my last night in Melbourne I cooked Jason’s family an Italian meal, it was my last evening with them and I wanted to do something special. And then Jason and I went out for ice cream as dessert. I packed up my bags and was all set to head to Sydney in the morning via a Semi Truck.

Well… that’s another story. Okay, so one day, while drinking beers on a rooftop bar in Melbourne, I started talking to two guys in suits. There were both traveling to Melbourne for business from Sydney and they told me about their jobs and I enlightened them on what I was doing. They both worked in the construction industry, Eric owns a company that sells textiles and interior goods, and Aaron owns a company which sells construction machinery. They asked how I was traveling around Australia and I told them about CouchSurfing, how we all host each other for free, and that for transportation I’ll be catching buses from city to city. Aaron suggested that he should set up his truck drivers with CouchSurfers who need to travel since his drivers travel around Australia constantly anyway.

He told me his drivers have to transport large construction equipment and machinery all around the country and his drivers are continuously traveling from one major city to the next. I thought he was joking, but he mentioned the idea to me a few and insisted that if I ever need a lift, I should let him know and one of his drivers would take me for free. “They drive 6-12 hours every day from city to city and would be happy to have a backpacker along to keep them company” he said. Aaron gave me his card and before we left he reminded me that I should take a free lift.

As it turns out, Aaron came through and his driver Joel was driving from Melbourne to Sydney on the highway as direct as possible on the day I wanted to go.

The passenger seat had my name written all over it. Next stop, Sydney!!

Melbourne, Australia 3-5-2010

While in Istanbul, Turkey, I became friends with Jason, an Aussie from Melbourne. He’s not a stereotypical Australian guy though (the blonde hair surfer type), he’s a lawyer who comes from a great family and is very well put together. His firm allowed him to take off 8 months to travel the world and we had met while both starting on our RTW (around the world) trips. We’ve kept in touch over the past 8 months and when Jason heard I was coming to Melbourne, he generously offered me a place a stay at his family’s house.

I arrived at 4:30am from a 110 degree Fahrenheit Perth to a 40 degree Fahrenheit Melbourne. While waiting around the baggage claim outside, all of us passengers layered on our jackets, coats, and warm shoes. This place already was much different than what I was used to... I haven’t worn a scarf in months!

I took a bus into the city and then haggled with a taxi driver for a fare to Toorak (the province where Jason and his family lives). I still had the SE Asia mindset that everything should be a few dollars and it was hard to switch back to normality. My driver reluctantly agreed to a $13 cab fare to Toorak (should be $20) and when we arrived I could see why he was extra confused. All of the houses in Toorak look like mansions and I’m sure the driver was puzzled why I was haggling so much over money when I was staying here. I felt bad about the fare so tipped a few extra dollars (tipping is not customary in Australia, or anywhere in Asia or Europe for that matter), but I thought he deserved it.

Jason let me inside the house around 6:00am and showed me the guest room where I would be staying. “A BED!” was my first thought and I was so happy to have a comfortable place to stay. I snuggled up under the covers and fell asleep within a matter of seconds with the most content smile on my face.

In the morning I met Jason’s whole family; mom, dad, sister, and brother. Everyone was rushing off to work, school, or to run errands so I just had the chance to quickly say hello.

My first day in Melbourne was spent in the city center walking around and exploring the streets. This city is MUCH larger than Perth (Perth is like the size of a grocery store compared to this place!) and I just loved passing all of the cute coffee shops and restaurants scattered about the city. A good amount of buildings have decorative graffiti on their outside walls and the city looks very trendy. It’s sort of a mix between San Francisco, NYC, and LA; but mostly San Fran.

I popped into a hostel at one point in the day to browse and wound up booking a “Kiwi Experience” bus package for New Zealand. It was the last day of a sale and I could buy the north island bus pass for $300 and get the south island for free! It was a great deal. Then I ate some expensive snacks and took the train back to Toorak. Jason’s place is just a 15 minute walk from a train station and is in one of the nicest areas in Melbourne. 

I met up with Jason in the evening and we went out with his friends to a Chinese restaurant for dinner and a bar for after-dinner drinks. The bar was called Der Raum and is one of the best bars I’ve ever been to. Der Raum has all of their liquor bottles hanging from bungy cords from the ceiling and the bartender serves each drink as a presentation. We ordered one drink called “prescription” and half of the drink was served in a glass with ice, and the other half we had to squirt in with a syringe-like applicator. And to top it off, a pill, filled with powdered orange sorbet, is thrown on top (which disintegrated pretty quickly).

They use dry ice a lot in Der Raum, so most drinks are steaming over like a witch’s cauldron and calling for attention. I ordered a “Moroccan Spice” which had some curry, agave, a collection of liquorsm and a sugar cane stick in it. As a bartender, I asked the bar man a lot of questions and spent some time looking over the menu and ingredients. This bar is top notch and I would recommend it to anyone.

For the next few days I toured the city as much as I could during the day. I checked out St Kilda (beach shops), Studly park (to row boats), Eureka tower (tallest lookout point in the southern hemisphere), and Fitzroy (trendy café’s, bars, galleries, alternative clothing shops, and bookstores). Since Jason works during the day, I had to make my own friends in the city. I met up with Scott, a Canadian from CouchSurfing who was also visiting Melbourne. We toured around the city together and went to the Moomba festival (an annual outdoor carnival in the city center on the Yarra River in Melbourne).

My Australian friend Nick that I met on my Halong Bay trip in Vietnam lives in Melbourne and we met up a couple times and went to an AFL game together. Australian football is similar to American football, except the ball the rounder than an American football and the players constantly kick the ball or throw it, but can only have possession of the ball for a few seconds. The game is like a mix between football, rugby, and ultimate Frisbee. It’s a messy sport, the players don’t wear any pads, and it’s great to watch (for women) because the players are very fit. Nick and I spent the breaks in the game walking around the stadium picking out the best seats. He wasn’t surprised when I decided that my favorite seat was right behind the players’ box.

One weekend afternoon I went out with Jason and his girlfriend Shelly for coffee. It was a beautiful sunny morning, but as we were driving, clouds rolled in and it starting sprinkling rain. Within a couple minutes it was hailing! The bang of hail hitting the roof of our car sounded as if kids on the 5^th floor of a building were chucking rocks at us! Shelly was concerned about her new car, but luckily everything was fine. The rain continued for almost two hours and then it was gorgeous and sunny again. Crazy weather here. Melbourne is known for having shifty weather and it’s not uncommon to have four seasons in one day.

After rushing around so much recently, I decided to give myself a little break to rest and catch up on my photo albums and blogs. It does take a lot of work to keep up with everything and the busier I am, the harder it is to find time to write and hop online for hours. I took off a couple days to get back on track.

A couple days later, Scott and I met up to have a beer lesson at Little Creatures (a chain of the Little Creatures in Perth). They taught us how different types of beers are made, how a darker color is produced and where the flavor comes from. We tasted barley, smelled hops, and became beer snobs.

In the evening we out to a bar in Fitzroy Scott heard was good. I showed up, walked inside the completely packed bar with him, and noticed that I was 1 of only 4 girls in the whole place! It was a gay bar and tonight we were in for a Drag Queen Show! I was instantly mentally teleported back to Spring Break 2007 when a group of us were in Key West and went to a Drag Queen show there. This one in Fitzroy was equally as great. The Queens were wearing layers upon layers of full-on make-up, had huge wigs, loud outfits, and contagious smiles. They were having the time of their lives and so were all of us in the bar actually. The crowd of guys were going wild screaming and whistling at the Queens! It was great.

The following day I spent some time with Jason’s parents, Hilary and Mark. We went out for coffee and gilato and I felt like I had my own parents back again. Staying at their house was the most “at home” I’ve felt on my trip.. I had my own room, a bed, a house, and a family. I have so much to thank them for… they couldn’t have been more generous and accommodating!

Hilary and I went grocery shopping and I cooked the family a Japanese dinner of miso soup, salad with ginger/soy dressing, stir-fried veggies, oshitashi, and ahi-seared Tuna. It was just one way to show my appreciation for all they were doing for me.

Perth and Margaret River, Australia 2-28-10

I remember thinking on the plane how crazy it was that I was actually flying into Australia. When I originally had the idea to travel and started planning this trip, over 2 years ago, Australia was my inspiration to go.  I remember watching a Planet Earth about scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef and I said, “I’m going there!” Australia was my goal while Europe and Asia were just sort of thrown into the mix along the way.

Funny now how after 8 months of traveling through foreign lands, my view of visiting an English speaking country doesn’t excite me as much as it once did. Regardless, I’ve met more Australians traveling than any other nationality and I know that Aussies are a blast! These next few months should be fun.

Originally, I planned to mostly explore the east coast of Australia. Starting in the south, Melbourne, and working my way up the coast to the north, Cairns (only interrupting the trip with a little vacation to NZ for 6 weeks). While looking for flights from Bali to Melbourne, I came across an airfare I couldn’t pass up, only it was to Perth, not Melbourne. I booked it and was able to find a cheap internal flight from Perth to Melbourne, so I just delayed my trip south by a week.

I didn’t know a sole in Perth, but I’m a member of CouchSurfing (www.CouchSurfing.com) and decided to give that a go. A week or two before arriving I sent out messages to a few CS hosts and had plans to meet up/couch surf with them when I arrived. I’ve “couch surfed” before through this site and before I left the US, I intended to CS my way through Europe and Asia. European hostels were too much fun and the guesthouses in Asia were so cheap that I never got around to couch surfing,

Alan, from Couchsurfing, picked me up from the airport and was the best host! He had water and a couple snack bars for me (he thought I’d be hungry after my long flight) and he drove me around to view Perth. We had a nice dinner in the city and then he dropped me off at my CS host’s house (Matt) where I would be staying.

Matt, a CS ambassador for Perth, is a huge (6’7) teddy bear kind of a guy with a big laugh and a fun-loving personality. He’s kind, is an environmentalist and a lawyer, and is one of the most generous guys you’ll meet. When I arrived he gave me a key and said “Come and go as you please, my house is your house, help yourself to anything in the fridge, laundry, TV, the train station is a 5 minute walk away, enjoy yourself!” It was unreal.

I set my stuff down in the living room/tv room and sat on my “bed” (the tv couch). Matt was off to play in a basketball game so I tagged along. In the morning I took a train straight for the city to take care of a few things… buying an Australian phone was on the top of my priorities list. Phone, check; charger, check; $11 for a sandwich, WHAT! Yeah, Australia is very expensive! Especially now since the US dollar is so low, it’s practically even with the Australian dollar!

I met up with Matt for lunch in the city outside his building and he told me he planned to drive out to his farm later. He and his family own a farm an hour inland from the city and he needed to water all the plants and tend to a few things out there since the weather had been so hot and rainless recently.

We left as the sun was setting and arrived at the hill top just in time to watch the sun set behind the water on the west coast. As we drove to the farm, kangaroos hopped in the woods and a goat scurried out of Matt’s fenced in garden.

The farm house was a large shed with 8 beds, a few couches, a kitchen, dining area, and an interesting bathroom. Over the course of the next couple hours I met a scorpion crawling on the bathroom floor, two large outback lizards in the bathtub, and a whole family of large spiders hanging out next to the toilet. It was quite an experience! I remember calling out to Matt as I walked into the bathroom, “Hey Matt, there are about 20 spiders right next to the toilet…. Umm.. is that okay? Do I just leave them??” For the rest of the night I tried not to go.

Matt drives up to the farm a few times during the week to take care of it and he hosts CouchSurfers 6 days a week, so he is always bringing people there and frequently has parties and concerts up at the farm as well.

Matt and I watered all the plants that needed to be watered and then played ping-pong before going to sleep early (we had to wake up at 5:30am). In the morning we fixed the gate the goat had mangled and before we left I grabbed some green and purple grapes off the vines to snack on.

I met up with Alan again and we went to Fremantle to have some fish and chips at the bay and then drank some home made beer from a place called “Little Creatures”. Little Creatures beer is sold all over Australia, but it tastes the best in Perth, where it’s brewed. Later I went out with Matt to a local bar near his house.

In the morning I caught a bus to Margaret River, known for their gorgeous coastline, delicious wines, and chocolate and cheese factories. When the bus dropped me in Margaret River 5 hours later I met some backpackers and called a hostel to have them pick us all up. Our new backpacking group (mostly all Germans) and I walked to the beach to watch the sunset, cooked dinner at our hostel, and then a few of us went into the city center (a tiny little place) to grab a couple beers and listen to some live music. A girl named Coby Grant, from Melbourne, was traveling around and promoting her new CD. She was great and our group spent the next couple of hours trying different Australian beers and listening to Coby and her band.

I was sharing a hostel room with two German brothers, Andre and Marius and we all agreed to go surfing in the morning with Richard and Charlie (Charlotte) who we had hung out with the night before. Richard had a car, a gorgeous Land Rover to be exact, and the 5 of us rented surfboards and wetsuits for the day. We drove to 5 different surf spots and a couple of them were decent. The first one we went to had a very strong rip current and a few of us got caught in it and swam for our lives. Luckily we were fine.

After the waves we dropped off the boards, and headed to wine country. I had asked my hostel owner to pick out his favorite wineries on my map (there are over 140 wineries to choose from) and our group of four set off to taste (Marius skipped out since he doesn’t like wine, true story).

We sampled six whites and seven reds at the first winery and Charlie and I picked up a bottle to share later at the bonfire we were planning to have on the beach. At the second winery the boys bought a shiraz and I picked up a bottle as well for Matt.

On the drive back we talked about our bonfire on the beach and were wondering where to buy firewood. I noticed we were driving past dried up woods and suggested we pull over and just grab some while we were here. We filled up the entire trunk of the car with dead wood and laughed the whole ride back. I told the Germans about smores and none of them had ever tried them or had even heard the name before! I felt it was my duty to introduce them to one of my favorite past times… roasting marshmallows over a campfire to make delicious smores!

Richard dropped us off while he parked the car and Charlie and I picked out a spot on the beach to dig a hole for our fire. We weren’t really sure of the policy on beach fires here, but figured we’d have a go at it anyway, after all, we’re all tourists and don’t know the rules here, right?

Rich and Andre carried over the wood and we started building a teepee from twigs… leaves and little sticks at the bottom and larger pieces on top (just like I learned from Indian Princesses when I was a little girl). The fire lit easily and lasted hours. A group of backpackers who were walking along the beach were attracted to our fire like moths and soon our little family of five grew to a clan of 14. We shared stories and I taught my friends how to make smores. I had to improvise a bit at the supermarket since they don’t sell gram crackers in Australia (the closest thing is a sugar biscuit, as they call it), but I had Lindt chocolate and fluffy marshmellows so the rest was taken care of.

Due to a lack of resources, we roasted our marshmallow on the tip of a knife that we would have to shove the handle of it into the sand of the fire pit because the fire was too hot to hold it. It worked and we all ate some delicious smores. Verdict? The Germans are fans.

The following morning I took a bus back to Perth and received a text that my English friends Sophie, Dugan, and Scott from Raily bay, Thailand, were all in Perth! They were living and working in Perth and we made plans to meet up that night. We started with drinks at a bar on the beach and then went back to Sophie and Dugan’s apartment for the rest of the night. When we all met in Railay I was taking a break from alcohol (too much boozing for the full-moon party week in Koh Phangnan before), so this time, they were all determined to get me smashed.

My last day in Perth I relaxed and went to the beach for an hour with Matt. When possible, I like to have an easy day before heading off to a new city. Matt was happy to receive red wine and we said our goodbyes before I headed for the airport at 9:00pm.

Melbourne, see you at 4:30am!