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!!