We will be finishing the travel log of our trip and posting all of our pictures this weekend.  Look for more exciting news!

Nothing like a healthy brekky!

Today was definitely rainforest day! We stopped on our way to Port Fairy at two rainforest destinations. The first was a self-guided walk along a path near a parking lot. It was only about 15 minutes out of the way to head there. It was cool and moist just as you would expect in a rainforest. The fungi, palms and large Myrtle Beach trees were amazing sites. It didn’t quite compare to the rainforest adventure we had up in Queensland last year, but it was still an amazing site just the same. It’s neat that little patches of this type of ecosystem exist throughout Australia and not confined to just one spot. Here’s Brian climbing inside one of the big tree trunks.

We could hear tons of birds singing in the trees. In our gallery you’ll find a movie I took that contains the song of the laughing kookaburra bird (when we post it next week). It’s an amazing sound!

After that we headed off to the much fabled Tree Top Walk. Someone has built some scaffolding high above the forest floor so that visitors can get a “tree top view” of the rainforest below. Almost as if it were an afterthought, they have various dinosaur statues scattered throughout the park. They were interesting to see and imagine roaming the forest, but they seemed more like comic relief than part of the Tree Top Walk.

Tree top walk can be dangerous! Watch out for Rex!

A view from the tippy top

This is the winding staircase to the top

After our walk amongst the trees, we continued onward. There was a lot to see on the drive today. Brian, the ever good Catholic boy, insisted we stop and see the 12 Apostles. It’s easy to see the disappointment on his face when he discovered they were names given to some amazing rock formations and not actually disciples of Christ.

Brian and the 12 apostles

The two boys and the 12 apostles

The sandstone and limestone coastline along this section of the GOR was quite amazing. There was a section called “London Bridge” that, prior to 1991, resembled the shape of the London Bridge with its two arches. Unfortunately due to the natural erosion of the sandstone, the thinnest part of the bridge fell into the sea in 1991. When it fell it actually stranded two visitors on the standing section (you could walk out onto the bridge). They later had to be rescued by helicopter! Yikes!

London Bridge

Port Fairy was probably the smallest town we’d stayed in so far. We arrived just after 6pm and got checked in by a very helpful although frighteningly young looking bloke. He told us about some of the places to eat in the town making sure to point out the ones we “might have to sell our car” to afford. We ended up picking this Mediterranean influenced restaurant. The food ended up being quite unique and quite good. We have some pictures of the food that you’ll see in the gallery later.

We showed up for dinner around 8:45pm in just enough time for the waitress to check her watch before agreeing to seat us. This town was dead to the world by the time we were done with dinner. Off to bed! Next stop Robe!

Who put the turn signal on the right???

After some brekky we walked over to Europcar to get our car. We were asked if we wanted this or that car, but it was all meaningless because none of the model names are the same as model names in the U.S. We did ask to get upgraded from a “compact” to an “intermediate” though as we thought about spending much of the next 3 days in a “compact” would be undesirable for two guys over 190 centimeters (6 foot for you yanks ). We got upgraded for free and also upgraded the insurance so we could totally punk the car for a cool $300 Aus and walk away (instead of the $2,300 Aus with the standard insurance).

I think the hardest part about driving here in Australia isn’t driving on the left; although being sure to look in the correct direction at an intersection requires a lot of conscious thinking and quick reaction. It’s driving on the right side of the car! So the first thing I did pulling up to our hotel to retrieve our luggage is drive up on the curb! My sense of the left side of the car with respect to my view out of the windshield was way off. I had mentally prepared myself for looking right, not left at intersections, driving on the left, but not this! Oh yeah, and to Brian’s amusement, it took several windshield wipings for me to grasp that the turn signal and the windshield wiper levers swapped places as well.

So after damaging only my pride so far, we were off and running to Apollo Bay. After much white knuckling, navigating, U-turning and dreading high speeds on the freeway, we managed to get ourselves on the M-1 out of the city and onward to the country-side.

Nope that's not a deer!

The Great Ocean Road is actually a national monument built to remember those Australians who died in World War I. It was also built during a time when the soldiers were returning home to Australia and needed employment. Originally, the government didn’t want to fund the initiative, but through organized fund raising, the project was launched with money from the people. (An amazing to hear about people vetoing their own government politicians).

The official monument and entrance to the GOR

There are too many amazing coastal pictures to show in this blog, but they’ll be in our gallery after we get home. Needless to say the coast line along the G.O.R. is diverse, interesting and beautiful. There are parts made of sandstone, limestone, volcanic rocks and calcified sandstone. There are rainforrests, wild life, small towns, great food and so many interesting stories to hear about. Nothing I’ve seen yet compares to what we saw along this drive. Of course, there were plenty of opportunities for fun photos:

I rest my case your honor

We stopped at an i symbol which are the information booths that dot the map along the GOR. I’m glad we did because each time we stopped we heard a new story about the GOR and a new list of things we should see. Each information centre usually had someone working there (or volunteering) who had a vested interest in their section of the road and their pride in the unique sites in their section showed. At the first stop in Geelong, we got the crash course overview of everything we had to see along the way. We were totally inundated with information, but we headed off trying to keep it all in our brains. Sometimes we had a map with something circled and couldn’t remember what it was we were supposed to see until we got there.

One of the stops was a walk through a beautiful section of forest with an amazing waterfall.

Amazing waterfalls and rainforrests!

In Lorne, we saw parrots of all sorts flying around and eating bugs off the ground. It was like nothing I had seen before. Outside of Grey River, we even saw Koalas hanging out in the trees! It is one thing to see them in a zoo, but a whole other experience to see them in their native habitat. This picture was taken just a few meters from someone’s home. Imagine having a Koala watching you pick up the morning paper.

There's Koala in them thar trees!

Once we got to Apollo Bay around 5:30pm, we checked in to our hotel. A very boisterous woman with far more energy than we had at that point gave us two keys and sent us off to pick out our room. We ended up picking the room that she thought we would like best and got ready for dinner. We went to dinner at a locals type place called “Buffs Bistro”. Apparently Mrs. Buff was out for the evening but Mr. Buff was happy to invite us in. Fortunately for us, more patrons arrived about 15 minutes after we sat down because I think Mr. Buff was struggling for things to do and was starting to overextend his visit at our table. He did give us two picture books about the GOR which helped us remember and note which stops we wanted to make the next day.

After an amazing meal of pork belly and lamb shanks, we retired for the night. It’s off to Port Fairy tomorrow!! (Seriously… no… seriously.. no, seriously).

We headed off to eat because it was almost noon at this point and we hadn’t had any brekky. We had scoped out some sausages/dogs at the market a couple days earlier and were both craving them. We got the most amazing spicy dogs (mine with ‘kraut and onions) I have ever had. Fresh baked rolls, mustard, ketchup… YUM!!!! After purchasing a few gifts and things, we headed out to the city to catch some of the sites we wanted to see.

Our first stop was this cool fountain just outside the Melbourne Museum.

The fountain of babies

When we got to the museum, it turned out that among there regular exhibits, they had this recreational drug thing. Way cool. We decided to pay a visit.

This speaks for itself

I had to laugh because for most of the “samples” they had of various drugs behind the cases, they were clear to note that they were fake. I guess they didn’t want anyone to sample any of the display items out of desperation (or curiosity)

We cruised through the rest of the Mind and Body exhibits. They had a sexuality exhibit that was about as explicit as one could possibly imagine. Everything from wall sized naked photos of young teens to videos showing the up close and personal of child birth (god I’m sorry mom). I kept thinking to myself that there was no way an American museum could every show such a graphic depiction of sex and sexuality. Yet just the other day there was a news commentator debating the pros and cons of censoring Wikipedia because of the graphic content on there. Go figure…

After enjoying a nice glass of wine in the museum cafeteria, we headed off to check out the rest of the sites. Next stop was the Parliament building where we saw all the weddings the day before. But not before we saw Princess’ (Brian’s?) theatre across the street. Had to get a picture of that one!

Princess' theatre!

We ducked into a wine bar we saw the day before. They had an amazing selection of wines, and some rather tasty food as well. We got a little bit of a lecture from a rather opinionated Aussie about how he doesn’t like to “chew a mouth full of fat” (cheese) when drinking red wine. Hmmm… Ok. whatever. So we enjoyed our most excellent Shiraz blend with a helping of the spicy fish stew with mussles. Yum!!! It turned out that mother nature also intended for us to stop here because not long after we sat down outside underneath the awning, it started to rain for a brief period.

After the rain cleared, we walked up Bourke street towards some of the shops and the bar “Cookie” where we had grabbed a pint the day before. Brian and I stopped at Meyer (the Aussie’s Macy’s) and picked him up some most awesome black pointy shoes (you’ll love these when you see them). Then we stopped at another lounge I had seen just across the way and enjoyed a glass of beer and even a shot of good ol’ Sauza before heading back to change for dinner.

After getting some wedges and another pint at the hotel, we made our way down to the Yarra River front to head to The Meat and Wine Company for our booking. The concierge had recommended this place the day before but we couldn’t get a booking for that night, so we decided to give it a go since we could get in Sunday night instead. Yarra is a really happening place. Besides having the casino and many restaurants and shops, there’s also these big towers that shoot fire every hour on the hour.

Fire show along the Yarra River

So we headed to the Meat and Wine Co. Oh boy. We walked in and the first thing I thought was “How could this place have been busy the night before?” It was like a run down Outback. Naw… Outback is fine dining comparatively. The menu was very unimpressive, but we ordered just the same. We ordered some wine and we waited… And we waited.. Two more tables were seated. And we waited… And then we got wine glasses. And we waited… And then another table got their wine. And we waited… And finally I just snapped. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Brian was a little more reticent so he asked the waitress about our wine and she told us that “oh the boys are getting it.” What boys?? We left.

So we went across the street to Rock Pool. The prices weren’t that much more expensive and they had a FAR superior selection of steaks (which we were totally set on at this point). We were warmly greeted and had a seat in the bar. We met this great girl, Ashley, who not only knew how to make a proper Cosmo (with some upscale flare I hadn’t seen before, complete with flaming orange zest), but also had some great suggestions for places to visit in Barossa and Adelaide (she grew up in Adelaide). Already starting to feel our humanity return, we had our drinks carried to our table (did I mention we LOVE being pampered?), we got a visit from a very helpful smellier. We enjoyed a fantastic tasting of cured meets, an amazing new twist on Ceasar salad, and two super amazing steaks. Wow!

Fine dining along the Yarra

Time to cab it home and make it to bed. It’s off to start our 3 day drive along the Great Ocean Road and then to the wine country!!!!

Oh yeah and we’re only sharing a small subset of the pictures we’re taking. All of our photos will get posted to our gallery when we return. So check back after the 18th for ALL of the photos and movies!

More to come!

On the tram

We headed up to the observation deck of the Rialto Towers for a gorgeous 360 degree view of Melbourne. It was an amazingly clear and sunny day and perfect for this visit.

Rialto Towers

Brian at the top

Here’s a view of downtown Melbourne. You can see our hotel from here!

View of the city

The 1980′s style cheesy 20 minute video that was included with our visit to the top made us laugh at the 80′s animation graphic and techno music, but also gave us some ideas of places we wanted to visit. We strolled across the Yarra River and into the Crown Casino. We played some Pontoon Pandemonium (a variation of Blackjack with some unique opportunities to win and mostly lose more money faster) and lost $20 between us, but I won back $15 of it at a slot machine. It’s no Vegas, let me tell you. hehehe

We went over to this restaurant called the Waterfront Fish Market and Grill (or something like that) and sat outside to enjoy an amazing fresh chilled fish tower! Look at Brian playing with his food again!

The weather was simply amazing and we enjoyed sitting in the sunshine for awhile and sipping down some great Australian wines.

After our late lunch snack and wine tasting, we started heading back towards the hotel. We decided to take the City Circle tram the rest of the way to continue seeing more of the city. At the tram stop, we ran across something Brian and I couldn’t resist. It seems they grow ‘em bigger in Australia and Brian insisted on having his picture taken with this very hot Australian guy.

It was a beautiful day to get married in Melbourne and we passed several couples posing in their gowns and tuxedos at various spots at the picturesque parliament building. We passed this couple in a Ford Mustang on their way to their next function. The aboriginal tram driver let out a smile and a cackle before pronouncing just two years until disaster for that particular couple. hahaha.. She reminded me of some of the women in my family, strong and with a twisted sense of humor. She had been in Melbourne for 30 years, 29 of them driving trams.

We sipped on some Bundy and munched on some TimTams before laying down for a nap from which I couldn’t awake. So that ended our Day 2.