Melbourne

Hello blog followers!!

I told you the break from posting was just a Christmas thing--we are back, and posting regularly!!

We've been in Melbourne for the past five days.  Melbourne (actually pronounced Mel-bin....and don't say Melbourne or you'll get pointed out by locals!!) is in the south of Australia and is the gateway to the Great Ocean Road--a 200km highway that stretches right along the Southern Ocean coast.

We arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday afternoon.  We checked into our hostel and set off to explore.  There are lots of neat shops and parks downtown--a very pedestrian friendly town.  Thursday morning we rented a car and set off on our road tour of the Great Ocean Road.  This road was initially made by hand, in the early 1900s as a thanks to the war veterans.  It is one of the biggest tourist draws in all of Australia and is a pretty neat drive--you are literally winding around curves with the ocean only a few feet away.  There are lots of little stops along the road, as well as little towns scattered along the few hundred kilometers. A driving route that we assume is similar to the Cabot trail in Canada.  One of the highlights that we couldn't capture in a photo--there is a golf course in one of the small towns that is home to a kangaroo population.  Literally as you are golfing, there are kangaroos hopping down the fairway!!  Ang desperately wanted to get some pictures cause we know lots of our readers would appreciate this, but they have numerous signs at the golf course saying you aren't allowed on the course just to look for kangaroos!  We did use the bathroom there, though, and happened to see a kangaroo just hanging out!  This looks like as good a reason as any for Ang to start golfing!

We ate breakfast at a park called Tower Hill Reserve.  Here you find emus, koalas and kangaroos just roaming around.  Well we didn't see any kangaroos, but had some emus who were very interested in our breakfast!!

Logan family--we have a beach!!  Isn't this exciting!!!

This is a pic of Logan Beach.  They have this huge boardwalk above the beach, which is supposed to have some excellent whale watching during their breeding season.  

This is known as the grotto, one of the interesting stops along the way.  The whole coast is made of limestone, so with the continued beating of the waves you get some neat formations as the limestone wears away.

Bay of Islands.  Again, you see the beautiful colour of the limestone coast, and you can also see all the reef just under the surface of the water.

London Bridge....well, London bridge fell down!!  There used to be a walkway between these two pieces of rock that tourists were free to walk between.  Well, the limestone is quite soft and the constant waves lead to breakage.  This is a point that two tourists will never forget--when the "bridge" collapsed, they were out on the outer piece and had to be rescued by helicopter!

Steve and I at one of the gorges.  This is known as Lord Arg Gorge and become famous when two people swam into this gorge, surviving a shipwreck.  There were hundreds of shipwrecks along the coast of the Great Ocean Road because of the strong waves and the difficult shoreline to navigate.

The 12 Apostles.  These are stacks of limestone out in the sea.  No, you aren't missing things--there aren't twelve of them!  We could see about 7 or 8, and they state you can see a few more from the air, but they renamed the towers of limestone the 12 apostles to get more tourists.  It is now one of the most photographed sites in all of Australia, so we think it worked!

This pictures is taken from the Otaway National Park, home to many koalas.  Quick--how many koalas do you see???  (Answer revealed further in the blog!)

Isn't he cute!!  He must be just a baby, because he was much smaller than the other koalas around them.  We starred at the koalas for probably close to an hour, and only saw one of the almost 30 koalas wake up--they really do sleep all the time!

We were out on the Great Ocean Road for three days and really enjoyed our time.  We made it back into Melbourne and continued to explore the city.  Today we rented bikes and rode to a little beach area known as St. Kildas.  The waves were huge and the area was really windy, but we had a nice bike ride around the bay.  

Tomorrow we fly off to Sydney and we are quite looking forward to it.  Well keep you posted about our adventure as things continue!

Happy Belated Birthday Jenny!!  And there were four koalas in that picture!!

Miss you all!

Talk soon!