Australia 2011, days 3-4

Sept. 18th

I woke up at 3:30 and just couldn’t fall back asleep. I probably crawled out of bed around 5:00 and we made it down to breakfast by 6. That was an adventure! Nate had never tried the Aussie treat known as Vegemite, and to our delight there were packets of it at our table. He thought it was absolutely vile, even though I warned him in advance. I apparently like to punish myself, so I tried it again, and it was just as I remembered. I can’t fathom how children can like the stuff! Bleh!! Still, when in Oz, one must immerse oneself in the culture, right?

After eating, we had a number of errands to run. Our first stop was the Big W, Australia’s Walmart equivalent. We got an Australian atlas and phone. Then we hit Woolworths for groceries and came back to pack the car. Then we did a little geocaching. We weren’t able to access an island on which one was situated, but we did get two back at the botanic gardens. From there, we searched out the HiFi store for a Sim card for our phone. We had lunch at Soda Rock Diner which was trying really hard to be American. Nate got a burger with beets on it and really liked it. I noted how the Coke was served in cans and not from a fountain. We’d discover along our trip that this was the rule. McDonalds was the only place we visited that used soda fountains. I was also happy that sodas used cane sugar and not the corn syrup crud that the US seems obsessed with.

After lunch, we decided to drive down to St. Kilda, home of Luna Park, Australia’s oldest amusement park. I was so incredibly excited to visit, especially since it’s also home to the oldest continuously running roller coaster in the world: Scenic Railway. Opened in 1912, this coaster was so special and historically significant that I couldn’t miss it. Well, we dealt with the madhouse that was St. Kilda and managed to find parking about a mile away from the park. Once we arrived, we discovered that the iconic entrance, a grotesque face, was under construction, and because of this, the Scenic Railway (which circles the entire park and is attached to the face) was not running. Talk about a bummer! I really didn’t like Melbourne enough to return, and I’d have to miss out on the one coaster I wanted to ride more than any other. Well, at least there was another coaster, Metropolis, a production Galaxi, for me to ride. While in line, a local family struck up a conversation with me and invited me to ride with them, so I got to ride sooner than expected. Nate sat out, but he joined me on the haunted house ride, which was campy but historic. We also took some nice pictures, and then walked down to the beach before hitting the road.

We were happy it was Sunday, so traffic wasn’t as terrible as it could have been. We made our way through Melbourne and down to the Great Ocean Road. We did a number of hikes, visited a lighthouse or two, and saw our first two kangaroos on the road, which is always startling, but very cool nonetheless. The views along this drive are outstanding, and it’s considered one of the greatest drives in the world. Stretching from Torquay to Warrnambool, the road is also the largest WWI memorial in the world, stretching 151 miles, and having been built by returning soldiers in commemoration of the war.

We stopped for the night in Lorne, staying at a hostel that provided us with a cozy little cabin. The fancy restaurant a block away was hosting a party, so we opted for the local pizza joint instead. We ordered the shrimp, chili, and rockets (arugula) pizza, and it was heavenly! The chili was used in place of tomato sauce, and it was one of the tastiest things around! We also swung by the grocery store so Nate could try some Tim Tams and Lemon Ruskies. Now Tim Tams are chocolate covered cookies that are all the rage to many visitors to Oz, but I’ve never thought much of them. Still, I thought Nate should get the full experience and try them. He agreed with me, but at least now he knows! As for a Lemon Ruski, this is a vodka, wine, and lemon drink that I adored when I studied abroad. I was so excited to see they still made them, so we got a six pack. To my delight, Nate liked them, too! So with unusual pizza, Lemon Ruskies, and Tim Tams, we had a solid Aussie dinner! Then we watched some cartoons and hit the hay.

Sept. 19th

The time change was working in our favor, and we got up super early for the second day in a row! By 6am we were up, and we were out the door by 7. Unfortunately, we couldn’t check out until 9, so we used the time to head up the coast a bit, taking our bed sheets with us (you turn them in when you check out) and found a trail that took us up to Sheoak Falls. It was lovely, and there were so many birds! Upon our return, we stopped briefly in town to activate our phone. The person on the line was immensely confused insisting that we needed to have an Australian address to activate our account even though it was prepaid. How stupid! After trying in vain to explain our situation, I just gave up and decided to call back later. Honestly, it seemed like many things in Australia are set up to be nonsensical. Surely we’re not the first people to need a temporary phone while traveling abroad!

After that, we checked out of the hostel, got postcards, and made a few more stops along the way. We saw the wreck of the W.B. Godfrey, although only its anchor was visible. We did an amazing hike in Great Otway National Park through an incredibly lush rainforest. Then we visited Cape Otway Lightstation where we searched furiously and unsuccessfully for echidnas, climbed the lighthouse, learned about the strange disappearance of Frederick Valentich, a pilot who disappeared after being pursued by an aircraft that “is not an aircraft” (creepy!), and saw lots and lots of wild koalas! We continued on and saw a number of other outstanding oceanic overlooks including the Twelve Apostles, Castle Cove, and just about any other pull offs and hikes that were available. We stopped in Port Campbell, which appeared as a ghost town, but managed to find a fast foodish establishment for our 3:30 meal of the day. We decided to save money by only eating once a day if possible, and it seemed to be working so far! Anyway, Nate got fish and chips (barramundi fish is a million times more flavorful and nice than cod), and I got a beef burgundy pie which grossed Nate out, especially since it didn’t come with a fork and I had to eat it as is. The town seemed pleasant, and I could see coming back when things are actually open. Continuing along the Great Ocean Road, it started to get windy and rainy and generally miserable. Still, we didn’t let it stop us. We came here to see the sights, and dag nab it, that’s what we’d do, even if the wind gusted us off a ledge!

Our last stop was the town of Warrnambool, famous for its annual whale sightings. We attempted to see them at the overlook, hoping that one of the choppy waves was attached to a whale, but to no avail. Our guidebook said that we may be hitting the end of their visit, but there was still a chance. After about a half hour in the rain and cold, we decided we better just find a place to stay for the night.

Up the road a short piece, we found the Blue Whale Motor Inn, and we were relieved that they still had a vacancy. For a very reasonable price we got an entire suite! Two bedrooms with 4 beds in total, our own bathroom, a full kitchen and seating room, AND internet! We learned a lot about Australian motel accommodations this night, too. First of all, if you get a single or double room, you share a bathroom with boarders in other rooms. If you get en suite, that is the equivalent of a normal motel room in the states – it just means you get a bathroom to yourself. Also, it is customary for the front desk to provide you with a small carton of milk for your coffee the next morning. When they handed us the carton, we were confused but graciously accepted. The other confusing thing occurred when we entered our room. There was no electricity. We searched and searched but couldn’t seem to find a switch that worked. Perplexed, I went back to the front desk to ask about it, and it turns out that you plug the key into a holder right next to the door that activates the electricity to the suite. Who knew?! And it’s a good thing we found that out because we’d come across the same issue several more times on our journey.

One of the most irksome characteristics of Australian motels, however, is their office hours. We discovered the hard way that these places tend to close down at 8pm, so if you don’t have a room by then, you’re out of luck. There are no convenient chain Motel 6es or the like out here. There are mom and pop establishments which are generally very well-kept and reminded me of the places I’d stay on travels with my family as a kid, not the skeezy mom and pops that they all seem to have become in recent years. There were a few skeezy, hostel-type motels that were associated with bars (and sponsored by different beers, depending on the state in which we were), and while they were open later, they usually were full before we’d arrive.

Anyway, the entire Great Ocean Road region seemed very New Englandy to me, and the people did, too. They were cordial enough, but distant. They didn’t warm up easily to newcomers, and this was quite a change from the people I’d met in Perth, but it was really interesting to see. It takes all kinds!

We spent the evening getting our phone officially activated, giving them the address of the Blue Whale which worked, luckily! We were the proud owners of a working Telstra phone for the remainder of our trip! Then we checked in on the internet and hit the hay by 9, hoping to continue our early morning starts to maximize our sight-seeing time.

Australia 2011 - Sept. 15 - 17

Thurs. Sept. 15th

This was it! The day was finally here! After saying we’d have our big honeymoon in Australia for years, we finally bit the bullet. We hadn’t had an opportunity to take such an enormous trip, but as luck would have it, I was required to take three months off from work due to a ridiculous city policy. We decided to make lemonade from apparent lemons, so here we were! We hadn’t really planned out specifics, opting rather for our spontaneous style of travel, but we had a rough idea of where we wanted to go. The first leg of our trip found us checking in at the Albuquerque Sunport. We were both nervous, since we had no idea what to expect, and even though I’d been to Australia before, that was 13 years prior!

Someone had suggested I mention the fact that we were on our honeymoon while checking in because occasionally they’ll bump you to first class. I had my doubts, but I tried anyway, in an excited, yet small-talkish way, to the half-interested agent. It didn’t work, and it would turn out that our flight to LA was such a small craft that it didn’t even seem to have a first class section. Oh well. Then she asked us about our travel visas. Wait, what? I’d looked around briefly to see if we needed them, and nothing was mentioned in our travel guides or the websites I’d visited. So that was good enough for me, and I didn’t pursue it. Well guess what. You need one. Nate and I were horrified – after all this, would we not be able to go on our trip? Well, luckily Australia is one of the few places you can buy a visa at the airport (which may be why it isn’t mentioned – you just get it when you check in usually). So we bought them – yet another expense at the start of an already expensive trip. But it’s not like we’d decline a $50 charge and not go. Thank goodness, that was easy.

Once on board the tiny aircraft, I stowed my computer case in the overhead bin. There was a plastic bag full of something right next to my stuff, and I pushed it over a bit so I had room. Well, “something” turned out to be a bag of leaky, smelly green chile, and it managed to seep all over my computer case. I had visions of not being allowed into the country once I went through Australian customs because the dogs would detect produce. That’s all I needed! I fretted about this for a while during our 5 hour layover in Los Angeles, but eating dinner at the diner and having a beer at the airport brew pub helped me get my mind off it.

Eventually, we boarded our plane for our 14.5 hour flight to Sydney. We were seated in the last row, were fed three times, and watched a number of movies sans sound including “Rio” and the most recent “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Even though we were above the ocean the entire time, I peered out when I could. I just couldn’t sleep! I got maybe a half hour in, but that was pushing it. Airplane sleeping isn’t easy.

Sept. 17th

We landed in Sydney, a bit stiff and tired, but really none the worse for wear. Despite the fact that we’d be taking the same craft to Melbourne, we had to deplane and reboard. By now, we’d lost an entire day, and it was currently Saturday. At least we’d be gaining one on our way back, though. On our flight to Melbourne, I enjoyed looking out the window at the Australian countryside below, imagining what it was like at ground level. It looked like there were lush pasturelands and peaceful bungalows situated among pleasantly rolling hills. It seemed like paradise. Once we landed, we went through customs. I looked nervously at the beagle that I KNEW would rat me out for having green chile smell on my computer case. But luckily we looked honest enough that they let us through without checking our bags. It really didn’t feel much like Australia yet. It was essentially just the US with a hard-to-comprehend accent at times. I did find myself picking up on the accent very quickly, and I probably annoyed Nate with my half Aussie-isms. This lasted for about a week before I fell back into my Midwestern-accented self, but it was fun nonetheless.

Our first stop was the Thrifty Car Rental facility. The employees seemed impatient and curt, and spoke super fast to Nate who was still struggling with the accent. I’d remembered loving Australia because the people seemed so incredibly nice while I was there, so much so that when I returned to the States, I wondered why everyone (who was acting normally) was so mean, comparably. Well, Melbourne isn’t that friendly, and this was our first taste of it. We finally got our car, a little silver Tiida. Every time I get a rental car, I look at it and hope that it’ll look the same when we return it. I wonder how it’d serve us in an accident. I worry. I regarded our tiny silver car nervously, but figured we’d be ok. It’s tiny, but we’ll do alright. There is the whole “driving on the other side” issue, but we’d catch on. Yes. Then I remembered the real reason I was supposed to look at the car was for any dents, scratches, or other problems. I found a few scratches, and we filled out our form, but there was no one to hand it to on the way out, so now I worried that they would charge us for them on our way back. Worry worry worry. That’s what I do. Oh well, later we’d see that wouldn’t even be an issue.

Now, I understand why airports are situated right by major expressways, but when you’re in a new country, trying to drive in a way completely opposite from that which you know, the last thing you want to do when you leave the carport is to be regurgitated out into a busy mass of impatient drivers. Nate was a whiz, though. Obviously nervous about all this, he kept his composure and managed to not get us killed. The stress level in the car was high, however, and it didn’t help when instructions our Garmin was barking out were confusing or conflicted with what we saw. All we wanted to do was to get to the botanic gardens in the city, but it was easier said than done. We were so relieved when we exited the expressways and found ourselves on surface streets, but that was short-lived because now we had weird roads that ran dangerously close to the streetcars, and outer parallel roads that were safer but crazy-confusing to access.

We’d also heard rumors of something called “hook turns.” In such cases, you have to turn right from the extreme left lane. It all sounded so confusing on top of everything else, but luckily I don’t think we ever encountered one of those. Nate was getting really uptight, so we wound up parking near the botanic gardens to catch our breath. We couldn’t park there long-term, however, so we gathered ourselves and considered our next plan of attack. He asked me to drive, and, silly me who is so panicky when I drive normally, was all, “Oh yeah, I can do this thing! What an adventure! It’ll be fun and easy!”

So I gave Nate the Garmin and got behind the wheel. The entire concept of driving here was so awkward, especially while having to concentrate on many opposite things at once. The blind spot on the Tiida was doubly problematic because of the thick walls between the windows, so I couldn’t see optimally. After waiting for a while until I absolutely knew no one was coming for a long time, I inched my way out, and then someone appeared out of nowhere! Of COURSE! So there went my relative ease. I was in panic mode! On top of that, we were still in the streetcar lane, which I desperately needed to get out of. After passing several weird intersections that would have connected me with the outside street, I finally saw my chance and took it. Trying to pay attention to a number of things at once, I edged to it, and Nate was all, “Turn here!” which I took to mean turn NOW, and I did, nearly getting rear ended by someone who was in that damn blindspot! Oh my goodness, I about had a breakdown. The other driver was understandably pissed, and I was freaked out, and Nate was upset. I was a wreck, and told Nate to just get me close to the gardens and I would find parking and stop once and for all. Well, for some reason, we just got further and further from the gardens, but I didn’t care, I just found a pay lot and took it. I’d had it. I was a wreck, and I was absolutely furious with myself for my incompetence. In case you didn’t know, I hate driving. And backasswards Australian driving is even worse. Nate’s comical confusion of the wipers and the turn signal could be dealt with, but at least he didn’t almost kill us.

So we got out of the car, and I was shaking and angry, starting to wonder why we were crazy enough to rent a car here at all, and thinking maybe we’d made a mistake. Maybe we should just return the car and spend three weeks in Melbourne. Ugh. I already didn’t like Melbourne. Why would we stay here for three weeks?! What a start to our trip! Anyway, we started our walk to the botanic gardens. It was windy and I kept getting dust in my eyes. I was probably no fun to be around during this time, but Nate was a good sport about it. (Though I don’t think he wanted me behind the wheel again for a while, and I was more than fine with that.)

Three miles later, we found ourselves at the gates to the Melbourne Botanical Gardens, an internationally-renowned gardens with over 10,000 species of plant. Situated amongst several adjacent parks, the Gardens are free to the public, and a perfect place to just kick back and enjoy nature. We hiked around, enjoying unusual Australian flora and being serenaded by a chorus of native birds. Magpies and ravens were abundant and a pleasant reminder of my days as a student in Perth. While the ravens look much like ours, they have a strange, almost catlike cry, and I always used to say they have an Australian accent. There were a number of birds we only heard as they screeched from the trees, but we were excited to catch a glimpse of a few cockatoos and galahs on our rounds.

The gardens seemed to go on forever, offering some hills to climb with astounding views and quiet forested walks. We enjoyed visiting every little section we could find, but I’m sure we overlooked a lot. Then we headed over to the veterans memorial, which was also quite large. It had an eternal flame, a large mausoleum, and a terrific lookout from above. A small museum featured items from wars past, and discussed the involvement of Australia in military conflict throughout the years. It was quite fascinating and a nice addition to our garden tour.

Once we were done exploring the parks, we started our trek back to the car. We were glad to see that our hostel was more or less on the way, so we stopped there to check in. Nate booked us accommodations at the Hotel Claremont. For a hostel, this was pretty pricey, but it was about the best deal in town. An historic old hotel, this was a nice change of pace from the chain motels we’re used to in our travels. Our room was pretty cramped, though – we had bunk beds and a small table, and that was it! The unsealed windows were cold, our floor was loud, and we had to share a bathroom across the hall with the rest of the floor. Still, we had internet and a place to stop, so we didn’t mind too much.

Once we’d checked in, we headed back to the car and attempted to find parking nearby. Luckily, since it was the weekend, we had an entire street of free parking less than a block away. So we parked our car and decided not to drive anymore today. Thank goodness! We’d considered catching a bus down to Luna Park to ride the rides, but both of us were too exhausted after the long flight and other ordeals. I don’t think we even went out to eat that night. We were just glad to stop at last!

Long Hiatus II

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted here...I should get back on track. BUT....I finally am most of the way through my Australia adventure, so I'll post bits and pieces in manageable increments. I've enjoyed reliving it through writing - I hope you can experience it with me!