Day 10 - The Great Ocean Road and the 12 Apostles

Day 10 - The 12 Apostles
Originally uploaded by photog larry.

day 10 brought us, unfortunately, to our final full day in melbourne. debra was leaving that morning (or so she thought – it was really an afternoon flight) for paris that day, so much of the morning (and the previous night!) was spent repeatedly saying goodbye. :) steve and debra went with us to grab our rental car, which was located in north Melbourne, which I guess you can equate with scarborough….ghetto. we had some trouble finding the hertz place, since the road signs didn't make a whole lot of sense, but eventually, we found it. I grabbed a seat on the right side of the vehicle, and we drove out. it took some getting used to, but eventually, driving on the "wrong side" began to get much easier, though I did find myself drifting lanes at some points, and still looking the wrong way for oncoming traffic.

debra and steve had carefully explained to us how we would be getting to the highway that would lead us to the great ocean road. it seemed easy enough. especially since we needed to follow debra and steve all the way until the end, where there would be a big sign for the freeway which we needed to get on. but my being an idiot, I was unable to follow instructions, and we found ourselves on a side road. we drove around for a bit, and I then realized, that my phone was out of juice. greeeaaattt. heading out to a random place, driving on the wrong side of the road, with no method of communication if we got lost. hmmm…. so we panicked and turned around, and headed for home, to get my phone. somehow, we ended up behind debra and steve again, as they had been circling the area, wondering if we were ever going to come back to the place where we took the wrong turn, and we headed back with them to the apartment. we grabbed our phone, said a final goodbye to debra, and headed back for the highway, this time, actually getting on it.

the ocean road route was as expected. a beautiful drive along the coastline, with some stops along the way - surfing action at Bells Beach and in angelsey, to visit the local golf club, on which you can golf with the wild kangaroos that roam the fairway and interfere with your putts.
the rest of the drive was a race with the sun to the final stop – the 12 apostles. the 12 apostles are some rock structures that stick out of the water, formally part of the mainland, but turned into statues from the erosion. there are actually only about 8 of them left now, but still a nice site. they tend to get a lot of tourists, based solely on the location on the raod, as well as the name. Linda told me that there are similar rocks in new brunswick, that don't get nearly the recognition. perhaps its because they named them the flowerpot rocks. I'm sure if they called the rocks the pillars of God or something, that they would be swimming with tourists….

at any rate, we did get there before the sun set, and spent about 3 hours there, taking pictures, and waiting for the sun to set. finally finished with picture taking, bored and hungry, we got back in the car, now realizing that we had a few choices – attempt to head into some small town to get some food, or try to get back home at a reasonable time and eat something fast, and then PACK to leave the next day. realizing that we were still far off from completing our packing, we thought best to go home.

we decided to take a back road towards the inland highway, rather than taking the ocean road back again, as it would save a bit of time, and would be far less winding. so we set out on one of the county backroads, and drove, for what seemed like hours, in the dark, with no traffic behind us or in front of us. we did our best to stay on the prescribed roads, but at times, it was a bit confusing, due to the lack of signage, as well as a poor map. but we lucked out and had a tour bus pass us, and, figuring that it was heading back to the city, began to follow it. it helped us navigate to the highway we needed to get to, and the rest of the drive was a breeze. have no idea what we would have done if we had gotten lost (as my phone that we went back for earlier in the day, ran out of juice at midday).

we got back into the city, and dropped off at the casino, where I wanted to get my souvenir players card. Linda waited in the car in a hotel drop off area across the road, to avoid parking costs, while I went inside. I registered, got my card, and the guy told me that the card had a $5 credit on it….the devil inside my head wanted to see if I could quickly double it up, and I actually went to a slot machine just to see if it was there…couldn't figure it out in 30 seconds, so I left, knowing that Linda was waiting outside.

during this time, the doorman at the hotel had come out and already had told Linda that she couldn't park there, and came by again, just as I got back to the car. but I got in the car, we drove off, and that was the end of it. we headed back home, and began a long night of packing, and talking with steve, who likely was somewhat concerned of our late arrival back at the house. oops. sorry dad, we should have called. :)

Day 9 - The Yarra Valley

Day 9 - Yering Station Fortified Shiraz
Originally uploaded by photog larry.

day 9 was australia day. the day the brits invaded australia, and beat up on the aboriginals. similar to Canada day. at any rate, it was a national holiday, and allowed us to head out to the yarra valley with debra, steve, and mr ian moore. ian rented a car, and debra drove as well, so the boys decided to give debs and Linda a chance for some heart to heart time on the drive up. the valley seemed somewhat dark in areas, and we were told that it was due to some bush fires in the area. we started to wonder if the wine would smell like smoke for the 2005 season. our first stop was de bortoli winery, where I had my first wine sampling session. we wanted to buy a few bottles, but held back, thinking that we still had a full day ahead, and not really sure whether we wanted to carry bottles around for the rest of the trip. so we ended up buying one bottle of merlot sangiovese that we liked. ian, meanwhile, stocked his car up, as expected…

next stop was lunch at yering station winery. the restaurant looked great, with some nice views of the valley, and the food was decent. afterwards, we headed into the cellar for some more tasting, topping off our lunch with a nice fortified shiraz, that we ended up buying. after this, it was time for debra and steve to take their leave, since debra had to get back to the city for her top secret commonwealth games rehersal.

we decided at this point, instead of doing more wineries, to check out the healesville sanctuary, since we still weren’t sure if we were going to head to a zoo later on. we got there, and it was virtually empty, since the weather was in the high 30’s (again). nonetheless, we headed into the sanctuary, and saw pretty much everything we needed to see, in terms of wildlife! Photos photos photos! Dingos! Lizards! Wombats! Wallabies! Echidnas! KANGAROOS! Ian even got to get a glimpse of the elusive Platypus for the first time! oh…and oh yes….Koalas. Them lazy lazy Koalas. Sleeping 23 hrs of the day, and eating for the other hour. Sounds like a life….

Heading back to the city, we decided on dinner at an Italian restaurant in Carleton. Then attempted to get to the fireworks in Southgate. However, by the time we got there, either they were finished, or the fire ban in the city precluded any fireworks. We still don’t really know whether there were actual fireworks or not. Oh well, who cares, we saw koalas!

Day 8 - Shopping, the Crown and the Market

Day 8 - Queen Victoria Market
Originally uploaded by photog larry.

wow…really don’t feel like doing any work today!
day 8 brought us back to the city. we ate at a small café that was nothing special. I had a calzone that was pretty good, and Linda had a crappy wrap. so our record for choosing our own restaurants remained pitiful. we did some basic window shopping, and then Linda headed over to D. to go and meet up with her colleague. I headed over to the crown casino, in search of souvenirs and perhaps a quick game.

the crown is pegged as the “largest casino in the southern hemisphere”. I have no basis for refuting this claim, since this is my first time in the southern, but I guess it was pretty big. I walked through the many stores, and whined about the high prices of the decks of cards that I eventually still ended up buying, and then headed down to the poker room, just to see what was up. I did end up sitting down for a few minutes, with no real significant result, but a funnier story was the first pot that I won while sitting. I just took down a fairly decent pot and traditionally, I tip the dealer $1 when I win a pot. unfortunately, the chip denominations that I had in my stack were all $2 chips. So I asked the dealer to break the $2 for me. he gave me a funny look when I asked him, but still ended up doing it. I then flipped him $1 and he then understood why I had asked him for change. he politely laughed and told me they were not allowed to accept tips at the table. This seemed very surprising to me, given that every casino I’ve ever been to thrives on tips from its customers to keep its employees happy. I guess this is consistent with the no tipping policy at restaurants and for service in Australia though. still strange though.

I ended up playing with some South Africans and struck up a short conversation with them. they asked me whether I was Canadian, and I told him yes! I was surprised that they would know that I was Canadian. But then he told me it was a default answer when they talk to anyone with a North American accent. He explained to me that Americans don’t care if you call them Canadian, but Canadians get offended if you call them Americans. Interesting observations. I think it’s true.

After the short trip to the casino, I went back to meet Linda, and we headed to the Melbourne night market. It was a pretty decent market, by market standards. Lots of food kiosks, and some unique souvenirs, as well as the usual littering of crappy gifts. And I’m pretty sure everyone at that market was a tourist, but that’s ok, it was still a good experience.

Day 7 - Arthurs Seat and Phillip Island

Day 7 - Phillip Island
Originally uploaded by photog larry.

debra took the day off today to spend with us. we had decided that tonight was going to be penguin parade night at phillip island, so we figured that we would take a drive up around phillip bay towards the mornington peninsula.

we started off in st. Kilda and had a gigantic breakfast at a nice little restaurant in the area. st Kilda looks like a pretty nice place, and is filled with restaurants and backpacker joints as well, so it is a fairly common tourist area. as a result, debra told us a story about how, when she was deciding where to live, and mentioned st. Kilda, someone had warned her that only the “dredges of society” lived in st. Kilda. clearly, there is some sort of stigma attached to the place to the locals.

so we drove down the coast, stopping for pictures in a scenic location, and continued on to a place called arthur’s seat. we stopped, and considered talking the ski lift up the hill to the scenic viewpoint, and eventually decided against it, due to time constraints, and the fact that it just didn’t seem worth it (the cheap accountants that we are). Good choice though, as we probably drove for another 5 minutes up the hill, to the top, where the ski lift ended. we took a few pictures, not including the crappy “arthurs seat”, which wasn’t even really worth a digital shot, and had some crappy coffee from the crappy restaurant with crappy service (we had to get our coffee from the BACK of the restaurant, where the dumpsters were – maybe its because we are “coloureds” ). after this, it was a race back to Melbourne.

Linda and I hastily grabbed our stuff together, got to the pick up location, grabbed some sandwiches for the road, and onto the bus. great. made it! then we realized that we had taken my jacket out of our day bag. big mistake. we had been warned of the cold weather on the island. looks like I’d have to either suck it up in the cold, or buy some crappy gift shop jacket when we got there. the ride there was essentially the same ride that we took in the afternoon, along the same road. we pretty much slept through the whole thing, apart from the tour bus driver rambling on and on about nothing. at one point, he rambled on and on for 5 minutes about Melbourne traffic.

we got there, and took the back roads into towards the penguin viewing area, and saw some great scenery, and even a wallaby or two! stepping off the bus for a quick shot, we quickly realized just how cold it would be once it got dark. looks like I would definitely have to buy that jacket!

though we were warned about the “no photos” policy at the penguin parade, we were still disappointed. no flash photography would have been OK with me, but no photography at all was pretty disappointing. of course, they did have a wide array of souvenir postcards for purchase, as well as some high quality photos that they had taken. GRRR. so we ended up buying a “glow in the dark” blanket that doesn’t glow in the dark, and that kept me relatively warm during the penguin parade.

a quick overview of the penguin parade for those of you who don’t know. penguins reside in some of the southern waters, and so, this is the only place where this “parade” occurs in Australia. basically, the penguins come out of the4 water after sun down, to head to their burrows for the night, and to feed their young, who have been waiting all day for them to come back. so they come onto the beach, try to figure out if there are any predators, and it its safe, make a dash for their burrows. because penguins aren’t exactly fast on their feet, they rely on strength in numbers. so you won’t see too many penguins running off onto the beach by themselves. in fact, if one penguin that gets to the beach gets scared and makes a dash back for the ocean, the rest of them follow!

I do have to say, that it was worth the price of admission, given hat you really cant see something like this in too many places in the world, and the fact that they let you get right up to the penguins (without completely disturbing their patterns)..just still disappointed in the no pictures thing.

we spent most of our time observing two penguins, whom we nicknamed pinky and the brain. these two were some of the first to leave the water and head for the beach, but for some odd reason, part way through their journey, they must have gotten lost or scared. because they just kind of stood around near one of the platforms we were on, looking around, seemingly confused. we would walk away for a bit, and then go back to them, and they would still be there. stupid penguins…that’s how you get yourself killed! anyways, we spent so much time watching the penguins, that we actually had to run for our bus, which was scheduled to leave at 10:30 SHARP. the driver was doing a final headcount when we got there, and were definitely “the last team to arrive”….

we passed out on the drive home from another day well spent.

Day 6 - A day in the city and the Aussie Open at night

Day 6 - Hingis
Originally uploaded by photog larry.

we decided to spend the day in the city and explore for a bit, given that we had the tennis to go to at night. we headed to the carlton gardens, where we had a look around, took some pictures in the cool park with the kids. why don’t we have cool parks like this in Toronto?

we continued to walk into the downtown area, where Linda was going to try to meet up with a partner from work who had moved to Melbourne. had some trouble finding the place, since the map that we had gotten off the internet indicated the building was between the wrong streets! anyways, we finally found it, and Linda attempted to get some time with the partner. but she couldn’t meet that day because of some meetings. oh well.

on a side note, Linda had borrowed some shoes from debra, given that she didn’t want to wear her stinky flip flops into a partners office, and she hadn’t brought any dress shoes with her to OZ. good choice. at any rate, once it was clear that she wouldn’t be meeting up, the heels came flying off, and the stinky diesels back on.

so it was around lunch time now, and we decided to try to grab some food, before doing some shopping. we stumbled upon a string of Vietnamese restaurants along swanston street and decided to check out the local pho scene. the difficulty was in choosing which restaurant to go for. I noticed that one of the restaurants had some ghetto pictures on the wall, and that the chopsticks and utensils were in little canisters on the table. I thought to myself, a true sign of authenticity – self serve utensils. so we hopped in and grabbed a table. suffice it to say, that my theory was thoroughly squashed. the pho was not so good, and it was slllloooooowwww service (very unlike any authentic asian restaurant at peak lunch times). so we left very unsatisfied with our meal.

we headed into Chinatown, just to check it out. I wheeled and dealed for a cell phone case for my phone, and we stumbled upon a food court in one of the alleyways…PACKED with Chinese people…..damn….that’s authenticity…..oh well, we missed out. we continued on our way and headed for the shopping arcades, on a mission to get me some sunglasses. went into sunglass hut, and as per usual, the pricess were high. but they had some styles that I liked…kept that in mind as we went into one of the local department stores. I found a bunch of mid range sunnies. so the dilemma began, on whether to splurge on the expensive but good pair, or the half decent, cheaper, but not really cheap pair. complicating this matter was the fact that I still had yet to know whether I had actually LOST my sunglasses in the airport, or whether I had just left them at home. so I decided eventually on the cheaper pair. Subsequently, I found these to be even cheaper (in quality) than expected, and they began to take the brunt of my abuse – being sat on and dropped numerous times. Being at home now, I can also confirm that I have indeed lost my good pair of sunglasses. more expense leakage….

after this, we took the free city tram home, to get ready for the tennis.

so we got to the tennis, and found out that the matches that we would be watching in rod laver would be hingis versus stosur (an Australian), and after that, tommy haas versus roger federer. some pretty marquee match ups, considering it was still only Monday of the second week of the tournament. given my experience at the US Open, where my seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium were so high that I could barely see the specs of the players, I expected our back row seats at rod laver to be even worse. but I was pleasantly surprised when we sat down, that our seats were not all that far out, and that the stadium was fairly small. obviously, the crowd was pretty boisterous in their support of the Australian. but I’ve always liked hingis, since she is small and doesn’t play a power game like the other “big boneded” girls…so when hingis started mashing the Australian in the first set, I’d cheer, along with a few boisterous swiss fans in the crowd. near the end of the first set, with the hingis up 2 breaks, and cruising through the match, I decided to yell out during a break in the action “Cmon Martina, FINISH HER!” (even though it was only the first set!), which was met with a silenced by some ohhhs , ahhhs, and hissing…..sweet!…..the swiss guy in front of me even smiled and laughed.

At any rate, this may have even pumped up the Australian a little bit, as she made a match of it before succumbing in straight sets to martina.

another strange thing about sitting at the top of the stadium was that we had some box seats directly behind us. they appeared to be the standard boxes, a few couches, some TV’s, and a kitchen. so the box behind us had a concierge lady serving them dinner, which is fine and great. good for them. but THEN, she starts washing the dishes in the sink…I’m here, trying to watch tennis, where the crowds are silent out of respect for the sport, and this lady is clink clanking in the back with the plates and forks….anyways, its not a complaint, but I found it very odd. perhaps they should take the dishes to the back, or wait for a suitable point at which to wash the dishes, rather than doing it not only in front of the box seat holders whom they are servicing, but also everyone else in the stadium!

then came the federer match, and you could sense the excitement in the air. tommy haas is always a crowd favourite, and federer is already the best player in his era (yes, even better than hairy Sampras). so we sat and watched a very decent match, with some great shots by both players. as the match progressed, since it was monday, many patrons started to head to the exits, having watched enough, and needing to get to work the next day. I guess I can’t really blame them. so you could start to see patches develop, especially in the lower bowl area….my eyes started to light up as I tried to find a place where we could sneak down. security didn’t seem too tight, so it didn’t seem like it would be an issue. eventually, we did head down, and got some great seats, behind the baseline in the lower bowl. unfortunately for us, we happened to be in a area where there was some sort of security issue, and there were some security people going back and forth, whispering to each o0ther, and then talking into their hidden microphones. Linda and I did our best to look inconspicuous, but we were fairly stressed out about getting booted fromt he seats, so it was dificult to relax and watch the match or take pictures...just kept looking at the security guys... eventually, it turned out that they were giving the boot to some people inn front of us who had obviously received a complaint of some sort. they didn’t seem to be causing any sort of disruption, but something must have happened before we got there.

anyways, the tennis was fantastic, and I certainly left, feeling that, even though the trip was not even 1/3 over, that I had gotten my money’s worth, and had made the right decision in making sure that I saw the aussie open, depite the warnings of it being a bad time to go to Australia (due the the heat in some areas, and the rain in others).