We landed, walked to immigration (which was expedited since we had applied for our visas online) and I was able to walk through. However, Jon's passport wouldn't approve his picture (since he doesn't look like his picture anymore without a beard) and so he had to speak to an agent. Who then stamped his passport. Annddd yet mine didn't get stamped! AT ALL!
I honestly can't even tell you how upset I was. I literally pride myself on the stamps in my passport. The fact that I'm missing one from visiting an entire continent is KILLING ME. I told Jon he's not allowed to joke about it at all. In fact, no one is. I'm super upset about this. Seriously. Don't tempt me. Until I get an Australia stamp in my passport nobody better say a word...But seriously.
After going through customs we walked outside to meet our new Australian friend, Ash, who had so wonderfully agreed to pick us up at the airport at this ungodly hour! We drove from there to our adorable AirBnb in Port Melbourne and were met by our host, Suzie, at around 6:15 am. After saying hello, we promptly fell asleep for the next few hours before waking up for our adventure on the Great Ocean Road!
Ash picked us up again at 10:15 and we headed to the city center to pick up 2 other couchsurfers who were coming with us on our journey - Paula, a nurse from Bogota, Colombia (although currently a resident of Brisbane) and Virginia, a 19 year old soon-to-be university student from San Marino (the little country inside Italy).
As we were leaving the city we came across a protest happening at the Art Museum of Melbourne. Two women were climbing to the top of the building, which looks like the Eiffel Tower, to protest the government's response to the current refugee crisis. The government is currently trying to kick out many women and children refugees who have reached Australia illegally, while many citizens want to allow them to stay - hence the protest.
From there we set out for the Great Ocean Road, a huge road which stretches from about an hour west of Melbourne for hundreds of miles towards the west coast. The weather was less than ideal, raining on and off throughout the morning...and getting worse and worse throughout the day. While we'd been hoping for a fun beach day, it wasn't quite the 90 degree weather we'd been expecting. Instead it was rather chilly!
Along the way, we stopped at a bunch of different places including: the entrance to the Great Ocean Road...
Ash said that this place just cropped within the past few months. What started as a few small piles of well placed rocks has become a coastline FILLED with beautiful rock piles:
It's really awesome to see all the rocks piled up like that, especially considering it was created so organically.
From there we hopped back in the car and headed to Otway National Park where we explored the jungle terrain:
Right outside of the forest we also got to see our first glimpse of wild Koalas!
While we had been driving, we passed through a LOT of burnt areas. A huge brush fire, started by lightning, came through about a month ago that spread along the Great Ocean Road, wiping out TONS of fauna and threatening many people and homes. Fortunately, everyone had been evacuated and no one was hurt, but the fire did leave a lot of destruction in its wake:
After the 12 Apostles we made our way back to the city. Jon and I absolutely passed out on the way back (we had been napping here and there on our drive out but the way back we were out like lights...). When we reached the city, Ash dropped us off at one of the major tram stops in the city and Paula helped direct us to where we needed to be to get back to our AirBnb. After a quick dinner stop at basically the Australian version of Chipotle (Mad Mex) we made our way back to our AirBnb. SOMEHOW we managed to reach Suzie and Peter's place (despite the directions being "walk to our street from the tram") without a map. Huzzah!
Overall, despite our sheer exhaustion, we're glad we were able to go to the Great Ocean Road today. It was a SUPER long day, but it was actually the perfect activity for a rainy Melbourne day when we only have 4 days in the city. We got to go to some places we might not have gone otherwise, got to nap periodically throughout the day, met 3 new people from around the world, and felt like we were actually accomplishing something (which DEFINITELY wouldn't have happened if we had just slept in and then tried to go to the city!) Not to mention - with the weather being as awful as it was, it was a beautiful drive, but would have been a terrible day to sitesee on our own. Big win overall :)
Big thanks to Ash, Paula, and Virginia for such a lovely day - hope our paths cross again soon!
Jess' highlight of the day: arriving in Australia and meeting new people :)
Jon's highlight of the day: seeing the Great Ocean Road
No comments:
Post a Comment