Sea Kayaking

Kay and I spent a couple of days in Apollo Bay, along the Great Ocean Road. We found a nice hotel with free Internet and laundry service - woohoo! The weather was a bit stormy but we didn't let that deter our fun. For the entire trip I have been wanting to go sea kayaking. We attempted sea kayaking in Puget Sound two years ago but it didn't turn out so well, so we were hoping for better luck this time around.



Maybe we should just give up on sea kayaking!

Koala Search

While eating dinner in Lorne, Kay heard about a place in the nearby national forest where we might be able to see some Koalas. These would be out in the wild and they said we had a pretty good chance of seeing them if we looked hard. So we drove about 5 kilometers from Lorne back into the dense forest and went for a walk along a trail in the forest.



After our luck at finding Koalas, we wanted to search for something a bit more dangerous and exciting - the feared Black Mamba snake!

Great Ocean Road

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Great Ocean Road from Melbourne to Adelaide is a stunning drive for motorcyclists, and pretty darn good for cars. It winds along the coast for several hundred miles, in and out of small coastal villages, along beachs, around steep cliffs, and always with a stunning view of the ocean.


We rode the ferry from Sorento to Queenscliff, bypassing Melbourne on our way to the Great Ocean Road.




A flat tire did not slow us down much.



We stayed in a nice bed and breakfast owned by this nice German lady named Charlotte who lived in Ocean Grove.



We wanted to stay in Queenscliff and go on a "Jazz Train". This is where they have an old steam engine locomotive pulling 4 cars of people, about 200 people. They serve you a nice meal first at the station, then they have a different jazz band in each railroad car. The train stops periodically and you swap cars to hear another band. You get a night of great food, drinking and listening to music while traveling on an old steam train. We thought that would be totally cool. So did everyone else - it was sold out for 3 weeks in advance! This would be a great idea for some place like Guthrie, Oklahoma.

The next day we made it to Lorne, a wonderful small town along the Great Ocean Road with a protected beach, cool shops and a good hotel room. We ended up spending 3 nights in Lorne just hanging on the beach, working on my suntan, hiking in the woods, strolling along the beach, and just having fun.

We worked on our tans in Lorne. Kay was able to find us matching swimsuits that looked like the Australian flag. As you can see, my suntan is a work in progress.



We stopped to hang out at a beach in Anglesea, where I fed some seagulls



Kay was able to attract way cooler birds than I was. She fed about a dozen cockatiels from our hotel room in Lorne.



There were seafood shops in every little town and village along the coast, most with open doors and windows.



You could just walk in and buy fresh seafood and have them cook it for you while you wait.



Thank goodness for McDonalds or we might have had even LESS access to the Internet. I was quite amazed at how hard it was to find Internet access of any kind in Australia.



The vehicles in Australia are much smaller than in America. We saw lots of Toyota Land Cruisers like this. Even the work trucks and delivery trucks were small to fit on the tight roads.



We saw literally dozens of these small campers from a company called www.wickedcampers.com. It seemed young families or young adults could rent these used, brightly colored vehicles fairly cheap and go on an extended vacation.

Motorcycling in Australia

After our day on Phillip Island, we traveled across the south of Melborne and took the ferry across the bay to Queenscliff. Our goal was to drive the Great Ocean Road, which we told was well worth the trip. And they were right. My only disappointment is I was not on a motorcycle. This road winds and twists its way along the ocean, kind of like Highway 23 "The Pig Trail" in Arkansas, but much longer and MUCH more scenic. And where you see any great winding road, you will see lots of motorcyclists. Australia must have a helmet law because EVERYONE wears a helmet, and interesting thing, most everyone wears full riding gear. Nice.

Motorcycles parked at a cafe in Lorne along the Great Ocean Road.



Lots of shops on Phillip Island had motorcycling pictures, jerseys, clothing, etc.




This restaurant in Lornes on the Great Ocean Road attracted dozens of bikers each Sunday morning.



The Great Ocean Road east of Melbourne is a motorcycling mecca. Hundreds of miles of tight, twisty roads with only moderate traffic, no police, and stunning scenery.