Deb and Reid's Holidays

Great Ocean Road II

Over Australia Day weekend Reid and I headed down the Great Ocean Road. Here are a few snap shots from the trip

Traffic was pretty heavy on the way down so we stopped a plenty of lookouts to stretch our legs

We also visited the Otway Fly. I have been there before with Mum and Dad but it was pouring with rain and that created quite a different atmosphere - this time the trees didn't seem to capture my attention quite the same

We completed one section of the Great Ocean Walk. I was prepared for an all day adventure - however we completed the return trip in a little over two and a half hours.

Here we are at the car park

The view at the start of the walk was pretty good (Great Ocean-y)

But most of the time it was just scrub

and very windy!

Here we are at the end of the walk

We visited the 12 Apostles and Thunder Cave - again the weather was very calm so not quite as exciting as the last trip

May 2006

January 2007

but spectacular nonetheless

and of course it's not a trip in Oz without creepy crawlies

We stayed at a pretty daggy motel in Port Campbell. It had a kettle and toaster - but no cutlery, so if we hadn't bought our own we'd have had trouble buttering our toast!! And the jug was too big to fit under the tap in the sink so we had to fill it up in the bath!! Funny!

It was a nice trip - great to get out and see more of Australia

West Coast - NZ

Reid and I spent two weeks in NZ over xmas.
I spent the first week travelling down the West Coast of the South Island with Mum and Dad - which was absolutely spectacular - here's a quick summary:

Green as far as the eye can see - green hills, green fields, green rivers (in contrast to Australia which is brown/red as far as the eye can see). For New Zealand, 2006 was the year of rain, flooding, and landslides - this TVNZ news article summarises the year of bad weather in NZ over the past year.

weatherboard homes - esp in lime green

blue and yellow letter boxes - EVERYONE has one!

it was a very quiet trip, with lots of stops to take in the view - here are a few snap shots:

A few people pics

A little local humour

Local tourism promotion

Local wildlife

Mt Cook (Aoraki) & Tasman

Sunrise at Fox

Fox Glacier

Punakaiki (Pancake Rocks)

Lake Paringa

The End of the Road - Jackson Bay

The Great Southern Touring Route

Over 8 days Mum, Dad, Grandma, Reid and I travelled from Melbourne down the Great Ocean Road, through to the Grampians and back to Melbourne.

Now the weather is renowned for being unpredictable in Melbourne, but after holidaying in here in May 2004 with beautiful weather my Mum and Dad had no qualms returning to Melbourne at the same time this year. It is a big ask of someone from far south Dunedin to travel in Australia in the height of summer with the risk that the mercury could top 30 degrees. Unfortunately, we were lucky if the temperature reached 15 degrees during the entire trip, and it did rain on most days.

That said if the weather had been beautiful and calm we would never have had some of the fantastic experiences we did. The highlight of the trip would have to be watching the tide come in at Loch Ard Gorge (particularly at Thunder Cave) – along the coast of the Great Ocean Road. The Loch Ard sunk just off the coast of Port Campbell and was Australia’s worst maritime disaster, 54 of the 52 people on board the ship drowned. The coastline around the 12 Apostles is very fragile and is said to erode at a rate of 2cm per year, I think we would have seen a good proportion of this erosion occurring on the day we were there. The sea swells were huge and massive waves were crashing against the cliff face. My best guess is that the cliffs would be at least 50 meters tall, and very regularly a wave would crash into the cliff sending a wall of water well over the height of the cliff. In some of the bays the water was becoming brown as waves washed away layers of the cliff, on one occasion a wave sent water over the cliff top and as water then ran off a stream of brown sludge poured back down into the sea.

Just briefly, other highlights from the trip would have to be

Seeing a koala stop traffic as it wondered out onto and eventually across the road

Feeding the cockatoos at our villa in Apollo Bay

The Otway fly (in pouring rain)

Triplet Falls

The rainforest walk at Maits Rest – which has the biggest (tall and wide) trees I have ever seen, including the Hobbit tree (if you use your imagination you can definitely see a door on the front of this tree AND the tree trunk is hollow!!!! (I peaked inside)

Cape Otway lighthouse (in gale force winds)

The 12 Apostles (where I heard an Asian tourist say “excuse me, mate” in a very board accent – try saying it out load in your best generic Asian accent – sounds hilarious)

The tide coming in at Loch Ard Gorge and eroding the cliffs before our eyes!

An emu stealing a woman’s lunch

Recovery of the Grampians National Park after the January bush fires

Lake Lonsdale – or as it is known to the locals, Lonsdale Paddocks

Walking/climbing/clambering to the top of Mt Zero and watching the rain shower pass over us (the getting wet part was less fun, but unavoidable)

Sunset at Reid Lookout

Having wildlife all around, including kangaroos in the back yard or hopping down the street in front of our villa. Although kangaroos and emus running onto the road in front of the car was quite worrying, but a highlight nonetheless . . . I guess