The Great Ocean Road, Part 2

LORNE, THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD, VICTORIA - 21st December 2009

Continuing from where I left off...

DAY 2

Free Sunday parking in Geelong expires at 9am on Monday morning, so I had to be up and out of the Nash bright and early which, all in all, worked out quite well as I headed south-east to the Surf Coast (as the stretch from the Bellarine Peninsula down to Cape Otway is known). The Great Ocean Road begins shortly after the seaside town of Torquay, which is home to some hefty waves and hundreds of surfers, but otherwise not a great deal for someone working on a budget - general consensus is that it's a bit of a pretty boys' town. However, the town's war memorial garden a top of a protruding section of rock, aptly named "Point Danger", provides a nice view looking both ways up and down the coast (the former seen in the photo below).


Heading out from Torquay puts you onto the Great Ocean Road (or "GOR"), although you don't see much of what the hype is about for a long way yet - it's about 40km from Torquay to the next town, Anglesea, and most of it is somewhat inland cutting through sections of the Great Otway National Park. Anglesea itself is a quiet little town, again with a beach full of boogie-boarders, but its most famous tourist attraction is almost certainly its golf course at the top of the town - in amongst the fareways live an army of kangaroos that hop around without a care in the world as golfers smack balls around them. Several tourist information centres had described it as being a place where you're guaranteed to see 'roos in the wild, and the LPG confidently declares that "there's always a posse of them along the Golf Links Road". It was typical, therefore, that even after driving around the course for about half an hour, I didn't see a single one. Disappointing.

As you continue further down the coast, you pass Bells Beach, renouned as having the best surf almost anywhere in Australia, and soon arrive at Airey's Inlet - a tiny little village with a population of 1000 that is home to one of the many big lighthouses that mark the major indented heads along the GOR's coastal route - which was historically the shipwreck capital of the British Empire. With ships going down like high catches to Adam Dowson, with the frequency of a Jamie Nimmo forward defensive, every major indented head along the whole southern coast was armed with a lighthouse that could project light 7km out to sea by the end of the 19th century. But back in the present, I was in need of a sharp bit of coffee, I stopped off at a cosy little family run cafe next to the lighthouse and ended up stuck in a conversation with an old Aussie chap who, while perfectly friendly, was pretty damn deaf and responding to most things by shouting "WHART?" at the top of his voice. And, being a man of a different generation, he had some fairly amusing views on the world, British culture (big fan), Australian culture (not a fan), and various other issues spanning the fallacy of global warming and state of Australian cricket.


Anyway, with nowhere booked for tonight either, I was quite keen on getting down to Lorne, which most people had told me was the place to crash, and getting somewhere sorted. As well as including the famous "Great Ocean Road" sign suitable posed above, the section from Airey's Inlet to Lorne is where the GOR begins to unveil its full flamboyant glory, running along the water's edge, rising and falling as it scales the geological barriers in its path, diving in and out of crumbling limestone cliff faces; all the while with the turquoise blue Southern Ocean over to you left, lapping the sands of the countless beaches along the way. Amazing driving conditions, and on top of that it turned out things really aren't as rammed - at least at my end of the market - as some people made out - first hostel I went to had plenty(ish) of space so it was happy days for me. Lorne is a beautiful little town, with a pier out to the sea overlooking the town's long stretch of beach. I had a pre-lunch swim in the sea, but then post-lunch decided to make the most of having a car at my disposal on an amazing stretch of road and cruised down to Apollo Bay - the next major town, a further 45km down the GOR.

I reached Apollo Bay at about 3.45pm - it would have been a lot sooner had I not been stuck for 39 of the 45 kilometres behind a nut who refused to make use of any of the 50 or so lay-bys provided with the explicit signposted orders: "Slow vehicles pull over in turnouts. Please consider vehicles behind you". This plonker had no consideration, and dawdled along a road with an 80km/h speed limit (50mph) at a mindnumbing 40km/h all the way into Apollo Bay where he finally pulled over to park. I'd be downright lying if I tried to claim that a fair few expletives hadn't been uttered in my Tiida, but all was forgotten as I lay out on the white sand in the evening sun, looking out to the beach stretching away for miles to the north west, while to the south-east the boats docked in Apollo Bay Marina idled elegantly, sails rattling in the brisk coastal breeze. After some time I decided to take on the water, which proved to be absolutely freezing, but I ended up out there for a good half an hour after overhearing a familiar Kentish accent - sure enough a couple of sisters from Canterbury were out visiting family for a few weeks and were equally freaked out by the weirdness of floating in the sea on the beach in the late afternoon sunshine 3 days before Christmas. All Brits in Australia seem to have at least this much in common!

Wanting to check out a couple of walking trails around Lorne before the sun set, I made sure I was up and out before 5 o'clock, giving me time to take a brief detour up to Mariners' Lookout, just outside Apollo Bay. Getting to the lookout involves a drive up a quite ridiculously steep section of road - parts must have been approaching 45 degree gradient - to a little below the top of the tallest of several large hills that enclose the Bay into its small coastal enclave. From there it's a 10 minute trek up to the summit, whom which you have a view that can only be described as breathtaking. To the north-west, you have the Great Ocean Road winding its way up, down and around the golden-orange limestone cliffs, stretching out for miles in front of you; to the south-east you have to township of Apollo Bay, its expanse of beach and the Apollo bay peninsula jutting out into the water - though from the height of the viewpoint you can see right over the top of the peninsula out to the ocean on the other side. And just top top off an idyllic scene, a sole horse was up at the top of the hill grazing - him and I alone, looking out into infinity. Naturally, I nabbed a snappy snap:


After spending about 10km on the way back stuck behind a Winnebago (camping van), I got a good half hour of enjoying the open road once Mr. Slow had finally turned left at Kennet River, though I detoured on arrival in Lorne to head up to the steep hills to the top of town, park the car, and trek for 20 minutes or so through Queens Park and its forests of gum trees up to Teddy's Lookout. The lookout offers yet another incredible viewpoint of the GOR winding its way out of Lorne, but here combining the rocky, rugged cliffs with the mouth St. George River, itself rolling down to the coast from the lush green forest inland, and merging with the sea 100 feet below us. I personally think the photo below is pretty good, but it still does scant justice to what was on display in reality.


The sightseeing wasn't over just yet - after descending back down to me car I headed inland further to Erskine Falls - located 8km inland from Lorne within the Great Otway National Park. Completely enclosed by dense forest, you'd never say you're in the same state as the dry, desolate landscapes I'd seen just a week ago up in the bush - the roar of water crashing down 100 feet or was barely visible as you approached it through the forest, so dense was the vegetation. That is not to say it was a puny waterfall - the viewing platform from the top gives you a tidy view right down to the bottom (though fit lads like yours truly who are prepared to climb all the way back up can also work their way right down to the bottom to look back up - and get corny photos like the one below) and gives you a pretty solid appreciation of the potentially behind the simple combination of water and gravity...


What was similar to the bush was the nutter 'roos, one of whom sat on the side of the road watching my car as it approached, and picked that exact moment to jump across the road. Luckily I was slowing down as soon as I saw him (I wanted a photo), so all harm was averted. But you do wonder about the intelligence of some creatures...

Anyway, in terms of all-round enjoyment, this was without doubt one of the best days of my life, and good days tend to begin and end with good food. A nice bit of seafood marinara pasta, loaded with fresh prawns, mussels, scallops and fish saw me nicely settled for dinner, and a rowdy mix of Swiss Germans, Quebecois Canadanians, Queenslanders and various miscellaneous others provided entertainment of sorts over a few beers back at the hostel well into the early hours.


P.S. I've also uploaded a couple of photos to "Part 1"...

Animal Planet

VERMONT, MELBOURNE, VICTORIA - 5th December 2009

My second day in Australia featured a trip to the famous Werribee Open Range Zoo, about half an hour west of central Melbourne. Zoos have really become a penchant of mine - since visiting London Zoo as a kid, I don't think I went to another one till the final afternoon of Pembroke College's infamous "WurstFest 2007" lads' trip to Berlin, when we went to see the world famous baby polar bear, Knut. Since then I've checked out all sorts - this trip alone has featured Bannergatta in Bangalore, the Monkeyland of Matheran, and most lately Underwater World in Singapore's Sentosa Island, the Singapore Night Safari, and Werribee here in Melbourne.

I'll start with the two from Singapore, as I patently forgot to give them anything more than a passing mention before departing Raffles' Island. Underwater Land is basically a giant aquarium on Sentosa Island, which is basically a giant theme park island with various pay-per-use attractions. The only other proper aquarium I've been to is that in London (and that was about 15 years ago), so I don't have much to compare it to, but as you'd expect from Singapore, it was really well done and featured all sorts of cool creatures, including the Japanese Spider Crab (see right) - a creature that (for reasons I now forget) reared its overgrown head in countless conversations on our India-Thailand travels last summer.

A cool feature is the underwater tunnel, which allows you to walk around completely submersed in water, and thus have fish of various levels of deadliness circling around you as you click photos. At certain times you really feel like you're just underwater with them - you'll be innocently standing there staring into the abyss when out of nowhere a swarm of fish bomb past you in an almighty rush to God know's where...

After checking a few more of Sentosa's sights (including an awesome downhill go-cart-come-toboggan track), we headed back to town with the plan of hitting the Night Safari.

The night zoo is located right in the middle of Singapore's city-state, which means that its as close to the middle of nowhere as is possible on an island that's only about 40km across. With word on the street saying that getting there by public transport would be something of a mission, Neha and I were lucky to get involved with an organised trip originating from her hostel - for S$40 we got minibus transfer from Little India to the zoo and back, entrance to the park (normally $25) and a safari bus ticket (normally $10). Great deal all round. You even get a cool "Animals of the Night" show thrown in for free, and get to see a bunch of cool creatures (wolves, sloths, racoons, pythons etc.) doing various tricks with their trainers.

In the grand scheme of things, it's basically the same as your average zoo - big area with various enclosures for various animals, with a train/tram/bus running along a set route through the various areas. However, the presence of darkness adds a quality to the experience that makes it unique beyond anything else I'd seen - with random rustling and growling among the overgrowth around you, every step you take is punctuated with sense of foreboding about what might be lurking around the corner, behind you, or indeed above you. Whereas, in a normal zoo, animals are essentially presented to the punters; the dark of the night, combined with walking trails that are flanked with vegetation of a density more akin to jungle than zoo, makes the Night Safari a whole different kettle of fish.

The highlight came somewhere in the depths of the jungle-zoo after we "hopped off" the safari bus to see some cats. Randomly walking up a side path, we found ourselves on a slightly raised platform overlooking a bit of a clearing. Just as we were wondering what we were looking at, leaves rustled and the silhouette of a huge mane danced over the rocky crest. Sure enough, out strutted the King of the Beasts, and before we could grab our cameras we unleashed the most deafening roar you'll ever hear in nature. You don't take photos, you don't take videos, you just stand in the stunned silence of admiration and, imagining being face-to-face with that sort of beastly fury, perhaps wet yourself a little.

But while Singapore Zoo had the novelty of the night, Werribee extracted novelty from the day. The Lonely Planet guide describes Australia as "the closest thing to an alien planet on Earth" - a reference to Australia's indigenous flora and fauna that have developed from its unique isolation from the rest of the global landmass. As recently as 15,000 years ago, creatures could freely walk across the entirety of what is now Eurasia, Africa and the Americas; it has been some 100 million years since you could walk to Australia.

It was natural, therefore, that we immediately gravitated to Werribee's Australian enclosure - a mass of native Australian wetland inhabited by natives of the island, from kangaroos to a multitude of emus to wombats and various birds. But this enclosure was unlike anything I've seen in any other zoo - the path through the enclosure had no fencing, no separation, no nothing. You were simply walking around in the midst of the animals. You can somewhat get an idea of the surreality of this setup in the first of the photos below - we were walking down the path and along marched a few emus merrily on their way. It's no nonsense zoology.

Seeing the kangaroos was damn exciting for me - the only shame was that they were rather lazy in the midday sun so just sat around under the trees. Nevertheless, we went from the Aussie enclosure onto Werribee's safari bus, which took us through American, Asian and the massive African enclosures, coming up close and personal with a whole host of beasts living it up in huge open grasslands. My personal favourite were the scimitar-horned oryx (see right), a type of antelope that is now extinct in the wild (due to being hunted for its horns). I don't really have a fancy reason for liking them - the rationale is pretty simple - they look damn cool.

But the real highlight came after close-ups with giraffes, rhinos, zebras and Harry the Hippo (and an army of excitable meercats running around like nutters). It came at 2.30pm, with the feeding of the lions. The setup at Werribee is awesome - there's a Land Rover Jeep parked on the edge of the lions' enclosure, with glass put up in line with its steering wheel (so that the bonnet is fully exposed to the lions). The lions' meat is plonked down on the bonnet of the vehicle, and the assembled spectators are treated to something that looks a little like this:

There are a couple of lions - brothers of the same litter (see below) - along with a lioness in the enclosure, and hot word is that the lionness is pregnant. If so, expect international headlines approximately next February...