12 Apostles and the Great Ocean Road

On monday, I borrowed Ryan's car to take a three-day road trip down the Great Ocean Road to the place known as the 12 Apostles.  The 12 Apostles is a naturally-formed area of limestone cliffs and rocks that had been eroded by the sea into really interesting and scenic location.

I set off around 10:30am, just after morning rush hour.  Ryan's car is an old beat up little compact that had more than its share of 'character.'  The car was clearly old; the odometer was broken but got stuck when the car reached 250,000+ Kilometers.  The car squeeked and squeeled, had a tendency for the engine to overheat, and gave me an anxious will-the-engine-actually-start-this-time? kind of feeling when I put the key in the ignition.  But the car worked out perfectly, and was more than I could have asked for.  It made the whole experience all the more interesting.

Ryan's Car

So I hit the road, again getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road.  All my time driving around in New Zealand definitely helped though, and I was able to get the hang of it again within just a few minutes.  The weather wasn't the most cooperative and it drizzled almost the entire way.  So while I didn't get to see a sunny coastline, the fog and drizzle created another unique experience for me which was quite peaceful.  I passed through Geelong and a bit before Lorne (an oceanside town), I reached the famous Great Ocean Road.

It was supposed to be one of the most beautiful ocean drives in the world, and it certainly didn't disappoint.  The drive out was filled with interesting and beautiful ocean scenery.

I passed through Lorne and arrived at Apollo Bay, where I stayed for the night.  I did a bit of exploring, but there wasn't too much going on so I called it a night pretty early.  I awoke at around 6am so that I could make it out to 12 Apostles for sunrise.  I figured that would make everything look even more spectacular.  I hit the snooze button a couple of times so I got a later start than I meant to, but the 90km drive out to the Apostles was gorgeous as the weather turned to give me some sunshine and beautiful morning scenery

I finally reached the 12 Apostles and it too was spectacular (I seem to be running out of adjectives).  It turned out to be a good thing that I wasn't there right as the sun rose because the limestone cliffs would have shrouded some of the rock formations in shadow.  Luckily, I got there right at the perfect time and it made for some amazing scenery.

I drove around the area for a few hours, checking out a few more areas and saw more of these incredible views.

After a few hours wandering the beaches and clifftops, I drove back to Apollo Bay.  I got some lunch, headed down to the beach, and enjoyed my sandwich with a bit of sunshine and an ocean breeze.  It was very relaxing until a flock of seagulls came to start squawking for my bread.  I hate seagulls.

I got back in the car and cruised back along the road, enjoying the scenery again, until I reached Lorne, where I spent my second night.  I had passed through Lorne on my first day and it looked crowded and lively and exciting.  When I got there, however, the whole place was dead.  I went down to the beach, met a few people, and hung out for a bit.  Unfortunately, the weather quickly turned and a downpour began.  I went back to my motel to ride it out.  Although the rain only lasted 30 minutes or so, it effectively killed off whatever vibe the place had going.  The beach and the streets stayed pretty empty for most of the night.

I woke up early on my third morning, as there were reports of a huge storm coming through the area and I wanted to get back to Melbourne and off the road before it hit.  First I grabbed breakfast at a little cafe right on the beach and enjoyed what I knew would be the last few minutes of good weather before the storm.

Luckily, I arrived in Melbourne just as the worst of the storm began to come down.  It's now my last night here before I head off to Sydney.  I've had a fantastic time here in Melbourne especially thanks to my friend Ryan.  Tonight were off to see St. Kilda v. Geelong in an Aussie League Football game, so I'm very excited.  It's a really crazy sport if you've never seen it.  I'm sure there are clips on the internet you can watch.

I'll post about the footy game sometime soon, maybe when I've arrived in Sydney and have a few minutes to write.

Australia

I'm so damn far behind on my other posts that I'm going to just go ahead with new ones.  I'll post new ones regularly as I go, and occasionally I'll supplement with a few old ones from my adventures with Blove and Veber.

This time around, I'm headin out solo.  It was a great privilege to travel with Blove and Veber, two of the best guys I know.  We had some incredible times and a ton of fun.  Unfortunately they are staying back in the USA attempting to become responsible and contributing members of society.  I choose to put that off for a little while longer...

I was admittedly a bit apprehensive at first about the prospect of traveling solo.  I'd been solo for a few days before--when Blove and I split up in Vietnam so that he could travel to Sapa and I could travel to Halong Bay--but this experience will be completely different.  I'm making my own itinerary.  I haven't really even decided where I'm going after Australia, but Fiji, Malaysia, and Indonesia are all top candidates.

I arrived in Melbourne last Wednesday after a long 15+ hour flight.  I actually slept about eight hours, so when I arrived (at 8 in the morning), I felt good and rested.  It didn't take too long to acclimate myself to the clock.  I wandered around for a few hours until I got in touch with my friend Ryan who lives in Melbourne.  I met him back in South America when he, Blove, and I all traveled through parts of Peru and Bolivia together.  I'd been looking forward to meeting up with him in his hometown, where he let me crash on a mattress behind the couch.

Surprisingly comfortable

So that is where I made 'home' for the next week.  I couldn't have been happier about it all, to tell you the truth.  Ryan was very generous to allow me to stay with him, he has been a fantastic host, and it's a helluva lot more comfortable than many hostels I've stayed in.  Not to mention, the internet is AWESOME.  Finding good internet when you're abroad is like finding a unicorn.  It just doesn't happen very often.

So Ryan and I hung out a bit, played a little game of pick-up basketball in the park behind his house, then went out and got a few steaks and beers with some of his mates.  We had fun, played a little pool, then I was overcome with jetlag and decided to crash.

For the next two days, my schedule was pretty simple.  I'd wander and explore the city for a few hours, Ryan would come home from work, we'd play a little basketball, then grab some beers and dinner.  It's been great.

In my wanderings I've happened upon a few very interesting things.  There was one street performer that was shredding on his electric guitar, using hammer-ons Van Halen style, all the while playing on a digeridoo.  Wicked cool.  I wandered through a few back alleys as well, seeing some of the most impressive displays of graffiti I've ever seen.

I think some of it is actually commissioned art, so it's all very intricate.  One day I went to the aquarium, which was a lot of fun to see as well.  It's not as big as the Baltimore aquarium which I'm used to, but it had some cool sharks and rays that I'm pretty sure are not in Baltimore, as well as penguins.  Who couldn't love a penguin?

*Side note: For a few of my friends who might be reading this, and you know who you are, actual penguins are cool as long as they have no affiliation whatsoever to the Pittsburgh Penguins organization or its affiliates.  Also, Crosby sucks.  

I tried to get a photo of the hammerhead too, but he wasn't very cooperative.  He wasn't too photogenic either.  The aquarium was interesting though, with plenty of jellies, fish, and crustaceans from all corners of the world.

On St. Patricks Day, which I thought I had missed, I met Ryan at a bar called the Irish Times or something like that and did the usual.  Drank lots of Guinness, the occasional Jameson, blah, blah, very exciting.  It was cool to be around a few actual Irish people though, which is a change from Ann Arbor frat parties which have no Irish people, just drunk sorority girls, Jewish guys in basketball jerseys (in 40 degree weather), and an abundance of "festive" green beer.  Not that I didn't enjoy that sort of thing while I was there, just that being around Irish people seems more authentic, if you will.

On the weekend, Ryan and his roommate Kahlia took me on a tour of some of the areas of the city that are a little less accessible without transportation.  They took me out to see the St. Kildas area, which was absolutely awesome.  The area around Luna Park reminded me of both the Santa Monica Pier and Funland/Boardwalk area in Rehoboth Beach.

Me, Kahlia, and Ryan outside Luna Park

Epic air hockey games...but i think i was a bit out of practice...got my butt kicked

Kahlia, Me, Ryan

That night, one of Ryan's mates was having a birthday party at some bar which was all rockstar themed. Once we found out everyone was rockin' some kind of awesome costume, makeup and all, we decided to go all-out.  Ryan went as Alice Cooper and I went as Slash from Guns N' Roses.

We had an awesome time at the party and closed the place down.  On the walk home we grabbed some Hungry Jacks (basically Australian Burger King), which as delicious as it was, is always a nightmare to deal with the next day.

The next day we took it easy (as you might imagine), hung out a bit, and went to the park where the guys showed me the ins and outs of how to hackey-sack.  It's not a big thing to do in the States.  If you hackey you're either a stoner or you simply have no explanation.  But that's not the case Down Under, and we fooled around for a few hours until I started getting the hang of it.

After the weekend, I borrowed Ryan's car and took a drive down the Great Ocean Road.  More stories and photos to come.

Fjord Trek

We went to Dunedin knowing we wouldn't be spending much time there.  Dunedin is basically NZ's main college town, and since it was summer vacation for them, the town was fairly deserted.  While I would say a college town like Ann Arbor is awesome any time of the year, the truth is that someone shouldn't really visit when none of the students are in town.  Same goes for Dunedin.
 
Veber mistakenly informed us that there was a Fergburger joint (I'll get to Fergburger in a minute) in Dunedin, so we spent a while trying to find it.  Unfortunately, the only Fergburger is in Queenstown, so we'd have to wait.  Our friend Ryan from back in Peru and Bolivia had recommended it, so we were interested to try it out.  Either way, Colin and Meredith headed to a bar to watch more cricket while Blove, Veber, and I headed off to get some food and some internet.

After getting a small meal at a restaurant offering free wifi (which NEVER happens in New Zealand), we discussed future travel plans.  I wanted to go to Australia and more of Oceania, while Blove and Veber wanted to go directly to Thailand and Southeast Asia.  After much discussion, I was outnumbered and it was decided our next destination would be Bangkok.  I was very disappointed, but it wasn't going to stop me from having a good time.  Plus, I'm continuing the trip when Blove and Veber call it quits in February, so I guess I know where my first destination will be!

We spent the rest of the day wandering a bit.  Blove and I played a game of chess on one of those massive street chess boards.  The last time he and I had played, we were both drunk in the Czech Republic.  I had forgetten he's much better than me.  He quickly defeated my little chess army and I walked into a bar to grab a beer and watch some cricket with Colin and Meredith.

After a few more hours, we drove off for Te Amau, at the doorstep of Fjordland National Park.  But first we decided to stop by at the Guinness World's Steepest Road

Entrance to the National Park

In Te Amau, we wandered around a bit again, and took a couple of beautiful photos.  We realized we needed to clean our dirty dishes, but the only place to do it was in the public bathroom sink and a little spigot outside.  I have never felt so homeless in my entire life.  Nothing says you're at the bottom of the barrel than cleaning your silverware on the floor of the men's room while a tour group comes through to take a piss.

We knew we were going to do one of the long Fjordland treks, and eventually decided on the Routeburn Trek, approximately 36 kilometers over the course of about 3 days.  We stocked up on the essentials (tons of granola bars, spaghetti, PB, Jelly, tortillas, etc) and drove into the park.  We first drove out to see Milford Sound, which from all the tourist magazines and postcards looked stunning.  When we got there, it wasn't quite as advertised.  The tide was extremely low, and the wind kicked up a ton of waves so the scene wasn't quite as placid as it seemed from the pictures I'd seen.  Still, I'd never seen Fjords before, and it was still spectacularly beautiful.  We took tons of photos.

Te Amau

Outside of Te Amau

Milford Sound

More Milford Sound

That night we camped out at what I thought was one of the most beautiful spots we'd camped in the entire trip.  Unfortunately, there were also tons of little sand flies that bugged us (no pun intended) all night.  Still, I enjoyed the beautiful scenery.  The sunset was gorgeous, as was the sunrise.

We headed  out for The Divide, which is where the Routeburn Trek began.  When we got there we met up with our driver from Trackhopper, a driving service I found.  The guy from Trackhopper (a completely spaced-out hippie, but still a very nice guy) took our car and drove the 6 hours around the park to bring it to where Routeburn ends.
 
We packed our bags with the necessary foodstuffs, clothing, tents, etc and began our trek.  We had no guide, no map, just instinct.  Kidding.  But seriously we didn't have a guide or a map, the trail was well-marked.
Day 1 was mostly an ascent into the mountains.  After coming through the trees, we were greeted with some gorgeous scenery

We happened upon a gorgeous waterfall next with rainbows appearing through the mist.

We marched along for a good 8+ hours, enjoying the scenery.  One thing that made the trek even more exceptional was the water.  We each started with a couple of bottles of water pre-purchased from a grocery store and we had planned to just purify water as we went along.  However, the Trackhopper dude told us we could just drink straight from the streams.  We were a bit hesitant at first, but it became an absolute highlight.  We'd hear rushing water off in the distance and when we got closer we'd all gather around the stream to re-fill our water bottles with some of the coldest, freshest water I've ever tasted.

At night, we set up camp, which was a bit more difficult than usual.  The Dept. Of Conservation (DOC) carefully controls the Park and other natural areas, as you could imagine.  As such, there were designated campsites that were basically Astroturf on a bed of packed gravel.  It made our old-school tents quite diffcult to put up, but we made it work.

We were just about to make some dinner when we realized we had forgotten to bring any plates, bowls, or silverware.  We had been so focused on buying and packing proper trekking food that we had forgotten to bring anything to eat it with.  We could only laugh at our stupidity, and asked some of the other hikers to borrow their gear.

The next morning, I awoke to one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen.  I walked out to the shore of this mountain lake, which was quiet and serene.  Not a single ripple moved across the water.  I enjoyed being alone for a few minutes by the edge of the water, then took a few photos, skipped a couple of rocks, and went  back to the campsite to pack up.

View of the Campsite from above

View of the lake beside the campsite

Day 2 was supposedly the toughest day of the trek, as it's a steep ascent for the majority of the day, with the last 2 hours or so descending down into the valley.  We climbed and climbed, and were constantly rewarded with amazing new views.

I got pretty excited at the climbing we were doing and went off the track a few times to get better views.  It was a lot of fun, especially in places where I could see miles away where the track was headed.

We stopped for lunch, unstrapped our packs, and did a little cooking.  We made PB&J tortillas and boiled a packet of some freeze-dried food for Meredith, who can't eat gluten.  We then continued on for a few hours until we reached Conical Peak.

Conical Peak is a side-trek you are allowed to do at certain times of the year.  It's about an hour to the top.  There was a sign saying that the peak was closed due to 'dangerous snow conditions' but hey, there was nobody there from DOC to tell us not to go, and we'd heard from other hikers that it's an amazing sight.
Colin and Meredith continued on, skipping Conical Peak, but the Brians and I just had to try to see it.  We hiked up the Hill and after 20 minutes or so, realized what 'dangerous conditions' actually meant.  There were huge chunks of snow, the melt water running down the hill, that looked like the could give and fall off the side of the mountain at any moment.  We did our best to stay out of any probable avalanche paths as we continued our ascent (do I have my mother worried yet?).  We finally made it to the top to more incredible views.  Fortune does favor the bold.

Conical Peak was the geographic high-point of the Routeburn Trek, as well as the scenic high-point.  From there we began our long day-and-a-half descent.  We reached our day 2 campsite after 2 hours or so, and pitched a tent.  We filled our waterbottles, Brian and Brian took a swim (stupid, it was way too cold for that; needless to say the swim didn't last very long), and we all sat down to chat a bit or do some reading.  Eventually it got a bit darker and the stars came out.  They were absolutely gorgeous.  Not quite as spectacular as our first ngiht camping in New Zealand, but still amazing.  Colin and Meredith decided they wanted to take a night stroll, so we devised a system of light signals with my Petzl so they could find their way back to camp in the darkness.

The final day of our trek was a leisurely descent.  As usual, some great scenery, but the hike itself was very casual.  All those streams we had been drinking from finally converged and formed a crystal-clear river, which was also beautiful

We finally finished our trek, and reached the Homer completely exhausted.  We packed up the car and drove to Queenstown for the night.  We decided to stay in a hostel, as none of us had slept in a bed in over a month.  We wandered out to see Queenstown, which had a very cool feel to it, like a ski-town.

Queenstown was also home of the FERGBURGER, and for a few days while we were there, I develped a brief love affair with these juicy burgers.  They had all sorts of different types.  They're big burgers, and many people would barely be able to eat a whole one.  I had two each time I went.  My favorite was the Little Lamby, a giant lamb burger that even had a bit of mint jelly on the inside.  I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

FERGBURGER

We enjoyed our two nights in the hostel.  Got some sleep the first night, and went out drinking the second, all the while keeping up with the Ashes Test Match, which was still, unbelievably, not even halfway over.
We left Queenstown, knowing it was the beginning of the end of our time in New Zealand.  We first headed off towards the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers, but it was too cloudy to see much.  We drove off again, back toward Christchurch.  We dropped Colin and Meredith off, and began driving back up north towards Auckland.  It was right about this time that I got a bullshit speeding ticket.  That really pissed me off at New Zealand as a whole for a few days, but I got over it.

After seemingly endless hours of driving, we reached Auckland and borded our flight to Thailand the following day.