Many sea front viewing points along the well worn limestone coast
"12" Apostles
Great Ocean Road- built by returned servicemen after the Great War
Trailer swap and me the Bird Man
Melbourne
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We quickly flitted between viewpoints this morning, getting a variety of views along the coast. The cliffs are limestone which is eroded by the sea easily. This has left many formations. One of these WAS The Bridge of London- a stretch of rock sticking out into the sea with two arches beneath. However in the early 90s the arch closest to land collapsed, leaving two tourists stranded. Only the one arch remains now.
Further along is what was initially called the Sow and Piglets- one large rock and many small. These were renamed the 12 Apostles to tempt more tourists in. The name stuck, despite the fact that there are only 8. When Europeans first arrived there were 9 of the great 50m high limestone stacks. They stand out in the sea, battered by waves, slowly eroded at the base, waiting to be toppled.
We carried on along the Great Ocean Road. Built shortly after the Great War to connect the isolated farming and fishing townships it used the skills and abilities servicemen had learnt in digging the trenches at a time when there were limited jobs. My favourite story about its creation occurred after a shipment of beer and rum came in. The load was supposed to last them for 2 years. Instead, being good Aussies, they decided to take a 2 week vacation! They then hammered through all of the booze in short order until all of the rum was gone. Given that most of the rubble removal work, after blasting with dynamite, was done by hand they undoubtedly deserved it. Must have been one hell of a party!
After we were of the officially Great ocean road we found a small cafe to wait at. We got through over a week in the desert without any rain. It's a desert, I doubt this is special. However the group coming through after us had managed to find an enormous storm. What's more it had happened whilst they were in William Creek- the place with nothing but a pub and airfield surrounded by dirt roads. The weary was so bad that they would be stuck there for at least 2 days, the roads being impassable, and might have to be flown out. Not a bad lace to be stuck, if we're honest, so long as the beer and air-con continue to flow! Anyway, our bus having been serviced recently it was needed to go back north to help out. Thus we swapped Gilbo for Gemma.
Whilst waiting at the stop we went for a little walk. There was a park next door full of parrots. And the store sold little bags of bird seed which the parrots would happily take out of ones hand. Two Canadian girls were already there and getting quite terrified as dozens of parrots attempted to land on them , battling for seed. In swoops BirdBoy, gently picking off the most obtuse birds. They thanked me and gave me what remained of their bird feed. So I spent half an hour feeding parrots, ducks, and a few smaller birds. I'd have parrots in each hand, each shoulder, and one on my hat as I talked to other people about them and to the parrots about not being bullies to one another. There were a fair number of larger green parrots and a few smaller red parrots- still haven't bought a bird book, still don't know what they are. Happy and entertaining was enough for me. Thus people from my group have photos of me covered in parrots. No photos of my own, I was too busy being BirdBoy.
Finally we got into Melbourne. Many of us had chosen to spend one night in the Nomads hostel as that's were we were due to be dropped off. From here a few of us decided to sally forth (she's a lovely girl) into the city to find food.
Melbourne's full of restaurants, many Asian, ranging from expensive posh places to small cheap take always. We were out looking for somewhere in between. It was late, we were tired and hungry. We ended up in a Korean barbecue restaurant that turned out not to be as cheap as the adverts on the front door. Not only that but the menu was primarily raw ingredients one was given to then cook on the barbecue in the middle of the table. It's not very British to leave a restaurant once you've been sat down but no one could be bothered. Half an apology was made and we left.
There was a Nandos across the road. Neither the Gerrmans nor Canadian had been before. It's basically Portugese spicy chicken served very quickly. In the UK I've normally found it very dry and tasteless, other than the hot sauce. But it was cheap and fast. Turned out to be quite good too, compared to the UK edition. It arrived nearly the moment we'd ordered and seemed to do the trick.
We went back to the hostel and despite my best efforts to go shower I found my self waking up at 4am still dressed having accidentally lain down on the bed.
