Great Ocean Road & Philip's Island...

I apologize for the lack of posts, but honestly not much exciting has been going on.  I've been doing assignments playing soccer (football), and generally just living here.  I know that's not really interesting, but I can't travel all the time, I am here to Study Abroad (emphasis on the study part).  Anyway I did go on a trip recently which was pretty fun so here it is is glorious detail!

Saturday 15th October
First of all I overslept the time when I was supposed to be ready for the trip, which was not cool to say the least.  On the positive side the bus driver was also late so it actually didn't matter, I was only a couple minutes late in the end - no harm no foul!  The tour consisted of 15 people who go to my uni (mostly exchange students), 1 med student from Germany who was doing some of his practical work in Melbourne, and 2 students from Melbourne Uni (who we picked up in the city).  We started driving west form the city towards Great Ocean Road. Our first stop was a little service station where I finally got myself breakfast (a muffin) and some snacks for the ride.  The trip down was uneventful, plenty of rain to put a damper on my spirits for nice weather.  Around 10AM we stopped in the small town of Colac for morning tea and cookies which was cool I guess if you like small towns.  It was still raining when we reached our first stop - London Bridge.  Which actually has a funny story behind how it looks today: it used to be connected to the mainland and tourists could walk out onto it but one day the part that connected it to the mainland fell down when two people were on the bridge part.  They got stranded and had to be rescued by a helicopter!

Had lunch on the bus - sandwiches.  It wasn't amazing but I was quite hungry so  I couldn't complain, plus we weren't in the rain so it was ok. Then we went to some more awesome rock formations... can't really remember what the place was called, but one of the rock formations was called 'The Razorback'. The sun even came out for a little bit, which was really nice!

After that we stopped at the Twelve Apostles which are really amazing rock formations.  The only issue... there are not twelve of them.  Well it's not that big of a deal, but it does seem silly to have twelve in the name of something when there aren't twelve (technicalities).  Anyway it was really windy there and cold which made me happy that I brought a sweatshirt and jacket, although I'm thinking I still should have brought more warm clothes.

We skipped the Gibson Steps, because one of the girls on the tour has a messed up leg and crutches so a few hundred steps down to a freezing cold beach was not recommended.  Instead we went for a walk in the rainforest.  It was absolutely beautiful there with moss and huge trees.  We also got to see the 'Carniverous Black Snail' which was very interesting - I didn't think snails ate other animals but apparently these ones do.

Then the group drove to St Apollo to our accomodation for the evening.  We stayed in a nice house with plenty of beds and a good size kitchen.  Therefore we took full advantage of the kitchen by making a delicious BBQ dinner with another tour group from RMIT Uni.  It was nice to meet some new people and enjoy the good food.

Sunday 16th October

Started the morning with an early wake-up call complete with toast and cereal.  We stopped a bit down the road to see some wild koalas.  I was a bit jealous because these koalas obviously just got to hang around and sleep all day.  We also came upon some crazy parrots which I tried my best to avoid considering I don't like getting attacked by birds.  Across the road from the parrots and koalas was the beach which although not the nicest beach to swim in was very beautiful nevertheless. We then drove up to a beautiful lookout over the ocean and stopped to take a few (necessary) pictures.

Afterwards we moved on to Bell Beach - a really beautiful beach were lots of surfers go to catch some good waves.  Possibly the only problem with surfing though was the fact that the water was super cold - way too cold for me to throw on a wetsuit and hop right in.

Our next  stop was at the sign post marking the 'beginning' of the Great Ocean Road (we travelled it backwards which was alright).  It wasn't all that exciting, just a sign but I suppose it's a bit of a tourist attraction.  Didn't really take any good pictures so I can't be bothered to put them up here.  We did a quick lunch stop after the sign - got a delicious bacon and egg roll. Followed up shortly with a quick ferry ride across the bay.  The cool thing about the ferry ride was the fact that the 'Ride Around the Bay' cyclist race was going on so many cyclists were also on the ferry with us.  Once we got across the bay we went to a petting zoo that housed many wallabies, kangaroos, and koalas all avaible to be fed and pet.

We then finished the trip off at Philip Island to see the penguins come on shore beginning just as it gets dark outside.  It was pretty cold and miserable out but it was really awesome to watch the penguins waddle their way to their homes.  It seemed liked some of them were lost but apparently they all make it home every night. Sorry but no pictures were allowed at this event to protect the penguins so I refrained from taking any.
This finished up the trip and we went straight back to halls where I continued to review for my exam the following morning (the exam went fine although my hand really hurt after writing for so long with two sprained knuckles).

Look for another update to come soon regarding New Zealand.