MELBOURNE SPRING BREAK DAY 5: FRIDAY

well today was the best day of the week for sure.

We went on the Great Ocean Road Tour. I had actually never even heard of the Great Ocean Road but then i believe in one week i had three people tell me that taking the Road from Melbourne to Adelaide on the Coast would be one of the greatest sights one could ever see in Australia so Allison and I decided to take the tour.

The day was cloudy with a slight chance of rain, but couldn't have been a better day. Allison and I got up at 6 to leave by 7 and meet the driver in front of the closest hotel which happened to be a 20 minute walk... (yay us!) we get there and the lady at the reception tells us to wait outside. we sit for about 10-15 minutes and a man waiting with us asked us if we were waiting for some kind of tour and when we replied that we were, he then told us our driver had been looking for us about 20 minutes prior to our arrival at the hotel (apparently the website decided it would tell us a different time to be at the hotel then the printout did and we went by the website only not knowing out printout said differently) fortunately we called the number on our printout and the driver swung back around after his other pickups and then we were off.

The Great Ocean Road was actually designed after the Pacific Highway which was hilarious to me, here I come all the way around the world to go to a place that is designed after where I live. O well. Anyways.. First stop, Bells beach near a suburb Torquay, is one of the biggest surfing beaches in all of Australia. It is actually the home of the Easter Festival which is a huge surfing competition. This past weekend Kelly Slater, one of the world's most amazing surfers was at Bell Beach for the competition and was actually beat by a local (i was interested in this tidbit on information). We actually didnt stop here, but just drove by while our tour guide told us all this information. After this our Tour guide preceded to play us some good ole surfer music.. of course the Beach Boys(our tour guide actually had a song for seriously every occasion and stop). We then continued to drive by the ocean, all the meanwhile taking lots of pictures.. (i do not think i can quite stress this idea of lots of pictures. lots...) Our first real stop was one by a arch over the road that said "The Great Ocean Road." of course here we paused for pictures and got to walk down to the beach so that was pretty fun. on our way from there we passed by a few areas that had been burnt in bush fires (not the recent Melbourne fires, but just fires in the brush) and learned an interesting fact about the trees that grow in this particular area (i believe some kind of Eucalyptus). The fact is that these trees (whatever they are) drop little seeds on the ground to reproduce, but the weird thing is that in order for the seeds to start to grow they need to have intense heat which is why, brush fires are actually necessary to help restart plant life. this i thought was so amazing, that God would make fire, something seeming to be so destructive, to actually be necessary to start new life. anyways...

Next element of fun on our tour was a stop by another beach maybe 30 minutes later (also a bathroom break) with some cookies and tea. it was on this break from the bus that Allison and I got to talk to some other people on the tour and to our guide. one of the craziest things to date, will be this next person we met. This man was named Kevin, and he worked for Costco. He actually builds them. This man was sent to Australia from like CO (but he has been all around the US building Costcos) to build the very first Costco in Australia. we are witnessing history in the making (the day before) of Costco blessing the country of Australia. also, this man has built many Costcos we know of including the one in San Dimas and a bunch in the OC and a few up North by Allison. This was a weird "small world" moments that i had to share with you all. also on this break I talked with the tour guide who had just got back from doing 4 years of being a tour guide in Europe. after talking to him, I have decided I am first (before I decide whether or not I go, or attempt to go, to graduate school in London, for graduation I am going to save up money to take a tour (for like 45 days i believe) in Europe. Our guide (actually names Neil) was telling me it hits every major city and most major sites in Europe and even has a week in either Egypt or the Greece Islands and I have decided I am going to save up money for that. I have always wanted to go to Europe and travel and that will be my perfect chance.. anyone want to pitch in? haha kidding. i have two years to save.

On our way to the next stop we drove through an area where Koalas chill in the trees. There were actually a few chilling in the nearby trees so we got out and took some pictures.... This was my first time seeing a real Koala in the actual wild!!! I was super-stoked!! (the rain-forestation had them contained so it wasn't technically in the wild) i found out some weird things about Koala's today. FACT ONE: they are territorial and stay strictly in one tree (or at least in the same area of trees) until they have stripped them clean (in my pictures which are not up yet (they will be posted on my last blog of melbourne...) i have pictures of these trees totally stripped. FACT TWO: Koala's eat Eucalyptus trees that are actually toxic, but Koala's have an enzyme that can break down this toxic for them so it is not dangerous to them. FACT THREE: Koala's are NOT born with these enzymes, rather they must acquire them. FACT FOUR: Koala's acquire these enzymes from eating their mother's poop for the first few weeks after birth. that is just gross no lie.

Next stop, we walked a little through the rainforest and learned a little about the trees and bug and such. We saw the 2nd tallest tree (first is of course the redwoods in California!!!! heck yes!) which was pretty cool. Many trees were hollow due to a fungus that eats the inside of trees, and back in the day they used to put bars on these hollow trees and used them as jail cells.

The next stop was my favorite. This is a spot on the Ocean Road called the 12 apostles which are tall rock formations that are in the middle of the ocean because they broke off from the shore and the space in between was eaten away, so now all is left is just random rocks jetted out from the surface. The sight here is just breathtaking i cant even handle it. I loved this section of the tour!!!

Next we went to Loch ard Gorge which is a inlet/cove area from the ocean that, in the past, ships got stuck in and got shipwrecked. There is actually only two survivors and it at first is like a love story, but it ends up falling apart, but i dont remember it. i took a picture of the story so you all can read it in my picture when they are up. The last place we stopped at before dinner was the London Bridge rocks. This one holds quite an interesting story. The London Bridge rock formation was named mostly because it used to have two arches in the rock that jets out from the shore, but actually in 1990 on half of the arch (the on closer to the shore) fell into the water. People used to be able to walk out on the rock out to the sea and there were actually people who were out on the rock the day it collapsed (luckily no one on the part that fell) but it did leave two people stranded out on the rock for a few hours. When the film crew arrived to interview the two stranded travelers, they actually jetted home not wanting to interview, and later it was found out that the man stranded on the rock was skipping work for the day (when he had told his boss he was sick) and the woman with him was actually his mistress. This to me was a funny story.

After the London Bridge our official tour was over. The Guide let us borrow PSP electronics to watch some movies while we made the trip home. (thought that was pretty cool) and got to drive in on the bridge into Melbourne at night driving into all the beautiful lights and such. so beautiful. Did you know that Melbourne is the third largest city (spread out) First LA, then Sydney. I thought that was cool....

well thats it for now.... hope you enjoyed the small book i just wrote.

to view the pics for this day follow this link....

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113975&id=1067220169&l=caedf1ae9a