Day 22: Airlie Beach (Back on Shore!)

Hey everyone, I'm uploading some pics right now so I've got 2 or so hours to type away, so I'm going to try to get everything down here for your sake and especially my sake! (before I forget)

So...

Monday July 11th (back to Manly):
This was the day after we got back from the Blue Mountains and hiking hungover (outside of Sydney). Christina and Anna decided to stay another night, and ended up at a bed and breakfast with two very flamboyant (and gay) dudes who basically danced around the whole stay, and had their placed covered in Christmas decorations for the Yuletide season (basically the best chance they have for a white christmas). Me, I just came back to Manly, slept in despite my usual hopes of rising early and in this case going bodyboarding in Manly, doing laundry and seeing more of the suburb. No such luck. Instead I met up with the girls in the city (browsing harlequin novels for them with titles such as "Pregnancy of Revenge"??) and we took a train/bus out to Bronte beach to go for a little scenic walk along the coast up to Bondi. The path itself is I guess meant for walking and jogging and has some workout stations along the way. They're basically bars for chinups, benches to stretch, slanted planks to situp on, etc. So naturally we decided to go for a little workout every 10 minutes or so, and tried out each of the stations on this "muscle beach". Also, there was a photo shoot along the way for a swimsuit model (it was chilly though, I don't know she managed cause she was thin as a toothpick). I was thinking of walking up to the shoot and saying "has anyone ever told you that you should be a model?"... but of course I didn't have the courage to make that much of a fool of myself... next time... maybe. so the walk continued and we ended up in Bondi, the posh beach area of the city to watch some kids learn to surf (I'm saving this for somewhere warmer!) and then catch a bus to Kings Cross. Kings Cross is a sketchy part of town reminding me of a mix of Yonge and Jarvis, except that there is a much higher concentration of both the strip joints and so-called "very good looking women asking you if you're looking for a good time". I split up with Christina and Anna here (they went with Joe and Jen to eat food that costed more than $5 for a serving), went to grab a meat pie, fended off the aforementioned pretty girls and made my way back to Manly for one last night. Thanks Geoff and Sarah for putting up with me and not robbing me blind when I was out having fun on the town!

Tuesday July 12th (on to Melbourne):
Today was our driving day! Of course with rental cars youngins like me aren't allowed to drive despite the fact that (not to boast) I think I would have felt the most comfortable driving on the wrong side of the road, navigating roundabouts and getting us to Melbourne in a good amount of time. Oh well! Christina and Anna took turns driving us the 900 km give or take a few. Of course our drive began with us getting on the highway going in the wrong direction (not wrong side of the road though) and having to cross over and come back on the Harbour bridge. The ride back cost us a $3 toll, a sound punishment for making a such a stupid move. So we just drove and drove and drove all day long, stopping in some places for food, some out of biological necessity, and some for petrol. It was a fun ride overall and we had a "cute" baby blue corolla (I would have preferred bright red with racing stripes instead of something "cute"... I forgot to mention that we got a decent deal on it, like $230 or so for 3 days rental plus allowing us to drive all the way down to Melbourne and just leave it there, other rental companies wanted 400-500+ for the same deal). We ended up at some bed and breakfast in St. Kilda's, had much needed showers, complained about the fact that our (well, I think just Christina's) bags smelt like hockey bag, then headed out to the Elephant and Wheelbarrow where the Ryman worked when he lived in Melbourne. It was pretty dry there, but we had a couple of beers then wandered the area by night for a bit before calling it a night!

Wednesday July 13th (Philip Island):
Today was the big day to go check out some penguins! But first we had to take care of the lack of exercise involved in driving for a whole day, so we ran down to St. Kilda's pier and back, and deal with the hockey bag aroma, so we hit the laundrette for some washing and went to go fill up on some food to prepare for the day. Anna ate cake for breakfast, well done! The day was kinda crappy, as apparently it is winter here (who would have known??) and it drizzled on and off, and was chilly throughout. So more driving brought us out to the Island where we visited to Koala sanctuary (which has a strange obsession with koala poo, or so-called "scat", which apparently smells like eucalyptus (oh wow!) and is always a good clue as to where koalas are hiding (so we get to search for poop to find the cuddly bears, yessss!)). The sanctuary was kinda disappointing for me because I wanted to get up close and personal with these things, pet them and play tricks on them, which kinda explains why they hide up high in the trees. At least we got to see their poop up close. Next we cruised over to a winery on the island for some taste testing, where $3 basically got us a nice buzz going, and I bought a bottle of cabernet sauvignon to sneak into the world famous penguin parade. (Did you know that nothing is put into wine except grapes?? I didn't! I mean if you read the description of a wine, it goes on to describe all the fruity aspects of the flavour, sometimes mentioning chocolate or vanilla then going on to talk about oak... I thought they threw all of these things in during the fermentation, whoops!) The penguin parage. The only negative thing about the penguin parade was that you couldnn't take videos or photos, oh well, you do get to see tons of these little penguins climbing over each other to get to their homes in the dirt behind the grandstands (yes, its very touristy). They walk so poorly, looking like they're always about to topple over, but they can swim like torpedos. So after they get up into the bushes they get into couples and have a good time, literally putting their arms or flappers around each other and singing and dancing before finding a room together. For real :) The penguins that don't find a bed buddy just stand there looking hopeless, understandably, staring at the couples who are having a party for two. Nice stuff. We ended up at a hostel that night in Sorrento, basically coming in late and leaving early the next morning without seeing a soul. I'm sure we could have got away without paying somehow :) On that note, most hostels have a system in place that just is asking to have people stay for free! If you're going to travel the same places as I've been, I'll let you know more :)

Thursday, July 14th (Great Ocean Road, Melbourne + party!!):
Today we got up nice and early, burned some money by taking a ferry across the rip (outlet of the Melbourne bay into the pacific), and cruised the Great Ocean Road! Its a ride like the drive down the pacific coast highway in California, being all twisty and turny and giving crazy views of the coastline every so often. We began by stopping in a surf shop mall (all the stores were surf shops! kinda like ron jon's) near Bells Beach (which has crazy surf, big surf contest held here every year), visiting Bells Beach itself to watch the surfers do their thing, stopped at a lighthouse somewhere to get out and stretch our legs and take some pics, then stopping in Lorne to go see Erskine Falls, and a little walk to a lookout of the coast and highway. We also saw some kangaroos just chillin outside someones house (kinda near the woods). We returned the car that night, then checked into the Friendly Backpacker's in downtown Melbourne. We didn't really leave ourselves much time to check the city out itself (all of one evening!) so we made a point of getting started on the right foot, at the bar! Well I won't hide the fact that I got a little drunk (a lot), and I'm sure Anna and Christina had a good time too. We went out to an internet cafe/bar to get the night started while being productive at the same time (Carlton Draught is a good beer here! they don't have Foster's and "Foster's" is not Australian for beer :). Next we went to China town for some food (make sure you don't do take-away if you've got nowhere to eat... its not fun wandering around spilling grease sauce on yourself after drinking a couple of brews, when you're out to have a good time). From there we had no idea where to go for a party so we asked these 30-something-year-olds (don't do that either) who sent us to "Crown" a big casino complex near downtown. Funny enough, it was Christina's and Anna's first time at the casino, and no one won big (we tried to win on the 1 cent slots, thats right, 1 cent, for about 3 minutes with no luck). The complex has some bars/clubs inside as well, so we went up to "The Pub" (thats actually its name) and watched some aussie's from Perth have the time of their lives dancing it up, chatting with a group of married kiwis, and finally being escorted out for their uncontainable energy levels... trust me, this was not the place to unload like a bazooka, but it was a good time anyways. My favorite lines from these guys happened when one stopped to chat on his phone.... first hes like "we're at 'The Pub', come meet us here" (cause everyone knows what you're talking about when you say the pub), and "say hello to your wife and my kids for me!". Jokes. The night then saw us catching a cab, and asking for a good club not far from the city center... the cabbies had trouble with this one and ended off dumping us at "Dallas", a bar coincidentally right beside our hostel, that was pretty much the only good thing. It was student/backpacker karaoke night, and the crowd could neither dance nor sing, so I had a great time fitting right in with the rest of the crowd for Christina's and Anna's amusement. Party on, the best moves were ripped out when they played McHammer, you guys must remember when its "Hammer-time" and Hammer just fluffs up his pants, kinda bends his knees and moves back and forth sideways like a crab?? Yeah baby. A highlight here was the waitress who didn't know what a beer was, grabbed bottles when I asked for draft, and spun her bottle opener around her finger looking stylish, until it went flying up in the air and behind her. For some reason she looked like the whole thing was my fault (??), I should have asked her to dance :) The party went late and for some reason a large group of us went up the street to try to get into a gothic club, I thought I learned my lesson the last time that happened (Greg, remember Luc-i-fair??), its not really my type of crowd (eg. I don't have a dog collar and spikes coming out of my eyes). Good thing we we're allowed in, thank god! Of course the 5 hour sleep was fabulous after all of this :)

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Thats all I have time for now, right now I'm just fresh off the boat after spending 2 days on the whitsunday islands sailing and about to catch a bus down to Hervey Bay to get over to Fraser island to see some dingos and 4WD over some same dunes!

More pics very soon! Did someone say freaky church??