The Great Ocean Road - Wye River, Victoria, Australia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 19 Mar 2010 23:08
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38:37.958S 143:53.676E
On February 6, we continued our long weekend road
trip circle and made our way from Port Fairy to Wye River along the Great Ocean
Road, again in the luxury of Ray and Helen's Land Rover. The Great Ocean
Road is well named. It is great. However, given that we are
in Australia, one would have thought the name of the road would be something
more like, the Brilliant Ocean Road, or, the Stunning Ocean Road, or,
the Dash-Good Ocean Road, or, well, you get the
idea. Whatever you want to call it, the road that runs along the
Southern Ocean coast from Port Fairy east to Torquay is amazing. The
weather was perfect after an iffy start, the ocean a brilliant blue-green and
the rock formations a vibrant yellow, orange or red depending on the
light. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here you go:
Picture 1 - The London Bridge. So named
because there used to be an expanse of rock connecting the mainland with the
arch. Unfortunately, London Bridge fell down back in the
1990's.
Picture 2 - The Arch. Named for obvious
reasons.
Picture 3 - This part of the Southern Ocean
coast is also known as the Shipwreck Coast because so many ships met
their demise in the notoriously rough waters back before GPS, radar and all
the rest of the tools that help keep us afloat were available. A lone
survivor from a large ship wrecked off the coast in the 1800's floated
ashore to this very cove where she?/he? (can't remember) was
rescued.
Picture 4 - The Twelve Apostles. Two have
crumbled into the ocean over time, so there is really only ten apostles, but who
really keeps count when the view is so nice?
Picture 5 - Don enjoying the handicapped
life. Most of the coastline sights involved a short walk and/or some
stairs, so Don usually opted to stay in the back of the Luxury Rover and
read a book. However, the Twelve Apostles Marine National Park has a large
visitor's center where Sue and Kate were able to arrange a wheelchair
for Don. Most of the time, it was John that wheeled Don up and down the
boardwalk. I'm not sure which Don enjoyed most - viewing the
Twelve (Ten) Apostles or being wheeled around the boardwalk by
John.
Pictures 6 and 7 - The elusive koala.
Contrary to what we Americans would like to call these cuddly-cute things, they
are not koala bears - they are simply koalas. We know this
because we were sternly informed by the Australians that koala bears
are the stuffed toy variety, not the real thing. At any rate, they
are as cute in real life as the stuffed bears are on the store
shelf. That is if you can actually get a glimpse of them in real
life. Koalas lead a very peculiar lifestyle. They hang out in the
tops of a very specific type of eucalyptus tree and munch on the leaves for
most of their waking hours. Then they wedge themselves in a V formed by
tree branches and sleep until it's time to wake up and start munching
again. Sleep and eat, that's all they do. All done in the tops of
their favorite kind of eucalyptus tree where the leaves are the youngest and
most tasty. This is the trouble with koalas, they will chow the
leaves off the top of a eucalyptus until the eucalyptus is bald. Not
so good for the tree but the koalas are happy.
The koalas' tendency to hang out in the
uppermost branches of the eucalyptus is what makes them so hard to spot from the
ground. That, and the color of their fur, which just so happens to blend
in perfectly with the gray of the tree bark. We managed to spot these
koalas along the Great Ocean Road because there were about twenty
cars parked on the shoulder, and everyone was standing outside their
cars looking up. That was our first clue, anyway. Once out of
the car, we found we had to look way up into the treetops - particularly the
treetops that were half-leafless - to spot the relatively large, gray lumps that
were generally situated with their bottoms wedged into tree branch V's (picture
6). If we got lucky, we could see a more active koala doing his/her best
to crawl out to the very ends of the tiny treetop branches in search of the
best, and most tasty, young leaves (picture 7). Sorry for the blurry
pictures, but the koalas were so high in the trees that there was a
lot of zoom going on with the camera and even more cropping going on after the
fact in our photo editing program.
We were disappointed to hear from our Australian
guides that a koala's personality is not nearly as adorable as its
appearance. The odd noise they make is a cross between a grunt and a
squawk and is not attractive in the least. They generally keep to
themselves, but Helen said their mating season gets really interesting
based on the additional variety of screeches, screams and squeals that
occur.
Picture 8 - At the end of this amazing day, we
wound our way up and around the bluff overlooking the Wye River outlet to
find Sue and John's friend Min's beach house. The beach house, a
small trendy-looking corrugated steel two-story rectangle with a wall of
windows facing the dynamic surf almost directly below, was the perfect place to
end our ride beside the great ocean. In this picture, Don and John are
enjoying the moment in their corner of the kitchen/living/dining room
overlooking the surf.
Min, whose husband died of cancer
about eighteen months ago, met and started dating John, who also has a
beach house in Wye River, about six months ago. Together, they prepared an
amazing meal for the six of us while we got a kick out of the bubbly way they
worked together - obviously experiencing the joy of new love.
Early on in the evening, Min's John announced that he had sold his home in a
western suburb of Melbourne. "John-O!" shouted Min, "You've sold your
house! This means you'll be shifting in soon!" 'Shifting in?' we
wondered. Turns out it's one more Aussie-talk term to add to our
growing list. Shift is often used in place of move. For example,
"They shifted the piano." or "John is going to shift into Min's place in
Melbourne now that he has sold his house." By the time we leave Australia
in late July, our Aussie-talk vocabulary should be mighty
impressive.
Anne
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