(this should have been posted a LONG time ago, like Dec-08, but here it is anyway…)
My flight to Auckland was great. National airlines, being subsidized, are rarely booked, so I had room to spread out and play with my coloured pens in my new sketchbook. Friends of my parents, Heather & Tony, were very sweet to pick me up from the airport, keep my two big red suitcases for the 3 ½ weeks I’d be in Australia and New Zealand, and drive me around Auckland a bit to see the highlights. I saw the Pacific for first time in 8 months! I had a great hotel – the Quadrant: nice and anonymous (well, I suppose that could be taken the wrong way, which I probably would’ve never even thought about except that I was just in Singapore where everything has a double meaning). Anyway, it had a great view of the ocean, although I’m not sure now whether it was the Pacific or Tasman, but no one really cares and neither did I as I fell asleep.
By 10am the next day, I was cruising around Melbourne in my rental car on the wrong side of the street. First stop was to buy a $100 camera to replace my $160 camera that was assaulted by Stella. Next was the groovy part of Melbourne, near the university. I had a great lunch, and after asking the 2 couples sitting next to me about tipping protocol, they told me I was brave to be traveling alone. Never thought of myself as brave – escapist and non-committal and not attached to much in this world are better descriptions, but I figured they didn’t want to hear all about it. The galleries and contemporary art museum are closed on Mondays, as in most cities, so unfortunately I didn’t get to see the Up-and-Coming Center of Art in the Southern Hemisphere. There are also beautiful parks in Melbourne, and I could’ve used a walk after logging so many hours in a plane and car, but I was tired and more enticed by the drive through the dry plains in the direction of the surfing mecca of Australia. Torquay is where Rip Curl started and now hosts the World Surfing Championship each Easter at Bells Beach. After checking into the B&B and being sidetracked by a real estate office (US$250-400k for new modern-looking 3+2 houses near the beach, many with views!!! And annual taxes only $1000/year!), I finally got my walk.
Just east of Bells Beach is a marine preserve, so I walked there for a while since it was low tide. I felt like I was at the end of the world – just the waves and cliffs above me (more anonymity) which at high tide would be joined. Considering it’s just early summer, the water is so warm: a beautiful green and turquoise fading to purple at the horizon to Antarctica. Walking this narrow corridor between cliffs and strong currents, I finally got spooked enough to turn back, but I kept walking, past Bells Beach, with one more beach after another stretching out. I saw a few surfers wrestling with the thick waves, choppy now with wind and high tide rolling in. Otherwise, I saw only 2 people during my walk. For a couple hours I walked with my heart dancing at the desertedness. Finally, even the Committee (the 26 members that sit and argue in my head) was lulled speechless by the rhythm of my footsteps and the waves. The sand under my feet felt so wonderful, and natural, unlike the streets in Singapore that were so clean that I was constantly slipping on them in the rain.
My home in Torquay was a cute little cottage – also anonymous, even though it was a B&B – just up from Bells Beach. So high tide was at 1pm and a session at 10am would’ve been perfect – except that I slept until 2!! 15 HOURS!!! My friends in Singapore (plus the flights) completely wore me out – although I didn’t feel so bad when Christian replied that he slept for 72 hours after seeing me off at the airport. So one more late afternoon of walking, then finally getting a board rented and down to the beach. I was pretty pathetic since I’m so out of shape, but the good thing is that I’ll just have to come back again, ready to surf and maybe buy a house, too.
Disappointed as I was with my surfing performance, I was excited leaving Torquay because of the long, beautiful coast road ahead of me. The Great Coast Road is a bit like Pacific Coast Highway, Route 1, in California. But of course the Great Coast Road has its own beauty and peculiarities. Ancient rainforests, with ferns and beech trees, overlook the blue-green water from red cliffs which then open out to picturesque farm country and little towns having at least one coffee house serving flat whites.
So yes, this is me, in the most beautiful place in the world –me and my Committee driving on down the wrong side of the road. Just as on my Bells Beach walk, we were awestruck by the beauty changing around each corner, and the tranquility! No one else was on the road, and I was driving slowly just because, well, I was savoring this. I checked the rearview often, but as always, just empty. It was a great feeling to be lost like this: being alone, no one knowing where I am, no schedule (not even a B&B reservation yet). The air was fresh and the oceans and skies so clean and clear. The change of scenery and temperature was my entertainment while my playlist furnished the perfect score with some great Australian folksongs: Devil Went Down to Georgia; Girl, You’ll Be a Woman, Soon; LA Song; You Light Up My Life; Espérer; Bailamos; Top Gun Anthem; Rien Ne S’arrête; Running to Stand Still.
Fresh fish and flat whites kept me fueled. I took my time and stopped at deserted trailheads along the road to hike into the rainforest among the giant ferns and waterfalls. However, the Australians have taken a bit of advantage of the incredulous evolutionary history of the area and have made some touristy places to learn more. Now, these weren’t “touristy” by any nominal standard, but each time I was around more than 10 people, I left feeling irritated. (Now I’m scaring myself, picturing a hermit in the hills eating locusts and honey.)
First I went to the Otaway Fly, a huge walkway of swinging steel cable bridges high above the rainforest canopy, as well as at lower levels where less light and more moisture support entirely different plant and animal species. Ferns of all kinds rule the “understories” while the Mountain Ash is the dominant tree as well as the world’s tallest flowering plant. Even birds stick to their favorite altitude, with the Golden Whistler high in the canopy, the White Brown Scrubwren down low, and the Grey Fantail inbetween. Colour is provided by Rose Robins, Crimson Rosellas, and White Throated Tree Creepers. The Fly was fun to walk, with a 47-meter-high tower (and great views) to a 33-meter-high cantilevered bridge (which the guidebook reassured us could hold 14 elephants and is supposed to sway…). The Fly was built in order to provide education and experience in the rainforest while not impacting the delicate ecosystem.
At the southern-most point of the Great Ocean Road is the Cape Otaway Lighthouse, one of the oldest (and most needed for navigation of the coast back in the 1800s when the area was settled). I’m not a history buff or fan of lighthouses (unless I could live in one), but I was sidetracked to the lighthouse by a beautiful narrow road under arches of eucalyptus trees. The lighthouse had closed for the day, but I walked a bit on the trail of the Great Ocean Walk. Just as I was ready to turn around, I walked by a low pine tree with a sleeping koala bear snuggled in the branches at my eye level. I was so excited! I grabbed my camera, and the koala looked at me sleepily but made no attempt to move. As my pictures became more and more redundant, I retraced my footprints with so much excitement that I just had to share. “I just saw my first koala!” I exclaimed to some poor guy walking the other way. He gave me a weird look and polite smile and kept walking. My talents obviously remain in being a hermit.
Back on the Great Ocean Road, the next big camera-clicker is the Twelve Apostles and other fabulous sculptures on the beaches and in the shallow waves and coves. The coastal cliffs have a high limestone composition so the constant water forces carve out various fascinating outcroppings. Again, “lots” of tourists at the 12 Apostles, which are columns of rock in the sea just off the coast. It was cool and windy and the end of the day, though, and the crowd thinned out as I continued down the road to be impressed by many more formations: Razorback, London Bridge, the Martyrs, and Loch Ard Gorge, named after a shipwreck where the only survivors, a 16-year-old socialite and an 18-year-old crew member, found refuge for a few days until they were rescued. Sounds like another Titanic screenplay…
About 9pm, just at dusk, I pulled into a B&B where I’d reserved a cute room in a refurbished train car. I realized that it was more romantic on the internet than inside, but the honeymooners in the next compartment didn’t seem to share my disappointment. After disembarking the train the next morning, I headed further west down the Great Ocean Road to Portland, the furthest I would drive on this trip, though the GOR continues to Adelaide. First I stopped at a little lavender farm to try all kinds of smelly stuff, from lotion to a heat wrap, then pathetically chased the ducks through the lavender fields to get their portraits with my cheap camera. I’d heard something about seeing seals, so I checked into the tourist center and got myself scheduled for a boat tour, then drove on out of town over the sand dunes that connected to a volcanic island, now called Cape Bridgewater. As I rounded the last corner, the scraggly purplish-black cliffs came into view on the horizon above an incredible beach 4 km long with a quaint café and low-key surf club on the sand. The water had me mesmerized, the blues and greens and whites as well as the lines and shape and symmetry. I stopped into the café for a flat white, then walked along the beach and up the volcanic cliff of the Cape and finally back down to a tiny boat shack and dock. Along with a family of 8, I strapped on a life vest and climbed into the big raft with an outboard motor – what they called a boat. And for 45 minutes I couldn’t stop smiling. We sailed over waves, some that reminded me of the final scenes of The Perfect Storm, and rounded the Cape to a huge colony of 600 fur seals. After the fun of jumping waves, our guide cut the motor and we just rocked up and down with the incoming waves against the cliffs and very close to the seals’ sunbathing rocks. Some couldn’t be bothered by us, but the extroverts dipped and dived and rolled over around our boat, with everyone trying to get a timely click of the camera shutter. The waves eventually pushed us into a huge cave where other seals were hiding – I think I would’ve been claustrophobic if I hadn’t been so thrilled to be rocking on the water! We cruised on back to the jetty, again with some fantastic wave-sailing, and as I walked back to the café and my car, I noticed a cottage just up the hillside with a “For Rent” sign out front.
Up the road a bit, to the other side of the “island”, I visited the Blowholes. The purple and black volcanic terrain is formed of basalt and scoria, the latter being more easily eroded by the sea. As the scoria dissolves, tunnels and channels and holes form in the basalt. With the sea swell crashing against the rock, sprays of saltwater shoot into the air and come raining back down onto the rock with a pitter-patter. I wanted to watch for hours, but I was getting hungry for lunch and a bit cold on the windy cliffs.
Before heading back to town, though, I walked further along the cliffs to a “petrified forest”. There actually is no wood there, but the theory is that a grove of Moonah trees were covered by a sand dune, and over time the tree trunks were encrusted by sediment. As the organic interior dissolved, the acids carved the hardened sediment out from the inside and also leaked through the surface. You know those sand castles we used to build on the beach with turrets capped in wet sand that was drizzled over them? That’s what I was reminded of by these formations.
Although waking up at 9am and having a great hot B&B breakfast at 10 is a perfect vacation schedule, finding something decent to eat at 4 or 5pm is not. Portland seemed shut down, just when I was craving some fresh catch, or at least some hot clam chowder. I settled for fish & chips in an ice-cream/candy parlour with floor-to-ceiling shelves of lollipops and bonbons and a view of Portland’s harbor: a toss-up as to which was more coulourful.
Although I thought I couldn’t be impressed anymore after seals and blowholes, boats and bonbons, I’d been recommended one more round-trip drive near Portland to Cape Nelson. There was a red and white lighthouse which I duly photographed, and several hikes to take. Feeling a bit ready to head back to my train lodging, I also thought I should at least take a short walk into the Enchanted Forest. Bent-over Moonah trees created a tunnel and canopy while vines draped themselves over the branches. With no other cars in the parking lot at the trail head and feeling cocooned by the greenery and evening light, I kept walking. I could hear the ocean pounding the cliffs just below but couldn’t get within sight of it. An overgrown track in the direction of the water caught my eye, and I found that it was a steep path down to a huge flat rock (creatively named Flat Rock). I finally did get to sit for over an hour meditating on spouting blowholes and crashing waves on the rocks. The tour book expressed it exactly: “West of the Cape, where the sun sets over the sea, is a realm of liberating isolation: entire beaches free of footprints and a national park where you can walk or paddle a boat for days without seeing a soul.” I, however, saw my soul quite clearly.
Making my way back towards Melbourne on the faster highway via the highlands, I stopped for two hours in Port Fairy, which was a letdown after yesterday in Portland. I didn’t get up early enough to go to church, which I actually was hoping to do since I haven’t gone for a month, but the Anglican Church was hosting the annual Strawberry Fête, so I checked it out. The pastor was pretty hilarious as he quite successfully auctioned off junk as fundraisers. But it was a church fundraiser/luncheon thing just like any other church thing anywhere else in the world. I took an hour’s walk around a nearby island. Snapping pictures of the lighthouse and the green and white beach lined by large black lava boulders, I found myself getting agitated. This was a beautiful island, but not as thrilling of a coastline as Cape Nelson or Bells Beach, and there were so many people! I mean, I must have passed 10 or 15 during the hour!! I am quite the charming dramatist sometimes.
Anyway, the Committee and I were arguing and I was tired of being a prima donna, so I headed inland to see volcano creations. There are many lakes, although many that are now dry, in the round craters left by the volcanoes. Some are huge and others look like a giant raindrop fell into dust. I ate lunch at Cheese World and even got a two-dollar discount since the lady didn’t have change. But I still just felt irritated. I went to checkout a B&B on the shore of Lake Colac, but the lake was so dry that the water was at least ¼ mile out and the whole sight just depressed me. Looking at the map for my options for the next two days as I made my way back to Melbourne, I saw that Lorne, on the GOR between Torquay and Apollo Bay, was only an hour away! My spirits soared the closer I got to the ocean. I was on another empty road, winding up to the crest of the hills, surrounded by eucalyptus trees again! The air was wonderful, and I felt that I was already smelling the coast, though that was impossible at that distance. Maybe I was just making up some psychological scent because the Committee had gone home for the night and I felt at peace. The scent was beautiful and strong and tangible – then I saw jasmine blooming between the eucalyptus. Of course! It’s spring here, which I keep forgetting. So the scent of eucalyptus and jasmine escorted me to the blue-green water. I turned off at the first B&B sign in Lorne and found a beautiful peaceful room looking out to the ocean and a reservation for one at the BaBaLu Club for paella night.
Before I drove back to Melbourne for my flight to Ayers Rock, my brother and I had a video chat and caught up on family gossip from Thanksgiving. Of course the real star (as I’m sure my brother is well aware) is my gorgeous niece Allie, eating her lunch of arroz con Cheerios. I got to see their Christmas tree, and feeling nostalgic as I drove toward Melbourne on the Road of Eucalyptus and Jasmine, I realized that today is the 1st of December. 19 days to LA...
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