12 Apostles at dawn

Today we got up at 6.30am (again…) to see the 12 apostles at dawn. The weather wasn’t great and maybe that affected our moods or the look of the scenery but we weren’t overly impressed. The skies, beaches and rock formations were much more beautiful at Aireys Inlet and there weren’t as many of those icky tourists around either. Ok, at 7am when we got to the 12 apostles there were only 5 other people so it wasn’t exactly crammed, but at Aireys Inlet there was nobody in sight.

We took in the scenery as best as we could, and took the standard pictures that everyone has. It wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere in the world someone else had exactly the same picture as me, from exactly the same angle with exactly the same exposure and depth of field. So many people visit and there are so few practical viewing angles that it has to have happened.

We finished our gawking and then went back for breakfast, cleaned up the camper and then went off in search of more rock formations. It turns out loch ard gorge looks far more impressive but that may just have been the weather which had by now improved. A little windy but far more sunny. We sat on the beach for a while and took in the scenery.

We were going to see the loch ard cemetery (the gorge is named after an ill fated ship of the same name that sank here) but Monika saw a snake first and we had to run the other way. Much to her credit she grabbed my arm and tried to drag me back to safety as soon as she saw it. Good instincts. As a testament to my inadequate amount of respect for the things I tried moving closer to get a better picture.

Instead of the cemetery we took in the Blowhole, Thundercave and then London Bridge where we had out first experience of wind and rain in AUS. The wind was rather impressive and sent huge waves crashing into the rocks. Really huge waves. We kayaked in crappy little 3^rd rate waves off of apollo bay and they felt really big once you got dunked by them, but these mothers were something else. Thanks to nature my camera got covered in ocean spray (not that it seems to be bothered by it. The more I use this crappy battered 5 year old 350D the more I wonder what the pros need their reinforced magnesium alloy camera bodies for – do they use them as cameras or as cudgels?)

Aussie signposting

Frankly speaking the Australians could learn a lot from practically any other country on earth when it comes to roadsigns. Everyone knows about the kangaroo warning sign which serves a purpose and is very clear. Evidently though, the australians were so pleased with this one sign that they decided that what they’d achieved with it would more than make up for the terrible placement, graphics or wording of indeed any other sign they cared to scatter frivlously about the road. You get speed limit signs informing you that you can now haul along at 100 km/h and then 30 seconds later you turn a slight curve which reveals a hairpin turn with the recommendation/demand (I’m not sure which, we took it as a strong recommendation and always followed it, being’s as our camper loses at least 1 mechanical part a day) that you slow down to 15 km/h, you may be hit by falling koalas or rocks and that should you hit a kangaroo you can call a telephone number to claim a prize. Also good are some of the directional signs, which sometimes look like they’re intended to be read as “go left a bit but stay on the road, then swerve as quickly as you can to the left for no reason whatsoever, then drive on a bit and then take a right”. All that and you come to a t-junction where every road has just one lane.

Melba Gully

I’m going to try to shorten the blog posts from now on, as we’re having far too much fun to sit around writing about it. I’m writing this from the far flung future of the 26^th February, but I’ll try to keep my eyes trained on the distant past of the 21^st.

Today we went to Melba Gully. A quick stopoff – just a 40 minute walk round trip through yet another rainforest. Honestly I’m getting sick of the things. I’m starting to miss regular forest. Despite my jadedness to rainforests it is actually alright… Wooden walkways, steps (non standard size, which is becoming the standard for our trip here in austraila (you don’t realise how nice standard size steps are until you stomp up and down 180 non standard sized ones)). They have a free bbq area available to use too. Not that we did.

After Melba Gully we travelled on to triplet falls which is situated in yet more temperate rainforest. Once again we’re impressed by another unique waterfall. Sounds a dumb thing to say, because of course they are, but every waterfall is as unique as every rainforest is not. Also, it’s hard to take a picture of a rainforest – there’s no focal point. Don’t be surprised if you never see just a picture of a rainforest in the 8GB (and counting) of photos we have. Though they’re great to be in they really don’t lend themselves to being photographed and framed.

After getting our rainforest fix for the day (it is a very sorry state of affairs when all you have to complain about is that you see too much rainforest) we drove on to Port Campbell to enjoy a long overdue lazy day reading by the water. Cath (from Arrarat) and Pete (Canadian), camping next to us kindly told us that they did have 3 kids, but that one had just been eaten by a snake next to the river and so we shouldn’t go too close to the edge unless we wanted to go through the bother of reallotting rations. Upon hearing the S word Monika squealed like the girl she is and we went off to find some food.

It’s amazing how expensive everything is when you get into the tourist towns. The quality is also incredibly shit for the reason that nobody cares if your food tastes good or not as you’re not gonna come back anyway. Lonely Planet’s review of cafes bars and restaraunts is also a chocolate fireguard: If they say a place is good then said bar/restaraunt drives either prices up or quality down to make more money. From this experienced optimist’s viewpoint the bar/restaraunt never recovers it’s former glory and then LP has to come along again and review the latest bestest hottest coolest place, whereupon 6 months later it’s also gone to the dogs. The only winner is Lonely Planet. So far we’ve followed one review in their book, decided the above phenomenon was taking place and then just did our own thing.

…Which also backfires fairly often. We paid 20$ for the worst, bottom of the barrel fish and chips ever, and bought (I’m guessing, it didn’t say) 10 year old ketchup to go with it which then exploded over our faces, hands, sunglasses and t-shirts. Worst. Fips and chish. Ever. It was kind of amusing though 🙂

After talking with a local brit working in the petrol station about this state of affairs he pointed out that all the locals drive 15 minutes down the road to do their shopping which has more of a selection but much the same prices. I’d be on their side if they wanted to have 2 prices – tourist and local – on everything. To show our sympathies we bought him a toffee caramel slice from the bakers in addition to our own.

DEUTSCH

Wir haben die Nacht ueberlebt und haben uns auf den Weg nach Melba Gully gemacht. Melba Gully ist wie Mait’s Rest ein Regenwald. Dort gab es einen Wasserfall und viele Aussichtsplatformen, sowie riesige umgestuerzte Baeume. Zu Beginn haben wir gedacht, dass es langweilig wird, da wir schon einige Regenwaelder bis dahin gesehen haben. Wir wurden aber wie immer nicht enttaeuscht. Auch hier gab es vieles zu sehen, dass wieder ganz anders war als in den anderen Regenwaeldern.

Am gleichen Tag haben wir uns auf den Weg zu drei weiteren Wasserfaellen gemacht. Angefangen haben wir mit den beruehmten Triplet Falls. Auch hier haben wir schon befuerchtet, dass es nichts besonders sein kann. Die Triplet Falls sind jedoch nicht mit den anderen Wasserfaellen zu vergleichen. Der Weg fuehrt entlang des Flusses hoch zu den Triplet Falls. Der Name kommt von dem Verlauf des Wasserfalles, der ueber drei Stufen geht. Wir waren an diesem Tag sehr faul und wollten einfach nur noch relaxen. Deshalb sind wir nach Port Campbell gefahren vorbei an den 12 Aposteln ohne diese anzusehen. Im Stadtzentrum von Port Campbell haben wir uns die wohl schlechtesten und teuersten Fish and Chips gekauft ueberhaupt. Weil wir natuerlich keine Fish and Chips ohne Ketchup essen koennen haben wir auch das noch in kleinen Tuben gekauft.

Koalas & Tarrantino

Am morgen des naechsten Tages wurde uns dann klar, warum der Campingplatz so bekannt ist fuer seine Koalas. In jedem Baum konnte man Koalas finden, die sich ganz schoen festhalten mussten, weil es unglaublich windig war. Einem der Koalas wurde es dann auch zu anstregend und er hat sich entschlossen direkt vor uns den Baum zu wechseln und ein bisschen vor uns rumzulaufen. So haben wir auch endlich einen Koala von der Naehe gesehen. Anschliessend sind wir endlich zu Mait’s Rest gefahren, woran wir schon mindestens vier mal vorbeigefahren sind. Ich kann man nicht an die genaue Beschreibung erinnern, aber es ist auf jeden Fall ein Regenwald. Dies war mal ganz was anderes im Gegensatz zu dem Rest was wir bis jetzt gesehen haben. Dort ist alles sehr kuehl und es gibt tausend Farne (schon wieder ein Wort, bei dem ich mir nicht sicher bin. eine gruene Pflanze…) Ausserdem sind die Baeume riesig und alles ist total gruen. Der Weg war dort sehr schoen angelegt mit vielen hoelzernen Bruecken ueber kleine Fluesse.

Das Wetter war an dem Tag sehr schwuel und wir waren schon nach einer halben Stunde gehen total kaputt. Deshalb haben wir beschlossen ein Stueck weiter zu fahren damit wir uns ein bisschen ausruhen konnten. Wir kamen dann am Nachmittag an dem beruehmten Otay

Tree Top Walk an. Dieser Weg fuehrt in die Gipfel der 60 Meter hohen Baeume. Dafuer mussten wir einen Pfad hochgehen, der auf Stahlpfeiler gebaut ist. Mir war das natuerlich viel zu hoch und ich musste mich die ganze Zeit festhalten, weil alles so gewackelt hat.

Weil es schon relativ spaet war, wollten wir nach Lavers Hill zu einem Campingplatz fahren. Dort angekommen haben wir getankt und mal wieder unseren Camper repariert (Es hing ein Kabel zum Boden runter. Wir haben uns Tape von der Tankstelle besorgt und es einfach wieder angeklebt). Die netten Leute an der Tankstelle haben uns dann gesagt wir sollen im Pub nachfragen, ob noch ein Platz frei ist auf dem Campingplatz. Dieser Ort bestand uebrigens aus ungefaehr 15 Haeusern. Matt hat kurz nachgefragt und der Besitzer meinte: es gibt zwei Plaetze, an einem stinkt es, weil dort der Muell hingeworfen wird und der andere Platz ist klein. Nachdem wir uns das kurz angeschaut haben, war uns schnell klar, dass wir dort nicht bleiben wuerden. Mit der Ueberzeugung, dass es nicht schlimmer werden kann, sind wir weiter nach Princetown gefahren. Princetown sieht auf den ersten Blick ganz nett aus und auch die Dame von dem Campingplatz war super nett. Der Stellplatz super schoen mit einem tollen Ausblick auf Wallabies, die auf der anderen Seite des Flusses gerade gespielt haben als wir ankamen. Als wir am Abend jedoch Spazieren gehen wollten, mussten wir feststellen, dass Princetown aus einem Pub und einem Shop besteht und ich ubertreibe nicht. Zwei Haeuser und das war’s.

ENGLISH

Today we got up in the morning, paid our 1$ for 3 minutes of showering (water restrictions apparently, yet the sinks have neither plugs nor meters and so waste oodles of water) and had a breakfast consisting of, for me, hommous on toast, salami on toast and tea (Tea is something that this old colony of ours doesn’t seem to have gotten right. It’s rather weak.) While munching on hommous I noticed a woman meandering around the campsite snapping pictures of practically every tree. After the last of the toast was gone I picked up the canon and went up to her to see if she had seen anything interesting. Turns out the park is indeed infested with koalas, only they’re so high up in the trees that for my poor 24-70mm lens they’re a bit too far away to be practical. I have a 55-200 with me as well but i’d rather the koalas came to me than the other way around – the 25-70 provides a nicer picture and changing lenses means yet more dust on the CCD. I asked her if there was anything lounging around in the 50mm range and she suggested I try the tree on the other side of the park. I think she just wanted me to go away, but it turns out that the tree next to the tree she meant had a really excited koala sitting in it. The fluffy teddy bear got bored of sitting around at the top and climbed down the tree to investigate the pickings further down, where it realised it was being photographed by about 6 diferent camera manufacturers and that it would not be long before it had it’s 15 minutes on flickr. The little thing got scared (particularly after some muppet broke out the flash) and started legging it for the next tree. Before it could get there it was surrounded by more nikons and got confused as everything including all the other koalas were staring at it. Naturally it didn’t like this and so as soon as the first opportunity came it ran for the tree where it stared at us to make sure we weren’t going to chase it and then fell asleep (they sleep for 19 hours a day). That poor koala had done probably more exercise than it ever does in a month.

Next stop was Maits rest – so called because some guy called Mait used to let his horses have a rest here on his patrols of the area during the first world war. It’s another rainforest (days of rain in year > 200) that’s set out with lovely wooden walkways (as required) to stop the tourists trampling over the roots of myrtle beech, ancient fern and co. The air was really close out of the rainforest, but inside it was dark and cool. I expected the opposite too. I read somewhere that only 1% of daylight gets to the bottom of the rainforest. Anyway, all this darkly lit greenery and brownery was a great excuse to break out the flash for my canon. I still have no idea how to use it properly but I still had great fun bouncing the light off of tree trunks and from overhanging ferns onto Monika.

Having still not had enough of rainforests we headed off to the Cape Otway Treetop Walk. Name says it all really. You pay your ~20$ and start by walking through the rainforest at ground level. At some point there’s some steps and then you end up on a series of interconnected steel walkways at the centre of which is a viewing tower 57 metres high. You get to see the rainforest at different levels (my hayfever kicked in 50 metres up) but the real star of the show were for me the walkways themselves. You can run up and down them (scares the girlfriend) and admire the engineering on the cantilever viewing platform. If you’re not scared of heights you can walk onto a platform about 45 metres in the air with nothing beneath your feet but a thin bit of steel and nothing to support you except belief in physics and engineering.

After the treetop walk we decided to try and find somewhere to bed down for the night. I guess it’s cos we’re not here in the peak season, but nearly everyone shuts shop at 5pm prompt. This means that at 4.30 every day we begin a mad race to the nearest hub of civilisation (or the closest approximation we can find) to get a plug to jack our camper into. You can of course “freecamp” (like freerunning only static, not a sport and with a 500$ fine) but we’re hooked on electricity and clean showers so ~28$ a night it is for us.

While on this mad dash we stopped at a petrol station to ask for directions & to fill up the beast. While we were stopped I noticed that there was a cable hanging down in the middle of our camper. I’m no mechanic but cables hanging not more than 3cm away from the road doesn’t look right. We begged some gaffer tape from the guys in the petrol station and stuck it back up to another part of the camper that neither moved nor got hot. It’s still there now and nothing’s exploded so I guess I did the right thing.

The directions given to us for the next campsite turned out to be a bar with a bit of field they’d decided to try and make some money out of. I walked into the bar and was instantly in one of Tarrantino’s films again. Everything had his weird sort of style and there were actual holes that looked like gunshots in an inside window (i presume they were put there for aesthetic effect and weren’t actually fired in anger). I shouted for the barkeep and between me asking him about a campsite (I opened with something like “I’m definitely in the wrong place. Do you know where a campsite is round here?”) and him responding the words “DEFAULT AUSTRALIAN” kept blinking in my head. He was direct, good natured and not too fussed either way. He told me the one site that was powered was next to a dump and that if I didn’t like that I could go and camp out in the paddock and have it all to myself. Then he saw Monika in the camper and said that I’d better take a look round first and only agree to stay if we liked it. I admired his frankness. We took a look and then drove off to the next town.

The next town turned out to be not really a town but a collection of buildings called Princetown. “Dusk till Dawn” was once again bouncing around my head as we pulled into the campsite office/general store/post office. I never knew places like this existed, I just thought that they were hollywood sets but no, just as New Zealand has its Orc problem since the lord of the rings was filmed there, so does Australia have it’s Tarrantino town problem. It’s not what you expect to see on your holiday but I was very impressed. More pictures were taken and after dark I set up the tripod and we ran around the “town” with all 3 of it’s buildings in the viewfinder on a slow shutter speed. Hopefully when we get back to the old world I can combine them in photoshop to make it look like actual ghosts are running around the actual ghost town.

19th Cont’d

after writing our travel stories for you, dear reader, we drove off to Bimbi Park which is (at least in all the tourist information offices) well known for it’s koalas and horseriding. We drove out to it almost entirely for the reason that we’d been sitting in Apollo Bay for about 3 days and things were starting to get a little too static. A 45 minute drive later and we’re there. We plodded off to the office to ask about a site for the evening. In the office we saw what can only be described as the controversial tuck shop from Grange Hill, except that instead of sweets and chocolates it had sardines and spam. I’m not shitting you: there were at least 3 different tins of sardines on sale and 4 sorts of baked beans. We quickly decided that this was just too bad, and that our grungy camping holiday had standards that were above tinned sardines. After organising our site for the evening and then reserving it in the german way we drove back to Apollo Bay for munchies. Planned was a small garlic pizza with some potato salad and some sausages that’d been hiding at the back of the camper’s fridge. What happened in the end was that the guy dropped our small pizza on the floor or inadvertantly fed it to the cat or somesuch and so had to make us another. To make up for us having to sit around so long he prepped us a big garlic pizza. So big in fact that there was no need for a side serving of sausages. We drove out past Marengo and ate our food as the sun went down, then drove back to Bimbi.

DEUTSCH

da das Schreiben unseres Blogs so lange gedauert hat mussten wir uns als naechstes einen campingplatz fuer die Nacht suchen. Wir haben uns schnell fuer den Bimbi Park entschieden der beruehmt fuer seine Koalas ist. Als wir dann dort waren, waren wir schon etwas enttaeuscht, weil man fuer die Duschen zahlen musste und weil es nichts zum Einkaufen gab. Da unser Kuehlschrank leer war, haben wir uns entschieden mal wieder nach Apollo Bay zu fahren. Geplant war, dort unsere Wuerstl zu grillen an einem der Muenzgrille (man wirft Geld ein und kann grillen) zusammen mit einer Knoblauchpizza. Der Ofen in der Pizzeria war jedoch kaputt und wir bekamen statt unserer kleinen eine grosse Pizza. Also gab es mal wieder einen Planwechsel und wir haben uns einen der vielen Picnic-Plaetze am Meer gesucht und dort alleine gegessen bei Sonnenuntergang.

Eeepc

This, the latest installment of our travel blog, is being written on our latest piece of gadgetry, an Eeeeeee PC with Xandros linux installed on it. We bought it in warranooob, wamma, wrra, this place for 279 australian with the hope that we’d be able to write the travel blog on the road, and then the next time we stopped over we’d find a wifi spot and would be able to squirt said blog post straight up, so saving us writing 3 days worth of travelling in another agonising 3 hour marathon. This is my first paragraph with the thing and i will testify right now that it’s very difficult to touch type on – the keyboard is teeny tiny. The following blog posts are to be written on this tiny australian keyboard. So if there are y’s where there should be z’s or the spelling is at all stodgy then please bear with us. Also, the screen’s 640 x 400!

seal hunting

Der heutige Tag hat mit Kajakfahren zur Roben-Kolonie begonnen. Wir sind wirklich mit Kajaks zu einer Insel gefahren und haben dort Roben beobachtet. Ich dachte, dass wird nicht so beeindruckend. Wahrscheinlich werden wir keine Roben sehen und wenn nur von hundert Meter Entfernung. Weit gefehlt! Die Roben schwamen zwei Meter von uns entfernt und unter unserem Kajak durch. Es waren immer Gruppen von ca. 10 Roben, die im Wasser gespielt haben. Wir konnten einfach zu der Gruppen hinfahren und sie beobachten. Das hat sie ueberhaupt nicht gestoert. Manche sind zu uns geschwommen, haben uns kurz angesehen und sind dann ein bisschen hochgesprungen und wieder ins Meer getaucht um unter uns durchzuschwimmen. Das war wohl das beeindruckendste, was ich bis jetzt hier gesehen hab. Wir waren ca. 1 Stunde dort und haben sie beobachtet. Auf der Insel haben sich dann zum Sonnen hingelegt und haben geschlafen. Insgesam waren es mindestens 50 Roben. Unser Trainer hat gesagt, sie sind wie Hunde. Und irgendwie stimmt das auch. Sie haben keine wirkliche Angst vor Menschen und sind einfach nur total suess. Da Kajak ja auch ein bisschen im Vordergrund stand, sollten wir lernen, mit den Wellen zu fahren. Wer mit uns schon mal beim Rafting war, kann sich vorstelen, was uns passiert ist. Wir sind natuerlich umgefallen! Man muss dazu sagen, dass es Zweier-Kajaks sind. Also ist es nur Matt seine Schuld 😉 Dabei war noch ein austraisch/neuseelaendisches Paerchen, dass gerade ihre Flitterwochen hier verbringt, Tony und Heidi. Wir sind mit den beiden Mittagessen gegangen und haben erfahren, dass Tony Fluglehrer ist. Er hat mir den tollsten Satz seit langem gesagt: Wenn in einem Flugzeug die Motoren ausfallen, dann sind die Chancen sehr sehr hoch, dass das Flugzeug trotzdem sicher landet. Ihm passiert das haeufiger und es ist kein Problem. So, und jetzt sitzen wir seit 1,5 Stunden in einem Internet-Cafe in Apollo Bay und versuchen uns an alles zu erinnern, was in den letzten Tagen passiert ist. Schon einiges muss ich sagen. Und alles war toll bis jetzt. Unsere Plaene haben sich ziemlich geaendert. Wir fahren doch nicht nach Tasmanien, sondern bleiben hier uns schauen mal, wie weit wir kommen. Hier gibt es so vieles zu sehen und wir wollen einfach nichts verpassen. Unsere naechsten Ziele sind natuerlich die 12 Apostel und The Grampians.

ENGLISH

Today we went kayaking in the ocean to see seals living on some wet rocks. We paddled out in two man kayaks under the supervision of Sam, after having signed a hefty insurance waiver. The seals live about 400 metres out on a bit of rock away from the mainland surrounded by ocean, waves and fish. Despite our really shitty paddling technique we made it there without capsizing and got to see the seals at work sunning themsdelves on the rock, rolling around with their flippers in the air in the sea, and jumping around the kayaks. we were’t more than 5 metres away from these seabound puppy dogs that look so incredibly graceful in the water (40 km/h underwater apparently) and yet so unbelieveably comical on dry land. There was us, Sam our guide, and another couple going by the names of Heidi and Tony. We took pictures with the powershot d10 waterproof camera of seals in and out of water, and of us in the kayak. I also took a few videos too, so I’m sure you’ll see them on youtube or something soon. After Sam gave his talk about the seals, and they played around our boats we paddled back to the shore in the hope of catching some big waves. We managed two of them before our kayak was so badly lined up that we were ejected at high speed into the water. After swallowing a metric shitload of water I found my wits and pulled at the camera attached to my lifejacket. When faced with a possible drowing I relaxed and made a movie 🙂 Sea water is really salty. Now we’re sitting in a cafe in Apollo Bay and this blog post of the last 3 or 4 days has nearly given me carpal tunnel. I’ve eaten fish and chips and we’re currently deciding whether to stay here for another day or to go on to the next town. There’s so much to see here that we’ve decided not to do Tasmania, and instead travel the rest of the ocean road over a few more days before heading off to the grampian mountains for some hiking and possibly more mountain biking. We’ll try and not leave it so long next time, but I’m sure you’ll understand how difficult it is to sit at a computer when the weather is perfect, the scenery is breathtaking, and we’re having such a great time.

Mountain biking

Dieser Tag war bis jetzt der anstrengendste ueberhaupt. Wir haben beschlossen Mountain-Biking zu gehen. Nach einer “kurzen” Fahrt von ca. einer Stunde kamen wir in Forrest an, wo wir unsere Mountainbikes ausgeliehen haben. Bruce war so nett uns noch die verschiedenen Trails in Forrest zu erklaeren, die fuer uns Anfaenger gut sind. Im nachhinein muss ich sagen, er hat uns wohl ueberschaetzt. Wir haben mit einer einfachen Runde angefangen. Die auch wirklich in Ordnung war. Ein bisschen Kies, aber das war’s auch schon. Die Runde 5 war schon etwas anspruchsvoller. Viele Wurzeln, ueber die man springen musste und ein paar gemeine Kurven, die man erst sah, als es schon zu spaet war. Da ich nach den ersten 2 Runden schon kaputt war, hab ich eine Pause eingelegt und Matt fuhr alles nochmal. Ich war also wieder gestaerkt und es ging auf Runde 2. Ich haette mir das wohl etwas genauer durchlesen sollen. Runde 2 ist 7 Kilometer Uphill. Ich muss hier wohl nicht erwaehnen, wie schlecht meine Kondition ist. Nach kuerzester Zeit hab ich die erste Pause gebraucht. Das gute daran war, dass Matt auch ziemlich kaputt war. Noch ein Punkt zu meiner Verteidigung, wir hatten ungefaehr 30 Grad. Irgendwie und ich weiss nicht mehr wie, haben wir es an das Ziel von Runde 2 geschafft, den Lake Elizabeth. Ein bisschen unbeabsichtigt sind wir zwar dort gelandet, weil wir uns verfahren haben, bzw. einen Weg nahmen, der gar kein Weg war, aber es war super schoen dort. Die Landschaft war zum wiederholten mal komplett anders als ca. 5 Kilometer davon entfernt. Anschliessend nahmen wir Runde 3 in Angriff, die Downhill Strecke. Zu diesem Augenblick haben meine Beine nur noch gezittert und ich war so kaputt. Ausserdem ging das Wasser zu Ende. 3 Liter sind einfach so verschwunden. Der Anfang von Runde 3 war eine richtige Downhill Strecke, die ich teilweise schieben musste, weil ich mich einfach nicht getraut hab zu fahren. Das war aber nur der Anfang der Strecke und der Reste hat einfach nur Spass gemacht. Leider waren wir doch schon etwas zu muede um es voellig geniessen zu koennen. Aber wir haben es bis zu Bruce geschafft und erstmal 3 Eis gekauft (Matt hat sogar 2 gegessen) und ganz viel Wasser. Da wir komplett durchgeschwitzt waren und keine Dusche in der Naehe war, dachten wir uns, wir fahren einfach zu einem Wasserfall und duschen dort. Wir haben uns Stevenson’s Falls ausgesucht, die eigentlich gleich in der Naehe waren. In unserem Reisefuehrer stand, dass es eine unbefestigte 7 km lange Strasse ist zu den Wasserfaellen und man diese Strasse nur bei Trockenheit befahren kann. Kein problem haben wir uns gedacht. Wir kamen an eine Abzweigung. Links stand ein Schild, auf dem Stand, dass keine Camper dort fahren duerfen. Ich weiss nicht wieso, aber wir haben beschlossen diese Strasse zu fahren. Naja, wir sind da irgendwie durchgekommen. Ich habe eine Schlange ueberfahren, die mindestens 1,5 Meter lang war und einen Durchmesser von 8 cm hatte. sie war einfach so gut getarnt, dass ich sie zu spaet sah und nicht mehr bremsen koennte. Von diesem Augenblick an, wollte ich nur zurueck auf die Strasse. An unserem Ausgangspunkt zurueck hat Matt beschlossen, dass wir nach dem Weg fragen und es nochmal versuchen. Die Aussage von dem netten Australier war: Das koennt ihr garnicht verfehlen! Ha, und wie wir das koennen. Zurueck am Auto sah ich dann, dass wir irgendeine Fluessigkeit verlieren. (Nur so: ich hab einen Tropfen aufgefangen und es war Wasser. Bis jetzt faehrt der Camper noch. Ich bin fuer jeden Tipp dankbar. Aber bitte nur positives) Naja, also fuhren wir nochmal los. Dieses mal sind wir die andere Strasse gefahren und haben uns wirklich gefragt, warum wir den anderen Weg genommen haben davor. Weil eigentlich ging es einfach nur gerade aus. Wir haben es dann zu den Stevenson’s Falls geschafft und es hat sich einfach nur gelohnt. Wir waren die einzigen Menschen weit und breit. Der Wasserfall war groesser als Eskine Falls und viel beeindruckender. Leider konnte man sich nicht unter den Wasserfall stellen, weil es einfach nicht moeglich war dort hin zu kommen ohne zu schwimmen. Da wir nicht wussten, was in dem Wasser ist haben wir es lieber gelassen. Auf dem Weg zurueck haben wir noch viele Bilder von der schoenen Landschaft gemacht. Kakadus (keine Ahnung, ob man die so schreibt oder ob es das Wort ueberhaupt in Deutsch gibt) haben uns noch geaergert. Ich hab mal wieder eine Vollbremsung gemacht, weil ca. 20 Kakadus in einem Baum sassen und wir sie Fotografieren wollten. Genau in dem Augenblick hat das Telefon geklingt und die Kakadus sind weggeflogen. Nur so als Info: Hier fliegen Kakadus und Papageien einfach so rum. Ueberall. Also ich wusste das nicht 🙂

ENGLISH

Today we slept in a bit after knackering ourselves out with the sunrise hike and Mojo and whatnot. When we did get up it was around 10am. We called a local who was hiring out Mountain bikes in Forrest – about 50km north of Apollo Bay. When we finally found Otway Eco Tours it wasn’t your typical rental place, more of a discarded house left to nature. Overgrown stuff everywhere und inexplicable rubbish in strange places. A barking dog served as an announcement bell and we were greeted by Bruce – about as dillapidated and unkempt as the property but nonetheless very friendly and reasonable. We’d turned up at 11, and his rentals normally went from 9am – 1pm and 2pm to 5pm. He let us have the bikes until 3, or a bit longer if we wanted. Totally relaxed, he examined the bikes, recommended a few routes, and pointed out where the maps were just plain just plain wrong. We rode out to the first of the trails and after a little uphill cycling we were treated to about 20 minutes of fairly easy trail riding. We were both fucked after this, and so took a little break. I recovered a little faster than Monika and so did the trail again a little faster than last time, as I knew what I was expecting. After that and another breather we cycled on to another trail. This one was all uphill and knocked us out. We also took a wrong turn and ended up next to an eerie lake with dead trees sticking out of the water. This is meant to be the destination point for Bruce’s platypus tour but we’d found it by accident and it was pretty cool. After slogging up the hill-without-a-trail we came across trail number three and zipped down it at a fairly quick pace, riding between and over branches and roots and piles of earth. It was really fun but we were by this time also really knackered – it was the first time either of us have ridden mountain bikes on a trail. It’s certainly different to roadbiking but just as fun and I think I’ll be in the market for a mountain bike once we get back to germany. We gave the mountain bikes back at 3 and then rammed down a couple of ice creams before picking our bruised arses off the pavement and plonking them into the camper again. We drove off in search of Stephenson falls, both of us whimpering each time we hit a bump in the road. We drove past the turn (by now par for the course) but luckily found a nice observation point overlooking yet more beautiful countryside. We snapped a few more pictures and then drove back to the turnoff. After about 10km on roughish road, we came to a fork in the road. One side said “not suitable for trailers or caravans” and the other continued much the same as the road we were on now. We’d read in the guide about a shortcut that could shave off an hour of walking, provided it’d been dry weather recently. We took this to be the shortcut and promptly drove around in a circle for at least an hour. Monika ran over a snake about a metre in length. Eventually we ended up at Forrest again and asked at the general store (which was right out of a Castlemaine XXXX commercial) for directions. We set off and found it again after an hour of driving – basically we went left at the fork in the road instead. The reason we’d been so confused was because the new road wasn’t yet finished and so wasn’t on any map. We walked for 15 minutes before arriving at Stephenson Falls. When we finally get around to uploading some pictures to this text, you’ll hopefully see how amazing it looked. Far more water than Erskine and also far more secluded. It is once again in a rainforest and apart from the huge steel observation point (which Monika promptly ignored and went skipping over the rocks to the other side) is completely untouched by either humans our tourists. We’ve since spoken to a few other people around here and nobody has managed to find it. I took the standard long expsosure waterfall shots and I’m hoping now that they’ve turned out ok – there was lots of mist in air and loads of it landed on my lens. We drove back and on the way nearly ran over a family of kangaroos. We stopped and stared at them while they stared at us. I dived into the back to pick up the camera, changed the lens and then took a few pictures of actual kangaroos in the wild not more than 10 metres in front of us. It always sounded to me as if Australians were constantly tripping over kangaroos over here, but since I’ve been here I’ve come to regard them more like our deer – you can see them but it’s really rare. They don’t look like deer at all though, more like really springy bunnies. I also emptied the GPS log today and saved it as a track. Hopefully that wasn’t a stupid thing to do.

sunrise at aireys inlet

Der darauffolgende Tag hat schon um 6 Uhr morgens begonnen, weil wir den Sonnenaufgang ueber dem Meer um exakt 6:52 Uhr zu beobachten. Nur 10 Minuten vom Campingplatz waren die Klippen, die zum Strand fuehrten. Matt’s erster Sonnenaufgang war unbeschreiblich. Die Himmel hat alle moeglichen Farben angekommen, bis um genau 6:52 Uhr endlich die Sonne aufging. Wir sind anschliessend zum Stand runter um noch ein bisschen um Meer zu laufen. Nachdem Fruestueck haben wir uns noch Tipps von unserer australischen Nachbarin geholt, was man alles besichten sollte auf der Great Ocean Road. Unseren ersten Leuchtturm erreichten wir nach einer Fahrt von 5 Minuten. Wir haben wie immer gaaanz viele Bilder gemacht und die Aussicht genossen. Ein neuseelaendisches Paerchen, dass wir an dem Tag noch haeufiger getroffen haben, war genauso beeindruckt wie wir. Anscheinend ist Neuseeland wieder anders… Ein paar Meter nach dem Leuchtturm kam endlich das beruehmte ‘Tor’ fuer die Great Ocean Road, worunter wir uns natuerlich stellen mussten. Dafuer sind wir auf die Strasse gelaufen, weil darunter stehen natuerlich besser ist als daneben stehen. Alle anderen Touristen, die dort waren fanden die Idee wohl toll und haben sich auch darunter gestellt. Man muss dazu sagen, dass die Great Ocean Road relativ gut befahren ist und eine Geschwindigkeit von 100 km\h erlaubt ist. naja, so lange wir dort waren ist nichts passiert. Der naechste Stop war Lorne, ca. 30 km weiter auf der Great Ocean Road. Dort haben wir uns Informationen geholt, was man alles in der Gegend machen kann. Da ich Wasserfaelle liebe, war klar, dass wir uns die Eskine Falls anschauen muessen. Dort angekommen, sah ich das erste Schild: Be aware of Sneaks. Daraufhin hab ich sofort eine lange Hose angezogen und wir haben uns auf den Weg gemacht runter die 250 Treppen zu den Eskine Falls. Wasserfaelle sind einfach beeindruckend. Leider ist es eine relativ schlechte Zeit diese zu besichtigen, weil es nicht viel geregnet hat in den letzten Monaten. Trotzdem war es ein Wasserfall und wir haben uns sogar darunter gestellt. Zum ersten Mal stand ich unter einem Wasserfall!!! War wahrscheinlich nicht ganz ungefaehrlich, weil es so rutschig war wie auf Eis, aber darauf konnten wir einfach nicht verzichten. Am Abend sind wir dann endlich in Apollo Bay angekommen. Wir sind ein bisschen shoppen gegangen, weil wir einfach zu muede waren etwas anderes zu machen. Eine super nette Verkaeuferin hat uns dann erzaehlt, dass wir unbedingt am Abend so ab 18 Uhr zum Otway Lighthouse fahren sollen, weil man auf dem Weg dorthin Kangurus und Koalas sehen kann. Das konnten wir uns natuerlich nicht entgehen lassen. Nach langem langem suchen hab ich einen Koala entdeckt der zu unserem Glueck gerade fast vom Baum fiel. Waere er nicht runtergehangen, haette ich ihn nicht gesehen. Nach einer Vollbremsung, sind wir aus dem Auto ausgestiegen und haben erstmal ein sehr lautes Bruellen gehoert, woraufhin ich sofort wieder ins Auto gesprungen bin. Wir haben keine Ahnung, was es war. Fuer mich hat es sich angehoert wie ein Baer (egal was Matt sagt, es war wirklich so laut), Matt glaubt, dass es ein Wildschwein war. Egal was es war, ich hab mich nicht mehr als 2 Meter vom Camper entfernt. In den Baeumen sassen jedoch wirklich Koalas. Einer war sogar so nett, dass er uns die ganze Zeit angeschaut hat zum Fotos machen. Wir sahen Kangurus, leider nur 100 meter oder so von uns entfernt. Da wir nicht aufgeben wollten, sind wir nochmal ein kurzes Stueck zurueckgefahren, als Matt ploetzlich stop schrie, weil er einen Papagei gesehen hat. Er ist dem Papagei nachgelaufen durch ein Tor, dass komischerweise offen war. Nach ein paar Minuten kam er zurueck um mich zu holen, weil er Kangurus gesehen hat!! Gleich hinter einer Scheune sassen ca. 10 Kangurus, die uns beobachtet haben. Ich geb ja zu, dass ich doch etwas Angst hatte. Die sind groesser als man erwartet und sie hatten kleine Kangurus dabei. Also haben wir uns nicht wirklich nach rangetraut (bzw. ich hab Matt nicht erlaubt naeher ran zu gehen). Am Campingplatz zurueck sind wir fast tot ins Bett gefallen.

ENGLISH Today we started early by dragging ourselves out of bed to see the sun come up – something I’ve always been too lazy to do and consequently have never in my life seen. We tramped out to the beach and set up the camera on a tripod aimed at the horizon. After about half an hour the sun started to rise and we both snapped away taking beautiful pictures of the clouds and sun at dawn. To my chagrin Monika got better shots with her point and shoot than my heavy 350D + 28-70mm 2.8 + 3 Kilo tripod. Regardless of who took them we have some great pictures to remember the sun come up over the beach. After the sun had woken up, we went for another splash in the water, taking yet more pictures of the sun, rocks, sea & sand. Everything looks different in the early morning light – almost as if the sun is charged up at the beginning at the day and as the day comes to an end the batteries are run down before finally giving up and giving into night. We went back for breakfast at the camper and watched the parrots and cockatoos as they flew around the site, evidently all let out of their cages in a synchronised australia wide event. Next we took a look at the lighthouse, though only from the outside. It’s exactly what you’d draw on a piece of paper if someone asked you to draw a typical lighthouse. There are many stylised variations round here, and I know this because I can see a bunch of them on the postcards on the rack next to me. After inspecting the lighthouse we drove on to Lorne where we came across a Tourist Information place telling us all about Erskine falls. So we drove as close as we could and hiked the last 20 minutes on foot through snake infested rainforest. Rainforest!!! I also never thought I’d walk through a rainforest but apparently I have, because apparently Australia has them. I’m not sure what defines a rainforest, but it did feel kind of like one. Hot, humid, trees everywhere and vines just waiting for tarzan to come swinging by on. When we finally got to Erskine falls it was a bit of a let down. It’s not rained enough recently and so the falls have become more of a drip. That, and there were hundreds of tourists (ahh don’t you hate em) running around taking pictures from every angle (who’d do such a thing!). We clambered onto the waterfall and discovered that the water was freezing cold and that the rocks were as slippery as ice. After Erskine Falls we left Lorne behind and drove on to Apollo Bay. Miles and miles of beautiful ocean road & views were experienced on the way. I remarked at least once that these roads would be perfect for cycling around. We got to Apollo Bay in about 2 hours, and drove through it to Marengo which is about 2km down the road. There was a holiday park there so we pulled in to ask if they had a spare site going. Whilst asking a huge monster of a bulldog came padding out to me. To my horror I saw that the rope it was attached to was no longer attached to anything. It ran along to the steps I was standing at the foot of, and then tripped and rolled down them to land on me feet, where it looked up at my, growled pathetically and batted at a fly on it’s ear. The owner came out and introduced me to his dog Mojo, a 14 week old puppy (sympathy for it’s mother is noted). We paid out 28 AUS for a powered site and went for fish and chips.

Camper Van!

DEUTSCH DANACH

Well today we picked up our “Camper van not more than 8 years old” with the jurassic period insects still stuck to the windscreen from when the thing made it’s first tour of oz all those millions of years ago. Like most of the cars over here it’s an automatic – initially odd to me as in europe everyone seems to pride themselves on their stick driving abilities and laughs at all those americans unable to steer, work the pedals AND move a stick around. The last time I drove an automatic was when I worked as a pizza delivery boy at Uni. The learning curve wasn’t very steep and after endangering the lives of a few small children we were on our way.

And got lost! On the second turn of the journey! We were meant to be following Steve, but my inability to follow directions coupled with 3 different recommendations for directions and then monika suggesting yet something else led to inaction at the wheel and us driving straight ahead. Instead of following Steve’s 4×4 to the right. Egal. A quick turnaround and we were once again on our way. After an hour of driving down pretty boring roads (looked like a really long version of the Hanauer Landstrasse but instead of Obi there were shops like “Bruce’s Bait and Tackle”) we drove into Frankston – a town that steve recommended we avoid but due to our pathetic navigational skills we ended up driving right the middle through. Turns out it wasn’t such a bad thing. Frankston has a pier and a beach and the ocean, and they all combined together to mark the beginning of our Australian Oddessy. The water was warm and fairly shallow and we splashed about making chirping noises and photographing everything that came into focus of the lens. There were a bunch of guys fishing and I think we ruined their chances of a catch that day.

After that we saw a sand sculpture exhibition. Barack Obama, Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler made out of sand! The exhibition (so different to our european exhibitions – this was out in a car park in the gorgeous warm sun and you walked around in flip flops) featured about 15 sculptures, all around 4 metres high. They’d all been sprayed with an eco friendly sealant to protect them if it rained (currently looking like a rare thing here) and built using brickies sand, which is square in shape as opposed to beach sand which is apparently round in shape and absoloutely useless for sculpting with.

We said goodbye to frankston and drove about 15km further before stopping once again to take in the scenery. Another beach. This beach was so shallow for so long. I think we waded out for 200 metres before getting bored. Then Monika ran back to take photos of me running back to the beach. I lost my sunglasses a couple of times, but obviously that was no problem as the bottom of the ocean was no more than 40cm away from the top.

Eventually we decided to drive on through Torquay which is apparently surfing mecca – I think it a shame we didn’t stop – and eventually drifted in to Aireys Inlet. We found a Holiday Park to become honourary trailer trash for the night and spoke to the owner (named Avis, like the rental car company), who informed us that the lighthouse dominating the coastal skyline was in fact the lighthouse used in “Round the Twist” – a bizarre kids tv program that aired in the UK when I was a kid. I remember the series and though it wasn’t really like finding the holy grail it was kind of special. We built up the campers bed and set our alarms for sunrise the next day – 6.30am.

DEUTSCH

Am naechsten Tag haben wir uns nochmal auf den Weg gemacht um unseren Camper abzuholen, der nun endlich da war. Steve und Matt haben sich 30 Minuten darueber unterhalten, wie wir am besten auf die Great Ocean Road kommen. Wir haben es geschafft uns schon nach 100 Meter (wirklich 100 Metern!!!) zu verfahren. Irgendwann haben wir dann die Weg gefunden und sind in Frankston (oder so aehnlich) gelandet um endlich ans Meer zu gehen. Blaues Meer, feinster Stand und blauer Himmel, wir waren im Urlaub! Nachdem wir ein bisschen im Meer geplanscht haben, sahen wir Sandskulpturen, die 3-4 Meter hoch waren. Es waren die verschiedensten Laender vertreten mit deren beeindruckensten Gebaeuden und Erfindungen. Deutschland war auch vertreten mit dem Schild: Germany -> Second World War… Weiter ging es auf unserer Reise zur Great Ocean Road mit der Faehre von Sottern (oder so aehnlich) nach Queenscliff. In Queenscliff angekommen hat man mal wieder die alte englische Kolonie erkannt. Lauter kleine suesse Gebaeude, die man auch in England finden kann. In einem Supermarkt haben wir dann auch den Tipp bekommen, wir sollten Essig kaufen, da es das Gift von Qualen wegwaescht, weil es schon bloed ist im Urlaub zu sterben. Nach weiteren 30 Kilometern kamen wir endlich an der Great Ocean Road an!! Wir waren jedoch etwas enttaeutscht von der langweiligen Landschaft bis wir in Aires Inlet kamen. Dort hab ich bis heute den schoensten Strand meines Lebens gesehen. Hunderte von Metern langer weiser Sandstrand bei Sonnenuntergang. Weil es dort so schoen war sind wir gleich zum naechsten Campingplatz gefahren um dort zu uebernachten. Nachdem wir unseren Camper zum ersten Mal an Strom angeschlossen haben und alles aufgebaut haben sind wir grillen gegangen um spaeter von tausend Muecken gestochen zu werden 🙂