The Great Ocean Road

Last week was Easter Holiday Week, which means a week off of classes when you're a student. In the US, we call it the "Spring Break". Here, it's Fall Break (I still struggle with this change of seasons). Denver Meg, India Pritha, and I decided it was a perfect opportunity to book a super-duper budget trip to chilly Melbourne (it is fall, after all), so we could see the city and experience the famous Great Ocean Road.

This meant I had to drive on the other side of the road for a few days. Fortunately, I can say that we all survived that experience. A few times I started to drift into the right side of the road, but it was quickly fixed with my speedy wheel skills. Or, if we could humor me, skillz.

The Great Ocean Road lives up to its name. We were concerned that the hype would lead us to disappointment, and the gloomy weather reports made us even more nervous of a wasted few days. Fortunately, the landscape was still wonderfully impressive, and the moody clouds actually added to the incredible views we admired.

We drove to the main sites, from Melbourne to Warrnambool. I don't even know how to explain how lovely the drive was. There were some times my driving crept towards a halt because I was so enamored with the surroundings and vibrant blue water. Here are my thoughts about our trip on the road, since I'm not sure how else to describe those three days.

• We ate PB sandwiches. This country is tragically expensive. We wanted to enjoy our trip, but we are still poor students. We bought some bread, some honey, and peanut butter...and that was kind of our lunches for a whole week. We also ate chips and pears. I'm going to leave this thought here with the conclusion that I won't be eating peanut butter for a while.
• The Great Ocean Road is not just about ocean. We got to explore waterfalls and rainforests on our trip. Of course, most of the road hugged the windy coast of Victoria. But a good amount of the trip we were gliding through farm fields and forests further inland. We walked through one rainforest that was so well kept and pretty that it almost felt like Disneyland - that's a compliment in my head.
• The Aussies know how to make great tourist roads. Everything on our trip were labeled well with signs explaining the history and biology. The roads were clearly labeled, and the footpaths were easy to manage. There were a lot of stairs, but they all looked brand new. Even the warning signs on the cliffs were fabulous. But even so, the roads pins and turns that made me grip the steering wheel. If you plan on making that trip in the future, know you've been warned.
• The water was so, so blue/angry! It was like looking at liquid sapphires crashing onto the beaches. It reminded me of the blue oceans in The Bahamas, only Australian and a darker shade of blue. That said, the ocean raged, so I avoided entering it. I don't know how surfers do it, especially with those angry waves. I could completely understand why the guidebooks strongly encourage people to not go too far into the water, because it looked like it was just hunting for a stupid tourist to devour.
• The Twelve Apostles is more like Ten. The limestone of which the coast is made crumbles easily, so I guess a few of the apostles have fallen over time. You can see how they tumble down - especially with the brutal (and they were brutal) winds.
• It all looks somewhat similar. Every stop we made resembled areas we had seen beforehand, but that did not stop us from marveling at the awesomeness in front of us. It may have been all similar, but it didn't get old.
• Some of the prettiest parts are the least heralded. Most tourists turned their cars around at the Twelve Apostles, and we saw caravans of cars going back the way they came. The crowds died down significantly while we continued to make our pilgrimage...yet some of my favorite sites were afterwards. They missed some really incredible places. Loch and Gorge were simply perfect, to me.
• Antarctic Winds are no joke. The trees all look like they're slowly lying down because of the harsh winds. It made from some eerie/beautiful/stunning sights.
• The towns were so sleepy! Adorable, cold, sleepy towns.
• Cheese World is kinda strange, but tasty. At the end of our trip, we found ourselves in an odd factory museum about the makings of cheese over time. We were told in the Lonely Planet that it was a good stop off. The cheese was pretty damn good! But the place made me feel like I was maybe at a trucker stop.
• Everyone else missed out. On our way back to Melbourne, we decided to make a pit stop in an area called Red Rock, where ancient volcanoes used to wreak havoc on the area. Now, it's just gorgeous rolling hills and interesting contours in the ground. It was incredibly, yet we were the only people around. We could have danced naked in the car park and not have been harassed by even a sheep.
• Hostels may not be awesome, but they're cheap! Our first hostel was a dilapidated house on the side of the road, but it was warm enough and gave us a place to sleep. Our second hostel on the road was over a large bar and had some pretty strange rooms, including a bunk bed for all of us...but at least we had parking. We shared bathrooms for the entire trip, which I am not used to anymore. I am beginning to see why people say they age out of hostels.