Surfing Australia
| Christmas in Melbourne |
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Surfing Australia |
Happy New Year!!! 2004 : 1 January 2004
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Happy New Year!! I hope everyone welcomed the new year peacefully. Let's see, what an event we had, it may be one of the most memorable New Years ever but not because of the outrageous Pary we attended or the spectacular location.... well, maybe partly because of the location. We started of in a quite little village called Port Ferry, where I, once again got no sleep the night before (Robin Snores), but was remarkably not pissed at Robin for it, in any case we had a good jump on the morning and where off to continue the path through the Great Ocean Road. Things were going rather well until we drove through Portland. That's becase we actually weren't suppose to go "through" Portland, but merely pass it. We drove through the town a while until we ended up on this nice little empty highway along the coast, where we thought we found that special little road that nobody knew about. It was a great plan until the road itself ended at some logging facility. So we had to go all the way back to where we started, luckily we found an info center to help get us the hell out of Portland. From here we cruised along this beautiful Peninsula route that took us to a place that we could walk along the cliffs and watch the waves crashing and cool blowhole action. We couldn't stay there long however because once again the Australian fly infestation was too annoying. So as we headed back to the truck Robin realizes he does not have the keys..Great! Yes. Robin, my hero, locked the keys in the car. Good thing we had the premium roadside assistance number on a piece of paper on the visor...in the car. We also had a great UHF radio...in the car. So here we are, it's cold, we're covered in flies, we're miles away from a phone or anything, no cell phone service (for those random people that tried to help) and we're locked outside the car. Several people tried to help us. A young couple took our info (or as much as we could remember in regards to the ute) and headed into "town" (the town that consisted of one kiosk) to try to call for help. Another guy with a landcruiser came by and started asking Robin about the radio system seeming to not notice Robin jamming a metal wire down the window. When he finally did, he had another plan, so he cut the wire (actually Sean's replacement radio antenna-oops..sorry Sean) and tried jamming it in the front little window, that didn't work, then his friend had this great idea, let's try my Landcruiser keys..I'm glad that didn't work. So we have three guys and a little boy just completely involved in this....meanwhile I'm chatting it up with one of the guy's wife and swiping flies incessantly....very helpfull. At this point Robin noticed that the actual tumbler mechanism had fallen out - Sorry again Sean - So Robin and the other guys are fumbling with this for a while to no avail. Suddenly a truck pulls up...I though it was the roadside assistance guy - that would have been amazing, but no, it was just another guy who was willing to help. So he walks up twists the tumbler once and opens the door. Nice. I think Robin and the other guys felt a little stupid. Apparently they had been turning it the wrong way. Anyway, we said our goodbyes and took off to find the kiosk phone to cancel the call into roadside assistance. The couple that went to make the call where still there trying to make the call. Apparently their cell phone kept cutting out only to find out that they where standing next to a payphone, they where funny and I think they where very happy to see us and to abort the whole plan. So, we're off to our final destination for the night. Mind you, from Port Ferry where we started to where we were going was only about 2 hours away...it took us about 5 hours. Finally, we're here....We spent our new years eve in a town called Mt. Grampier, what? You've never heard of it?...lucky you..it was a total pit (at least the little bit we saw), but it was however, the only town in all of South Australia that had a room available, but let's emphasize on the word room for a moment...it was a place called "The Jail" and it was just that. Apparently it use to be an old jail house. Our room was about 8 x 10 in size, it had one tiny window, with bars off course, bars full of spider webs wich is always a bonus, and a huge iron door that locked us in. We were 2 of 4 people that where staying there, always a good sign and the toliet drain was just at our door step..... FLUSHHHHH.... drip... drip.. drip.... silence................. FLUSHHHHHH. .... It was eery and frightening. The guy that ran it was really strange, I guess you would have to be to live there. In any case, we found our way to a little Irish pub where we had some dinner and drinks and of course the casual passing through the bar of a band of Bagpipe players...it was great. All in all, the Great Ocean Road was awesome, stunning, gorgeous. We literally went from one cool beach town to the next. We stopped at Bells Beach where we went for a swim, unfortunately the surf was very small..unlike the movie, and there are flies and sand fleas everywhere (it was very HOT). The little surf town there "Torquey" was fun looking as we drove through it wishing that we where staying there. We walked through a rain forrest gully and on top of cliffs, and saw cool stuff all over. We both took too many pictures. Because of the heavy summer bookings and the holidays, some of the places we ended up staying along the way were, well, not the best. If we got to do it all over again, we'd do some of it differently. For instance, we would definately go back to Torquey and hang out..so that's what we're going to do. We took a great little Helicopter ride over the Twelve Apostles, I loved it! Of course, it had been clear, sunny and hot all day, until about 5 minutes before our takeoff, when a cloud bank rapidly rolled in. We flew just under the clouds, and had a spectacular view anyway, even though our flight was cut a bit short, due to the clouds. As we landed the clouds cleared up and it was nice and sunny again. Typical.
We are in Adelaide today and tomorrow, a much nicer town, alot bigger although everything is closed due to the New Year. We will be heading out Friday to the middle of nowhere again. We are going to an old mining town called Broken Hill then from there to an all underground Opal town called White Cliffs. After that, it's back to Belle's Beach (Torquey) where we will pick up a couple surf boards and hang out for a while. Then it's up to Cairns where we will surf our way down the Gold Coast, ha ha, that is if we don't get booted out of the water too early for being cooks. Hopefully we will not be bitten by any sharks or attacked by any Box Jellyfish or Sea Snakes..one can hope. Let's see, it's bugs, spiders, snakes, Centipedes,. etc..on land...Sharks, Jellyfish, more snakes in the water..is there nowhere safe in Australia? |
Replies: 3 comments
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hey you guys! adrian and gill just gave me your web address. very cool stuff. Andrea, i was thinking of you today. i went to the rose bowl and watch your trojans kick some butt!!! happy new year! doug Posted by Doug Spilatro @ 01/01/2004 09:02 PM PST |
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OK. ...... OH MY GOD...... I finally googled you guys and had to skim through, so as not to hyperventillate. Too exciting. Even living vicariously, it's too much for me to handle. Happy New Year! Love, Joana Posted by Joana @ 01/03/2004 09:31 PM PST |
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Hi Guys, Posted by Shona Wessely @ 01/09/2004 06:40 PM PST |
