Of course being busy with uni (and procrastinating on blog writing) has made catching up on the blog, well, difficult, but I beg to take a short diversion for a moment. Before we finish writing about our trip, and get you caught up on what else has been going on since uni started... which might take a while longer, I would like to share my thoughts for the day.
My day started out watching a preview for the movie "Earthlings", which is about human's cruelty to animals. I have seen quite a few images/videos of cruelty to animals, and even though I think it horrible, I am usually not much effected beyond that, as I am quite good at removing my mind from linking the actual life and spirit of the animal to the dead one. I grew up dealing with death in various forms, and being a hunter also has enabled me to separate myself a bit, but of course when hunting I always try and do what is right by the animal in every way possible. More than halfway through the video I was feeling the same as how I have always felt when watching these sorts of things, very sad about what some of my "fellow" humans (although in a way I wish I could not link them with myself) do to animals, but overall it was not having much more of an emotional effect than that. Then there was a scene of some men skinning a hyena, I believe, which I first thought "that's sad, but it's dead and I have done such things with deer", although I obviously didn't believe these men to being killing it for meat. And then the next shot cut me to the core, there was a close up of the animal's face, and it was still alive! I burst into not just tears, but sobs! At the same time I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and I also was very surprised at how much it hit me! It's interesting how this one particular shot brought out these emotions while all of the other horrible shots did not. Why? I can only really speculate, but I think part of it might be that I have always thought of being skinned alive as an absolutely horrible way to die (yes, I've thought about it, as I'm sure most people who have seen "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" have... most gruesome movie I've ever seen by the way, will never watch it again).
I then started thinking about my feelings, and realized something. When I see cruelty to animals, if it is for a reason I can at least understand (what humans are getting out of it, eg. money, meat, etc.) even though I might not agree with it (the brutality or the reason), I think I have a slight tolerance to in my mind (not that I don't think it shouldn't be stopped). BUT, when animals are treated horribly for no discernible reason at all, that just blows my mind! What the hell is the purpose of skinning the poor animal alive, why, WHY beat seals to death with a club!!! There's no fucking point (excuse my language, but I feel it REALLY is needed here)! I am not one of those "crazy" save all creatures great and small, vegans (I am not dissing them, I love them, I have friends that are them, we are all a bit "crazy" for something, and that's a good thing to be "crazy" about, but it still does not make me like that), but I just can't understand these things. Yes I am going to be a vet (and my God after watching that, it comforts me to know there are people like us that really do care for animals) but I don't care, even if you are someone who doesn't get on with animals much, you have got to be a bit messed up in the head to think some of those things are ok!
I will just briefly mention that there is a big controversy over here at the moment about live export to Indonesia. There were films taken over there of them slaughtering the cattle sent to them from Australia and they were being quite horrible to them. Australia saw this and out of panic from the shock of the public stopped it for a time. I won't go into all of the details, cause we'd be here a while, but I think live export should continue for MANY reasons, and that they should just find a way (and it won't be an overnight solution) to make the Indonesians use stun guns on the cattle first... or just find a more humane way of doing it. That's another thing I don't understand, why take so much time torturing these animals when it would be quicker, and thus more cost effective to just hit them over the head, slit the throat and move on to the next one! It would be better for cattle, and humans! Anyway, there's that.
On my way home from work on Roe Highway I was caught in sudden stop and go traffic (more stop than go) and stayed that way for about 30 minutes (just between one exit and another, it was pretty bad). Now, this never happens, so I knew something must be up. I assumed an accident, and after a short time I saw ambulances rush down the opposite side of traffic, then come up the exit onto our side; I then knew it was an accident. I started thinking about how people tend to get really annoyed in situations like that, and I admit I was starting to but then changed my tune and just enjoyed my music. But what about the people in the accident! It's something that people do think about in those situations, but usually briefly and without much real, honest worry (me included), but I really did tonight.
My inconvenience was nothing compared to what those poor people must be going through, were they ok? Even if they were, it would surely be a horrible night, maybe the worst in their lives, so me having to sit in traffic for an extra 30 minutes listening to Death Cab for Cutie was ok by me in comparison. I jokingly started to think, as I got closer to the accident, that if this just was a fender bender, THEN maybe it would be ok to get annoyed, but it wasn't. The speed limit on the highway is 100 Km/h (62 miles/h), as I drove by the flashing yellow arrow, the 4 police cars, one fire truck, and two ambulances, all with lights flashing I saw the two cars on the side of the road. Both barely resembled cars anymore, and the firemen had had to take the roofs off of both of them to get the passengers out. Looking at the cars I would be very surprised if no one died that night. It's something we tend to think about, but not at the same time, they were just like I was, probably coming home from work, or maybe going to a friends house when they collided into another car whilst merging. I found it very sad, but at the same time very refreshing to put myself out there, to think about these things. I wonder if I had thought about the same things had I not watched that video earlier today?
I challenge everyone to, when they are in a similar situation, instead of getting frustrated that you're going to be late for your hair appointment, or that you're really hungry and want to get home for dinner, to think that you were that percentage of people that gets to go on with your daily life that day.
Death to start and death to end the day.... not happy, but provoking....
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Wudinna and sundry
As is our habit with blogs, we are filling this one in months later, now that the trip is over.
We made it to Kimba that night, stayed in a caravan park, and set off in the morning. Our target for that day was the Gawler Ranges, a national park that looked like it had a lot of neat sights. When we made it to Wuddina (wood-nuh), we stopped at the tourist info center and asked about the best way to get in to the park. Well, it turns out almost the entirety of the park is only accessible to high clearance 4WD vehicles (our tourist map of the park didn't show this), and given some of the trouble we'd had on the 2WD roads in national parks, we asked what else there was to see around here. It turned out it was quite a bit. There are two tourist drives to do in the area, and we only had time for one, but that involved seeing some awesome granite monoliths, including Mt. Wudinna, the largest in South Australia and third largest in Australia. Cassie and I hiked up it and were hit with a blast of wind. It towers above the surrounding landscape and so seems to be a magnet for high winds and affords some great views.
We then enjoyed lunch in the picnic area at its base. Did you know that many Australian picnic areas have free gas grills? You can just go and turn on the gas and get bbq-ing. Australia definitely has some perks.
Then we drove on, hoping to stay in some state park near Ceduna, the gateway to the Nullarbor. But by the time we got there, the winds were blowing something awful, and rain was coming down hard. We decided it might be best to stay at a caravan park in the town because the state parks were exposed on the cape. So we went and checked out our options. The first one we went to, the cheapest one, turned out to be cheap for a reason. It was a bit seedy, and when we saw the state of the camp kitchen, we made our way to the next cheapest one. This turned out to be great--it was mellow and uncrowded, the camp kitchen was great, and the camp hosts were very nice (we had to borrow a hammer to pound our stakes in--every place before this we could just stick them in the ground by hand). By the time we were all set up, the storm had blown over, and we thought we could probably have camped in a park after all. But when we were cooking in the sheltered kitchen, we were hit with another deluge, and were really glad for our choice.
We made it to Kimba that night, stayed in a caravan park, and set off in the morning. Our target for that day was the Gawler Ranges, a national park that looked like it had a lot of neat sights. When we made it to Wuddina (wood-nuh), we stopped at the tourist info center and asked about the best way to get in to the park. Well, it turns out almost the entirety of the park is only accessible to high clearance 4WD vehicles (our tourist map of the park didn't show this), and given some of the trouble we'd had on the 2WD roads in national parks, we asked what else there was to see around here. It turned out it was quite a bit. There are two tourist drives to do in the area, and we only had time for one, but that involved seeing some awesome granite monoliths, including Mt. Wudinna, the largest in South Australia and third largest in Australia. Cassie and I hiked up it and were hit with a blast of wind. It towers above the surrounding landscape and so seems to be a magnet for high winds and affords some great views.
We then enjoyed lunch in the picnic area at its base. Did you know that many Australian picnic areas have free gas grills? You can just go and turn on the gas and get bbq-ing. Australia definitely has some perks.
Then we drove on, hoping to stay in some state park near Ceduna, the gateway to the Nullarbor. But by the time we got there, the winds were blowing something awful, and rain was coming down hard. We decided it might be best to stay at a caravan park in the town because the state parks were exposed on the cape. So we went and checked out our options. The first one we went to, the cheapest one, turned out to be cheap for a reason. It was a bit seedy, and when we saw the state of the camp kitchen, we made our way to the next cheapest one. This turned out to be great--it was mellow and uncrowded, the camp kitchen was great, and the camp hosts were very nice (we had to borrow a hammer to pound our stakes in--every place before this we could just stick them in the ground by hand). By the time we were all set up, the storm had blown over, and we thought we could probably have camped in a park after all. But when we were cooking in the sheltered kitchen, we were hit with another deluge, and were really glad for our choice.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
David and Cassie's Great Australian Trip Part 3
David and I got up fairly early in Adelaide, got some instructions from the very nice guy at the hostel, and then headed out. We had to find gas and a Bunnings to buy some more butane cans for our camp stove, but were then on our way towards the Flinders Ranges. We stopped off at an info desk along the way and found that we couldn't really make the Flinders before dark, so we stopped a bit early at Melrose, which is at the base of Mount Remarkable, which we also thought would be good to see. We wanted to hike up to the top, and got a late start, but THIS TIME we were equipped with a head lamp and plenty of water. We made it to the, somewhat disappointing summit (the view wasn't that remarkable because of all of the trees) just before sunset; luckily we'd had lots of amazing views on the way up. We headed down, and again went down the wrong trail, and we couldn't understand how we did it, but it was as simple as we hadn't realized coming up that there was another trail going down, and we were immersed in good conversation, so didn't catch it. Luckily we hit a bit we REALLY didn't recognize, otherwise we could have been in trouble when the sun went down! Maybe not, all trails lead back to Melrose, it would have just been confusing and disconcerting. We hiked back up and got on the right track, which all in all was only about 20 mins out of the way, and we had got some really neat views of the sunset that we otherwise wouldn't have got, so it was alright.
That did mean that we had to hike about 2 hours down in the dark, but luckily we brought the headlamp and so, even though it was slower goings, it was safe. Oh, and I have to mention that it smelled AMAZING along the trail, and so many different smells!
I gave making biscuits over a fire a try, which didn't work as well as I had hoped, but they were alright. It was really cold and our fire coals wasn't cooking our food well, so we moved to the kitchen to finish up. Next morning had some showers and moved out.
Headed up to Flinders, and found out that the best, cheapest bush camping was up north a bit, so we drove up the bitumen road (paved road) until the dirt turn off; with a nice view stop on the way... we just missed the crappy bad weather, which was coming in behind us. The dirt road was quite pot hole-y but we've been driving on a lot of that lately, but there was one section that was mostly covered in water that we weren't sure about crossing, but we made it (after I got out to make sure it looked safe). We camped at Brachina Gorge East campground, which was right along a river bed, and it was beautiful. There were no trails, so we bush bashed our way around making our own trail, but went towards the road so as not to get lost. We went along the gorge, which was amazing. We saw lots of dead kangaroos, and even one on the rock, which kind of looked like it had a bad hop, and it turned out it was actually two! There were bones and dead kangaroos everywhere, and not just along the road, which we thought was interesting. We did see lots of alive animals though, and some of those were yellow-footed rock wallabies!! They were so cute, and so close!
Storm rolling in behind us
Look closely and you can see a rock wallaby in both of these rock pictures!
We saw the sunset from atop a hill, which was amazing. Our night proved to be VERY windy, which meant that we didn't get a great sleep because the tent shaking kept waking us up, and we were slightly concerned our fly was going to be blown away, but it was still there in the morning. We left there and did one more hike on the way out to see some aboriginal rock paintings. We didn't end up doing the hike up to see the Wilipena Pound because it was a 4 hour hike return, and we were hoping to camp past Port Augusta tonight, and because the clouds were rolling in and we didn't think we'd have much of a view once we got to the top as it was.
After we passed Hawker, we stopped along the way to Quorn to go on another hike to see three aboriginal rock painting sites, and it was a lovely 1 hour hike. When we got to Quorn we went into the Quandong Café and had some lunch along with a quondong cheesecake, which had been recommended to us. A quondong is a type of bush tucker (food) and is referred to as the dessert peach. Delicious.
We went to the desert botanical gardens here at Port Augusta, which were very neat, being laid out along the local landscape, and we're now in a Mackers in Port Augusta for internet. We figured we'd get some 50 cent ice cream cones and internet to waste some time until after sunset before moving on to Kimba, where we plan on staying tonight, in order to avoid kangaroos on the road. They are crepuscular and very dangerous for cars... we were told not to be on the roads between 4 and dark because it's not if, it's when you hit a kangaroo if you drive then.
Have to go, when we get better internet there will be pictures to come.
-Cassie
That did mean that we had to hike about 2 hours down in the dark, but luckily we brought the headlamp and so, even though it was slower goings, it was safe. Oh, and I have to mention that it smelled AMAZING along the trail, and so many different smells!
I gave making biscuits over a fire a try, which didn't work as well as I had hoped, but they were alright. It was really cold and our fire coals wasn't cooking our food well, so we moved to the kitchen to finish up. Next morning had some showers and moved out.
Headed up to Flinders, and found out that the best, cheapest bush camping was up north a bit, so we drove up the bitumen road (paved road) until the dirt turn off; with a nice view stop on the way... we just missed the crappy bad weather, which was coming in behind us. The dirt road was quite pot hole-y but we've been driving on a lot of that lately, but there was one section that was mostly covered in water that we weren't sure about crossing, but we made it (after I got out to make sure it looked safe). We camped at Brachina Gorge East campground, which was right along a river bed, and it was beautiful. There were no trails, so we bush bashed our way around making our own trail, but went towards the road so as not to get lost. We went along the gorge, which was amazing. We saw lots of dead kangaroos, and even one on the rock, which kind of looked like it had a bad hop, and it turned out it was actually two! There were bones and dead kangaroos everywhere, and not just along the road, which we thought was interesting. We did see lots of alive animals though, and some of those were yellow-footed rock wallabies!! They were so cute, and so close!
Storm rolling in behind us
Look closely and you can see a rock wallaby in both of these rock pictures!
We saw the sunset from atop a hill, which was amazing. Our night proved to be VERY windy, which meant that we didn't get a great sleep because the tent shaking kept waking us up, and we were slightly concerned our fly was going to be blown away, but it was still there in the morning. We left there and did one more hike on the way out to see some aboriginal rock paintings. We didn't end up doing the hike up to see the Wilipena Pound because it was a 4 hour hike return, and we were hoping to camp past Port Augusta tonight, and because the clouds were rolling in and we didn't think we'd have much of a view once we got to the top as it was.
After we passed Hawker, we stopped along the way to Quorn to go on another hike to see three aboriginal rock painting sites, and it was a lovely 1 hour hike. When we got to Quorn we went into the Quandong Café and had some lunch along with a quondong cheesecake, which had been recommended to us. A quondong is a type of bush tucker (food) and is referred to as the dessert peach. Delicious.
We went to the desert botanical gardens here at Port Augusta, which were very neat, being laid out along the local landscape, and we're now in a Mackers in Port Augusta for internet. We figured we'd get some 50 cent ice cream cones and internet to waste some time until after sunset before moving on to Kimba, where we plan on staying tonight, in order to avoid kangaroos on the road. They are crepuscular and very dangerous for cars... we were told not to be on the roads between 4 and dark because it's not if, it's when you hit a kangaroo if you drive then.
Have to go, when we get better internet there will be pictures to come.
-Cassie
Saturday, July 2, 2011
David and Cassie's Great Australian Trip Part 2
Driving up the Coorong was neat, but we didn't get to stop and see as much of it as we'd hoped. There was a turn off where we learned about the Chinese coming to the area for the big gold rush in Melbourne, but they came through S.A. in order to avoid the 10 pound tax that they got if they came directly into VIC. 62,000 Chinese arrived in the VIC goldfields, of those 48,000 made it back to China; these numbers don't take into account the ones that died on the way there; the remaining 14,000 stayed or died. (pics: The circular cut out by the water was the cutting used for the well you see in another picture. The hole is a wombat burrow)
It was a neat area, the Coorong, if you look at the map below, is a very long stretch of national park that has a very long saltwater "lake" in between the mainland and the ocean. We found out after got to the info desk at Strathalbyn that we could have driven across it to Goolwa, but we hadn't seen that on any maps, otherwise we would have!
To get to Strathalbyn from Wellington we had to take a little ferry across the river, that was neat (see picture below). After visiting the info desk we decided to drive down to Goolwa as we had previously planned. We had started thinking about going straight to Adelaide cause we hadn't seen a whole lot that would interest us down in the Fleurieux Panninsula that didn't cost money (like wine tasting and oyster eating), and we wanted to have plenty of time in Flinders Ranges after we left Adelaide. The sun was starting to go down, but we had a lovely drive to Goolwa and even drove onto Hindmarsh Island and saw the Murray Mouth, the mouth into the ocean. We then drove down to Victor Harbor and took that road up to Adelaide, which by the time we got about half way up it was completely dark, which was a shame cause it looked like it was some really neat country!
Picture of the area
Pictures (Hindmarsh Island):, the Murray Mouth, a shot of the sunset from the beach on the island, and a view from driving across the bridge from the island.
We stopped at a Mackers (McDonalds) to use the internet and we called a hostel in Adelaide, and we're glad we did cause the manager was just about to leave for the night! We secured a room and he gave us the code to get in and told us where he'd put the key, very nice man. We got to the VERY nice, and VERY clean hostel (Hostel 109 for any of you who plan on going to Adelaide) around 8:30 and got settled and cooked dinner. We ended up paying for a 4 share room (two sets of bunkbeds) but we ended up getting it all to ourselves for two nights!
On Saturday it was raining all day, but nevertheless we got up and went to the local market, which is amazing for food, and got some brekkie and some fruit/veg for the next leg of our trip (since we had to cook up/chuck out all of ours at the S.A. boarder). Awesome prices! We went back to the hostel and did some Skype-ing, then went and got some lunch at Chopstix and then to the botanical gardens, which even though it was sprinkling a bit was very nice. It's actually been quite warm despite the rain. Went back to the hostel and relaxed for the rest of the evening. We had a lovely day!!
Now we're off again to the Flinders Ranges!!
It was a neat area, the Coorong, if you look at the map below, is a very long stretch of national park that has a very long saltwater "lake" in between the mainland and the ocean. We found out after got to the info desk at Strathalbyn that we could have driven across it to Goolwa, but we hadn't seen that on any maps, otherwise we would have!
To get to Strathalbyn from Wellington we had to take a little ferry across the river, that was neat (see picture below). After visiting the info desk we decided to drive down to Goolwa as we had previously planned. We had started thinking about going straight to Adelaide cause we hadn't seen a whole lot that would interest us down in the Fleurieux Panninsula that didn't cost money (like wine tasting and oyster eating), and we wanted to have plenty of time in Flinders Ranges after we left Adelaide. The sun was starting to go down, but we had a lovely drive to Goolwa and even drove onto Hindmarsh Island and saw the Murray Mouth, the mouth into the ocean. We then drove down to Victor Harbor and took that road up to Adelaide, which by the time we got about half way up it was completely dark, which was a shame cause it looked like it was some really neat country!
Picture of the area
Pictures (Hindmarsh Island):, the Murray Mouth, a shot of the sunset from the beach on the island, and a view from driving across the bridge from the island.
We stopped at a Mackers (McDonalds) to use the internet and we called a hostel in Adelaide, and we're glad we did cause the manager was just about to leave for the night! We secured a room and he gave us the code to get in and told us where he'd put the key, very nice man. We got to the VERY nice, and VERY clean hostel (Hostel 109 for any of you who plan on going to Adelaide) around 8:30 and got settled and cooked dinner. We ended up paying for a 4 share room (two sets of bunkbeds) but we ended up getting it all to ourselves for two nights!
On Saturday it was raining all day, but nevertheless we got up and went to the local market, which is amazing for food, and got some brekkie and some fruit/veg for the next leg of our trip (since we had to cook up/chuck out all of ours at the S.A. boarder). Awesome prices! We went back to the hostel and did some Skype-ing, then went and got some lunch at Chopstix and then to the botanical gardens, which even though it was sprinkling a bit was very nice. It's actually been quite warm despite the rain. Went back to the hostel and relaxed for the rest of the evening. We had a lovely day!!
Now we're off again to the Flinders Ranges!!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
David and Cassie's Great Australian Trip Part 1
Since the internet I'm getting is often slow, I might not be able to put as many pics up as I'd like, so if you don't see any up when you read a post, check back later and there might be some. :)
David and I left Sunday June 26th from Ballarat, through Geelong where we checked out the area in which I used to live and saw all of the changes, and then headed South through Torquay on to the Great Ocean Road. We spent our first night in Cape Otway at Blanket Bay campsite outside of Apollo Bay, VIC. Our campsite was very wet, so no fire making, but we had a trail down to the beach and the rocks there were amazing, so were the shells!! That night there were two other people camping near us, but overall it was pretty quite. David and I went for a walk on the beach and at night the stars were amazing, and we just stared at the Milky Way for a while. The next morning there were some wallabys about and an amazing sunrise.
The following day we hiked around Cape Otway a bit and then drove up to Laver's Hill where we got some gas before going to the Otway Fly. It was $22 each, which we decided after doing it was worth it. It's a really neat walk, and it's amazing to be up so high. There are 3 main types of trees in that area: the Mountain Ash, which is the tallest and used to grow up to 100 meters (330 feet) but now only grow to be about half that size in that area, the Blackwood, and the Myrtle Beach. The spiral viewing tower is at about 47 meters, so is only half as tall as the Mountain Ash trees used to get, which is incredible!
After that we went to find our campsite, near Beech Forest. We spent the night alone, and the area was very wet, in the morning we even found leeches on our tent! We have found that because of all of the wetness, the camp stove we bought was one of our best purchases and it has served us very well. We went for a wonderful walk to some more waterfalls near our campsite in the morning, and then headed back towards the Otway Fly to do the Triple Falls walk, which was highly suggested by someone in Lavers Hill. We then went back through Lavers Hill and headed towards the Twelve Apostles.
There were still quite a few tourists at the Twelve Apostles, even in winter (mostly asian), which kind of surprised me. We also briefly visited Loch Ard, but decided that since we planned on camping near Port Campbell anyway we could just come back and see the rest of Loch Ard the next day since it wasn't far away. The bad thing about doing this trip is winter is the limited amount of daylight (the sun rises around 7:30 AM and set around 5:30 PM). We spent the night at a caravan park in Port Campbell, which was nice because we got laundry, and a nice warm kitchen, internet, and showers.
The next morning we got up at 7:30 and then took a nice walk on some of the trails around town and caught the sunrise up over the town, and saw a guy surfing, and though he must be crazy cause it was VERY cold. We know it was at least 3˚C during the night, and that was around 10, so we think it got down to freezing.
We drove back to Loch Ard and saw the rest of that before moving on to Warrnambool where we looked at the Deakin campus there to see what it was like, and did a bit of shopping. Next was Nelson to the info desk to see about camping in Glenelg NP.
We were directed to a specific campsite and were told that no one else would be staying there. It was a lovely drive down a slightly bumpy road, and we saw lots of wallabies!
When we got there, there was a vehicle and a girl siting on one of the picnic tables with her pack and she looked like she was waiting for something. We found out her name was Saki (sp?) and she was originally from the Netherlands, but has been living the past 5 years in Melbourne. She was doing the Great Southwest Walk, which starts from Portland and goes to Nelson and back. She'd done the Portland to Nelson bit (or at least was almost to Nelson) and was thinking she was going to give the second half a miss. She had been sitting waiting to see if the people who owned the car would come back so she could get a ride because she was out of water and Nelson was a good 10 k at least away. They never showed up, but when we arrived she decided to stay there the night since now she could get a good night's rest (she was a bit on edge camping by herself, worried about the people mainly, there had been a creepy guy there earlier offering her a ride). We had found out that there was a fruit and veg quarantine on the S.A. boarder, and we had just gone shopping, so we decided to cook up all of our potatoes and onions, etc. and package them up (cooked is ok, just not raw), so we shared some mashed potatoes with her and some chocolate cake we bought. She was very happy to have something other than her instant meals. :P We also helped her out by taking some of the food she didn't want and that weighed her down as well as her rubbish. It was dry that night and we were able to make a fire! We also had to keep chasing the possums away from our food, and there were wallabies eating casually nearby; wonderful.
Saki left the next morning before we got up.
We used the rest of our apples in apple pancakes and I made some cinnamon apples and apple cider, which we packaged up, and we were set. When we crossed the boarder all we needed to do was dump some carrots. We first went to Mount Gambier and had lovely weather walking around some crater lakes they have their made lots of years ago by volcanic activity.
We then made it to Robe via beautiful country, and went to the info desk/library where we got some awesome info about the next few legs of our trip. I was able to sign up for internet to use at any public library in S.A. and we did a driving tour of Robe, seeing the old gaol and the obelisk. We drove the 5 or so minutes to our campsite, The Gums, and set up. We went for a twilight/in the dark walk along sand trail to the beach (about an hour return), and sat by the water looking up at the starts; it was amazing. When we got back we made a fire, and had a dry night!
This morning we got up and got back to Robe at 9 AM, just in time to get into the library for some internet time, and here we are!! Next is to the Coorong NP.
David and I left Sunday June 26th from Ballarat, through Geelong where we checked out the area in which I used to live and saw all of the changes, and then headed South through Torquay on to the Great Ocean Road. We spent our first night in Cape Otway at Blanket Bay campsite outside of Apollo Bay, VIC. Our campsite was very wet, so no fire making, but we had a trail down to the beach and the rocks there were amazing, so were the shells!! That night there were two other people camping near us, but overall it was pretty quite. David and I went for a walk on the beach and at night the stars were amazing, and we just stared at the Milky Way for a while. The next morning there were some wallabys about and an amazing sunrise.
The following day we hiked around Cape Otway a bit and then drove up to Laver's Hill where we got some gas before going to the Otway Fly. It was $22 each, which we decided after doing it was worth it. It's a really neat walk, and it's amazing to be up so high. There are 3 main types of trees in that area: the Mountain Ash, which is the tallest and used to grow up to 100 meters (330 feet) but now only grow to be about half that size in that area, the Blackwood, and the Myrtle Beach. The spiral viewing tower is at about 47 meters, so is only half as tall as the Mountain Ash trees used to get, which is incredible!
After that we went to find our campsite, near Beech Forest. We spent the night alone, and the area was very wet, in the morning we even found leeches on our tent! We have found that because of all of the wetness, the camp stove we bought was one of our best purchases and it has served us very well. We went for a wonderful walk to some more waterfalls near our campsite in the morning, and then headed back towards the Otway Fly to do the Triple Falls walk, which was highly suggested by someone in Lavers Hill. We then went back through Lavers Hill and headed towards the Twelve Apostles.
There were still quite a few tourists at the Twelve Apostles, even in winter (mostly asian), which kind of surprised me. We also briefly visited Loch Ard, but decided that since we planned on camping near Port Campbell anyway we could just come back and see the rest of Loch Ard the next day since it wasn't far away. The bad thing about doing this trip is winter is the limited amount of daylight (the sun rises around 7:30 AM and set around 5:30 PM). We spent the night at a caravan park in Port Campbell, which was nice because we got laundry, and a nice warm kitchen, internet, and showers.
The next morning we got up at 7:30 and then took a nice walk on some of the trails around town and caught the sunrise up over the town, and saw a guy surfing, and though he must be crazy cause it was VERY cold. We know it was at least 3˚C during the night, and that was around 10, so we think it got down to freezing.
We drove back to Loch Ard and saw the rest of that before moving on to Warrnambool where we looked at the Deakin campus there to see what it was like, and did a bit of shopping. Next was Nelson to the info desk to see about camping in Glenelg NP.
We were directed to a specific campsite and were told that no one else would be staying there. It was a lovely drive down a slightly bumpy road, and we saw lots of wallabies!
When we got there, there was a vehicle and a girl siting on one of the picnic tables with her pack and she looked like she was waiting for something. We found out her name was Saki (sp?) and she was originally from the Netherlands, but has been living the past 5 years in Melbourne. She was doing the Great Southwest Walk, which starts from Portland and goes to Nelson and back. She'd done the Portland to Nelson bit (or at least was almost to Nelson) and was thinking she was going to give the second half a miss. She had been sitting waiting to see if the people who owned the car would come back so she could get a ride because she was out of water and Nelson was a good 10 k at least away. They never showed up, but when we arrived she decided to stay there the night since now she could get a good night's rest (she was a bit on edge camping by herself, worried about the people mainly, there had been a creepy guy there earlier offering her a ride). We had found out that there was a fruit and veg quarantine on the S.A. boarder, and we had just gone shopping, so we decided to cook up all of our potatoes and onions, etc. and package them up (cooked is ok, just not raw), so we shared some mashed potatoes with her and some chocolate cake we bought. She was very happy to have something other than her instant meals. :P We also helped her out by taking some of the food she didn't want and that weighed her down as well as her rubbish. It was dry that night and we were able to make a fire! We also had to keep chasing the possums away from our food, and there were wallabies eating casually nearby; wonderful.
Saki left the next morning before we got up.
We used the rest of our apples in apple pancakes and I made some cinnamon apples and apple cider, which we packaged up, and we were set. When we crossed the boarder all we needed to do was dump some carrots. We first went to Mount Gambier and had lovely weather walking around some crater lakes they have their made lots of years ago by volcanic activity.
We then made it to Robe via beautiful country, and went to the info desk/library where we got some awesome info about the next few legs of our trip. I was able to sign up for internet to use at any public library in S.A. and we did a driving tour of Robe, seeing the old gaol and the obelisk. We drove the 5 or so minutes to our campsite, The Gums, and set up. We went for a twilight/in the dark walk along sand trail to the beach (about an hour return), and sat by the water looking up at the starts; it was amazing. When we got back we made a fire, and had a dry night!
This morning we got up and got back to Robe at 9 AM, just in time to get into the library for some internet time, and here we are!! Next is to the Coorong NP.
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