Hello once more! We're in Nepal but are cutting things short due to strikes and protests around their constitutional problems that have closed everything down, including the school we were volunteering at. Next up is China (again!), out Africa trip to Kenya and Tanzania then a quick trip to Istanbul and back to Toronto. We hope to see many of you then!
Oct. 26 Weds. -ST.
KILDAS, NED KELLY, AND KITE SURFERS
Pete got back
early from work so we headed off to St. Kilda's as part of a basic
tour of the city. In heading over there, we were close to the house
Meg stayed in with her aunt and uncle when she was just a little
speck of a thing. We found it without too much trouble and were
looking around it when Meg rang the bell and spoke to the current
owner. She was surprisingly willing to let three strangers tour her
house, which had been heavily expanded and renovated. She was
delighted to learn that her house had been owned by the niece of an
Australian prime minister and was quite pleased to show us
everything. Meg had a good shot of memory recall and then we headed
for the shore.
St. Kilda's is
right on the water so we went for a stroll by one of the beaches and
watched the kite-surfers, who zipped right off the sand into the
water. Their favourite trick was to tilt the kites up and lift right
off of the water, landing back on the water smoothly of in a heap,
depending on their level of practice. Lots of fun to watch.
We headed in the
other direction and Pete pointed out a hillside covered in pigface,
which looks better than it sounds. We walked along a breakwater that
was constructed after the war from old prisons, apparently with some
of the prisoners' names on the stones, but often turned inwards so as
not to glorify them. Rumour had it that Ned Kelly's name was there
somewhere, but it was of course impossible to prove.
We drove back to
their place. We cooked up an excellent batch of curried chicken with
avocado sauce that Pete (the chef) had a generous portion of, so we
were pleased. These were excellent people to hangout and drink wine
with, so we did. Lots! And it got late. So we had a bit more wine,
including some of their really good stuff. Nice. At that point,
sleep came easily.
Thurs. - We slept
in and tehn got our stuff together and headed out to Wilson's
Promontary Park, which was a few hours outside of Melbourne and close
to her cousin, who we were planning on visiting. It was a fairly
long drive for the day and we made a few stops at scenic points,
which showed us views of the surrounding landscape. We made a few
wrong turns as the GPS kept bugging out on us but eventually found
our place, with just enough time to drop off our stuff and head down
to the park. It was a long drive from the town to the park, about 45
minutes down a narrow and often dangerously pitted road.
We didn't have time
for the hike to the topof the mountain, so we went on the Squeaky
Beach trail. There were a few young campers hanging around at the
entrance to the place. The beach truly was squeaky, so we had a good
time hiking across it using exaggerated steps in order to maximize
its squeakiness. The views out to rocky crags in the water weer
impressive and became more so as we got to the end of the beach and
took a well-blazed trail that led us up a small hill and out to a
nearby point. Along the way we encountered a life preserver way up a
hill, which seemed strange. It made more sense after we passed
aabench dedicated to two teens who drowned swimming in the rocky and
well-tossed water that we were looking down upon.
The point provided
the best views to the rocky islands lying off the coast as well as
the beach and campsite on the other side from squeaky beach. One
could see that this coast would have caused problems for the first
explorers to reach it as the path to the point was in a tunnel hacked
out from the thick, low bushes that dominated the countryside which
would have been impenetrable without a machete.
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| Walking down a tree path at Wilson's Prom. |
We retraced our
footsteps and the only change was that the camping kids had begun to
playcricket on the beach. Meg took a short nap on a bench while I
walked a little further around a cliff that had a sheer drop down to
the water, with only thick bush to stop your fall. I doubled back
and Meg insisted that she drive so that I could see the scenery. The
scenery was nice, with coastal sand views on one sideand green
valleys and hills on the other but Meg also requested that I helkp
her keep her eyes on the road after two wallobys were sitiing close
to the road, weighing their options for running in front of our car
or not. Fortunately, they stayed where they were.
Back in the small
town the light was fading but their local IGA was open, so we got
some dinner ingredients and headed back to the hostel. The place was
one of the nicest we had stayed in, it was a three-bedroom
single-floor house made into a hostel. It could only accommodate
about a dozen people and really felt like you weer staying at
someone's place. The German staying ther were very mellow and a very
cheery Aussie came in later and offerd wine to anyone who seemed to
be without a glass. We cooked and ate our dinner contentedly.
Later on Meg needed
to contact her cousin and wondered if her phoneplan had run out until
it was pointed out that the hostel had a sign stating that Vodaphone
didn't work there (or in most other isolated or urban places, we
found). Our Aussie friend helped her to text her cousin about the
wher and when of meeting her and much loud, drunken hilarity ensueed.
I read my book ,but felt for the poor German guys in the dorm who
had retired and hour before and were probably too polite to tell
people to keep it down. Eventually Meg came to bed and the house was
able to sleep.
Friday –
We were in no particular rush and so slept in. We had a fine
breakfast in our nice hostel while the German guys grimly smoked out
back in the rain. We got packed and said goodbye to everyone and
drove into the wet day which soon disippated. We managed to find the
right town in spite of some bizarre directions from our GPS and
parked and were walking when Meg's cousin spotted us. We had an
excellent lunch together and caught up. She had worked as a still
photographer on films likeThe Road Warrior and Babe (might sound like
a strange combination, but the same director was involved in both
productions) she was now managing a local organic food shop and was
quite prooud of the community and their modelling of local food.
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| A visit with the cousin. |
We
strolled around and had a good visit. Meg bought some purple
heirloom carrots and we said goodbye and headed back to Melbourne.
The drive back was much quicker than we anticapated and we got to
Terri's place (John Scullin's ex-wife) two hours early. She didn't
mind and we waited for her son Stuart to finish work so that we could
go out to eat. We put a good dent into one of our bottles of wine
and found that she was an animated speaker and knew all sorts of
stories that enriched Meg's history, such as the time her mom dressed
to the nines before reporting to work in a wartime rubber factory.
We also got the tip that Ted Scullin really knew a lot of the
family's political history, so another link in the web was made.
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| Purple heirloom carrots are what you need. |
Stuart
showed up, tried from working while rehearsing for a local
production of Camelot that he had a part in. We headed out to an
Indian place with attentive service and top notch food. Meg and
Stuart entertained themselves by watching a ciuple who they were sure
were breaking up at table close to ours. The waiter asked us if we
were tourists, which we found to be a urprising observation until we
remembered the everpresent camera draped around my neck. The meal
went well and we bid adieu to Terri and Staurt and headed back to
Pete's place.
Pete had
to get up super early the next day but Brian was up so we talked to
him for awhile before turning in far later than we should have.
Saturday – We got
up reasonably early (but not as early as we should have) and said
goodbye to Pete and Brian, not our final one as our paths would cross
a few more times. We were heading off to the Great Ocean Road, one
of the big must-dos on any Australian traveler's list. It follows a
section of the south coast of Victoria which is particularly
well-formed, if you believe the hype.
The drive there was
reasonably uneventful, as whenever the GPS tried to lead us astray
several times but the highway leading to the great ocean road was
well signed, so we got to the starting place,Torquay, withlittle
fuss. We hit the visitor'scentre and avolunteer there helped us out
by giving us tons of literature and afr too much information. She
sold Torquay quite a bit, even though most of its sights were far
from awe-inspiring. We saw a very nice Aboriginal mosaic sundial in
town, that probably would have worked wonderfully if there was any
sun (most of the day it was overcast and rained a few times). Our
next stop was to see this famous beach that apparently wows all of
the surfers and they have world chamionships there. After 10 minutes
down an unmarked path we gave up, not being surfers and having seen
plenty of beaches over the past few week.
We drove further
along the coast and noticed that the traffic picked up, mainly of
tourists not used to driving narrow winding roads. This would become
an issue several times before the day was done. We continied on
until we got to a little village with a lighthouse. The tours of the
lighthouse were way overpriced, but a short walk to the water gave
excellent views of coastal rock formations with crashing waves. We
had some good stuff for lunch, so we ate on a bench with the coastal
vista at our disposal. Excellent.
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| Typical Australian scenery. |
One thing we
noticed was the touristic disregard for the house rules of
attractions. Several people hopped the raiilings so that they could
get better photos. The old “I apid my money so I can do whatever
the hell I want to” attitude, which we encountered several times.
We never had the pleasure of seeing these people busted by a ranger,
which is a shame.
On the way back
form the lighthouse, Meg wanted a coffee so we went to a little shop
along the way back to the parking lot to get one. At least 45
minutes later we left, the painfully slow service having put us far
behind schedule. The whole road is only about 300 km but because of
how winding it is, the makers of tourist literature recommend at
least 6 hours to drive the thing. They're right.
Our next trip was a
side road to a waterfall that found Meg vbehind the wheel. Just
before we heeaded up to it a carload of your Japanese kiddies who
didn't know how a turn signal operated almost hit us, but Meg's
reflexes saved the day. It was a particularly nrrow and twisty bit
of highway inclusing a final descent that made her glad that her
shift was over. The waterfall itself was nice, with a middleand
bottom viewing platform, but probably not worth the detour time it
took.
On the way back
there was a lookout which Meg was feeling too ill to visit. I went
upand it didn't show much except for how the highway was about to hit
a particularly steep nand twisty part. And it was. The driving got
very slow and curvy with distractions such as tourists who couldn't
keep their land and local trying to blast by quickly. There were a
lot of pulloff spots here so we could let the speedsters by and have
a gander at how the view was going. Most of the time it was nice,
rugged coastline, not dissimilar to the Cabot Trail.
Meg needed a break,
so we got off at Apollo Bay and had a look around. It had a nice
long sandy beach around a tourist-geared town, but nothing
jaw-dropping. It would have probably looked nicer on a sunnier day.
Meg's carsickness
drugged had kicked in so she slept through a lot of the next phase of
the road. At this point it cut inland, still twisty and narrow bbut
with no sea views. We passed by the rainforest skywalk where you're
supposed to easily see koalas in the trees due both to lack of time
and lack of consciousness in Meg. The inland road went on for well
over an hour before finally emerging by the famed twelve apostles.
We dodged a tourist drivingon the wrong sideof the road before we
pulled into the very busy tourist centre. It was under renovations
and contained little morethan a washroom and snack bar, but had a
well laid out path that took everyone to the shore to see the sights.
These are offshore rock formations similarto flowerpot islands.
Apparently many of the original 12 have eroded into the sea, but they
were still impressive. The real crowd was at sunset, so we beat them
and had a good gander. This spot was worth the hype.
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| Two heathens with the twelve apostles. |
After the 12
apostles are a number of other named sights. We stopped at the
grotto, which was an impressive area of craggy rock where water
sloshed in through a hole in the shore. After that, we had to head
on to our hostel if we were going to get there before sundown.
The road became
decent again and we caught an ABC show about recent films featuring
Australia, including The Hunter, which we would eventually see. We
pulled into Warrambool as the sune was setting and found our place,
which had a bar built in, not usually a good sign. The sleeping
rooms were in a separate building from the bar and dorms, so things
looked a little better. We cooked up dinner and ate to The Ant
Bully, a strange choice of movie but surprisingly entertaining when
you have no expectations. We had to wonder if the others in the
hostel were a little off or not, as they seemed to be a group with
some sort of mental disability,but in the nicest way. A hard topic
to bring up in conversation, so we'll never know for sure.
The bottom line was
that the place was pretty quiet for a Saturday night and our room was
nice and big, so we slept well.
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| Nice scenery, shame about the drivers. |
