The Laneways of Melbourne

Although thoroughly modern in many ways, Melbourne has retained a lot of its historical buildings and city layout. Part of this historical layout are the narrow lanes between a lot of buildings, particularly in the central core. Now the laneways have not been left unmolested. They are great places for graffiti artists to ply their trade. I don't know if Melbourne ever made an effort to stamp out graffiti, but at some point they did decide to allow graffiti to be left up. There are a number of laneways that therefore have this amazing array of graffiti showing a lot of artistic talent. Anna, Julie, and I met one day, and Julie took us to see one of these laneways and the art inside.

Melbourne's Casino

Melbourne, like seemingly all major world cities today, has a gambling and entertainment venue. And like many casinos, they have a bit of free entertainment for the public. Of course, Melbourne isn't rich and flamboyant like Las Vegas, so the show they put on is sedate by comparison. It's just a bunch of flaming torches that go off in some kind of choreographed sequence once every hour on the hour. It still gave me something to do for a few minutes.

The Great Ocean Road, Day 2

Early the next morning, we got up and had some breakfast. Then it was off to start another big day of adventuring. We still managed to get out of the hostel a bit later than planned. Complacency about group size is a dangerous thing.

Our first stop was the spot we had cut out the day before, London Bridge. This used to be connected to the mainland. There were two arches to the “bridge” and it was even possible to drive cars out onto the structure. Gradually erosion worked its magic and the first arch was worn away to where cars could no longer fit to make it across. People could still walk, though, and for many years many people did just that. Just why officials allowed it to continue for so long is somewhat unclear, but they didn't stop people from going across even as the last bit of rock got precariously small. One fine summer day, the area was swarming with people. The sun was bright and warm and people were out enjoying themselves. Lots of people were over on London Bridge. Suddenly amidst the revelry, someone heard a sound. A cracking sound. That person shouted out to everyone that the bridge was falling (I wonder if it was something like the song... probably not). In this case, the proper response was a mass, panicked exodus from the bridge. Almost everyone made it before the span fell, except for two. Somehow, they leapt back from the edge just as the rock collapsed and avoided falling into the ocean below, where they would almost certainly have been seriously injured and possibly killed. Now they were trapped on the new island. But it was a lovely day. Someone called for a helicopter to come and rescue them. Unfortunately, summer is bush fire season and there were several that required attention, and the helicopters were busy. They would come when they a spare block of time. No problem. The pair on the island were in no danger; the day was warm. They could wait. They seemed quite relaxed and calm. Meanwhile, this was big news. There hadn't been a structure fall along the coast in a number of years and so the news groups in Melbourne got right on it. They sent their helicopters out to get the story. (I could already see where this was headed. If it was a movie, nobody would ever believe that it would happen like this.) The first news helicopter arrived and began to scout the location, taking photos and film footage for the news later. As the helicopter came up, the pair on the island got up, thinking it was the rescue helicopter. Suddenly the helicopter turned and they saw that it was a news helicopter. And their whole demeanor changed. Suddenly they turned away from the helicopter and hid their faces. When the helicopter would change to get a better view of the pair, they would turn away again. This was very strange. When the helicopters eventually left to get their stories in, the questions on everyone's minds were, who were they and why were they so camera shy? It turned out that although the couple was married, they were not married to each other and had been caught out by Mother Nature and television news. And that is the story of London Bridge, that has fallen down. Ha ha ha!!!

Next it was on another section of the coast, at the other end of the Twelve Apostles. Beyond a formation called the Razorback...

...the first of the Twelve Apostles could be viewed.

Next it was on to Loch Ard Gorge. Here was another sad story. In the early days of Australia, many settlers came to make new lives. There being no planes at the time, this was an arduous, months-long journey by boat. One of the ships that brought people to their new lives was the Loch Ard. Now, just as a good Chinese bus wants to get as much as possible on board before setting off on its route, so ships would get as much cargo as possible. The Loch Ard had some 40 or so immigrants, a bunch of cargo, plus a number of paintings (that were going to be shown in an exhibition the following year in Melbourne) on board when it set off on its 91 day journey. All went very well, and the ship was travelling along the south coast towards Melbourne and reaching end of its journey. They were on day 90 and the end was in sight, almost literally. It was time to celebrate the end of the journey and the passengers and off-duty crew opened the wine and had a little party. But outside, ominous conditions were developing. A choking fog closed in. Then the winds picked up and a storm started. The storm got worse and the captain eventually excused himself to deal with it. Through the night, the captain fought the Loch Ard into staying afloat. When morning came, the storm still raged. A crew member was sent up to the eagle's nest to scout the way through the fog. Suddenly he saw they were bearing for a reef off the point of a small island. He alerted the captain, who used all his resources to turn the ship aside from its impending doom. But, laden down as it was, the ship refused to turn and collided with the reef. And it started to sink. It apparently sank in about 15 minutes. There were 54 people on the ship. Most went in and didn't come out. One young crewman, eighteen year old Tom Pearce clung to bits of the ship that floated and made his way into what became known as Loch Ard Gorge. Exhausted, he lay on the beach, all but certain that he was the lone survivor of the shipwreck. Then, through the gale, he heard the cries of another. At risk of his life, he re-entered the water and fought for an hour to bring the other survivor back to safety. This young survivor was one of the immigrants, eighteen year old Eva Carmichael. Together, exhausted, they headed to the back of the beach in the gorge and found a cave where they sheltered for the night. The next day, Tom somehow scaled the cliff and found help. They rescued Eva and then both were taken to hospital. Tom recovered quickly, but Eva had lost the other seven members of her family and she was devastated. She remained in hospital, broken and in despair for some weeks. Tom visited her everyday, and in time she recovered her health and her mind. Then... (are you ready for a fairy-tale ending?)

Eva went back to Ireland, got married and never left her homeland again. Tom went on to get married, have two sons, who both died in other shipwrecks, before going on to survive two more himself. He died a somewhat broken man in his forties. Yeah. I was hoping for the other ending, too.

And it all happened here.

After Loch Ard Gorge, we headed back for another look at the Twelve Apostles. They were more impressive in the daylight. I'm not sure I would think so if the sunset had worked out, but in our case, the more impressive view was in full daylight.

Now, Jude had been telling us about the opportunity to take a helicopter sightseeing flight over the Twelve Apostles. Somehow the owners of the tour company had worked out a deal with the helicopter tour outfit at the site to have a cheap flight available to people on that tour. For 70 dollars, we could go and look at the Twelve Apostles from above for about a 7 minute flight. I could never do something like that at home for so cheap. I hemmed and hawed for some time over it. I eventually went back to my criteria for when to do something like that. A long time I decided that, if I were ever faced with a more-expensive-than-I-planned choice or activity, I would think about whether I could do something quite similar at home. If I could, I wouldn't bother. If I couldn't, well, I wouldn't pass up the chance. So, bungee jumping? Even if it is over the Canyon of Death, or the Rapids of Well-Being, or other such places that exist no place else on Earth, chances are that I wouldn't be paying any attention to the salient details of the landscape as they flashed by. I could get the same experience at home. But to see the south coast of Australia on a rather inexpensive helicopter ride is something I cannot do in Canada. So I decided to do it. But then came the disappointing news that if it was only me, and the other two chose not to go, then it couldn't happen. We headed over to the helicopter place to see if there were any impending flights that I could tag along on. There was supposed to be a couple along in a short while and I could be added on to that flight. We didn't really have the time to wait, so Jude said we would go to the next, nearby site and she would bring me back if they called in time.

So we went to Gibson's steps. These steps took us down to the beach and gave us the opportunity to view (some of) the Twelve Apostles from ocean level.

We also got to see the ocean, crashing with what Jude assured us was much less vigour than would be usual in the winter.

We also saw, unfortunately, a few dead penguins who make their home on the beaches at the base of the cliffs.

And then Jude signalled that the call had come. The people had arrived for their helicopter tour. We rushed back to the company's office. It turned out that they had purchased a longer tour, about 15 minutes. And it was a low-level flight, which would give a better view. This was costing them more than twice what I was paying. I was advised (needlessly) to keep my mouth shut about what I was paying. And then the final bonus for me happened. The man had been sitting in the front seat by the pilot. He apparently decided that it was a bit scary and so he went in the back with his wife. That left the front seat for me, the best seat in the copter (aside from the pilot of course). I was getting a really good deal. The rest I will leave to the photos, except for one little further bonus. While we were out over the ocean, on our way back, we saw a whale. I didn't have the time to take a photo, but we saw the whale just below the surface and saw the tail flukes a couple of times as it dove down. It was quite a flight.

We were supposed to take a walk through the rainforest after this part of the coast. By the way, this part of the coastline is called the Shipwreck Coast. There are many, many ships were sunk in the area. The second third of the coastal drive was called the Green Coast. Here there are rainforests and lots of lush vegetation. It was in one of these rainforest areas that we were to take our little hike. However, the area we were to visit was closed for maintenance and we were unable to take that walk. This put us back on track timewise (albeit briefly). We put in at a picturesque little town, in which I nevertheless didn't take any photographs. After lunching in the town, and getting behind on time again, we headed down the final part of the coast. The moniker of this third of the coastal drive is the Surf Coast. It has high cliffs and, more importantly given its nickname, many breaks where there is awesome surfing opportunities. As we drove along we had opportunities to view the rugged coastline from high viewpoints.

We called at another spot where it was easy to spot wildlife. It's not an official part of the tour, but Jude goes there because there are almost always lots of koalas that are easily seen close up because of the low trees. And there were indeed koalas everywhere. We found four or five without even trying especially hard.

Then we did something technically illegal. We fed the birds of the area. These colourful birds are rosellas. These ones are on Jude.

Then there was Anna.

And Julie.

And me. I didn't feed them at all. I prefer birds and other animals find their own food. This didn't stop them from thinking I might have food and checking me out to make sure.

From this spot we passed a Gate of Remembrance. The whole war veteran culture here is very important and they take it all very seriously. The fact that many veterans of World War I returned to the area with no jobs and few prospects pushed the government into finding them a project. That project was the first part of the Great Ocean Road. Previous to its construction there was no real linking system for the coastal towns and supplies were difficult, as was communication. The road's construction alleviated that as well as providing returning veterans with something they could do to earn a living. As a remembrance of that and as a thank you for their service in the war and on the road, this arch was constructed. Actually the original arch wasn't wide enough and eventually someone ran over it with a truck and it had to be replaced. The second arch fell victim to a major bush fire that tore through the area in 1983. So this arch is actually the third Arch of Remembrance.

From here we headed to a seaside town with a lighthouse. There's not much to say about the place. It wasn't all that exciting, but the lighthouse is apparently one of the settings for a famous Australian children's show. Apparently it even screens in Canada. We got there as the sun was setting and this day the sunset was a bit more interesting, at least for the colours that it put in the sky.

Our final stop on this tour was to a famous surfing beach, Bells Beach. I've never heard of it, but if you are a surfer, you likely know of Bells Beach. It's even featured in the Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze movie Point Break. So people flock to this beach to see the place that was in the movie. Unfortunately that movie was made well before either of them was as famous as they became. As such the movie had a small budget and they didn't have the resources to come all the way to Australia to film the penultimate scene. And so Bells Beach, despite being almost a character in the movie, was never actually captured on screen. Another beach some other place filled in.

As is obvious in the photo, the time was getting late light-wise and so we had a bit of a break for tea and cookies. Then it was back to Melbourne. This was definitely a great tour to take. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

The Great Ocean Road, Day 1

I had booked a two-day tour to go and experience the scenery of the the Great Ocean Road. The centerpiece of the area is an attraction called the Twelve Apostles. More on them later, but they and other formations on the southern coast of Australia are carved by the sea out of limestone cliffs that are a dominant feature of the area. They were all referred to as rock stacks, but they are really more layered limestone that wore away to create these sights. And there are lots of different tour companies that go out to see them. The company I chose advertised themselves as a company that bucks the trend. Most of the companies start at the “beginning” of the Great Ocean Road and go to the “end.” Ride Tours proudly proclaim that they go the other way around. This would mean that there would be little bumping into other tour groups at the various stops. This was an appealing notion, so I went with them.

So, bright and early on Thursday, I got up and headed out to the meeting point at the nearby Immigration Museum. Shortly after I arrived, a German girl arrived. And then a French girl came along. We waited for the bus to come and pick us up. It was a bit late, but this was one of the later pick-up points on the list and it seemed that it was simply taking a while to rouse the rest of the passengers to get on the bus. When the bus showed up, lo and behold, it was empty. Hmmm... Jude, the driver, apologized for being late and said that traffic had been horrible and, as sometimes happens, she had seemed to hit every red light possible on the way. She ticked us off on her list, which only had five names. Out of a normal 21. I like doing things in the off-season. Then we headed off to the next pick-up point to get the other two travellers. When we got there, there was nobody waiting. Hmmm... Jude called the phone number of one of them, then chuckled. The names were Spanish. She remarked that the Spanish were often late. Then she noticed that they hadn't paid yet. And the phone number she called went to voicemail. She called her boss and eventually it was decided that we would be heading off without them as they weren't there and weren't answering their phone. Bonus!!!! We had a small group of four, myself, Jude, Anna (the German girl), and Julie (the French girl). Not so good for the company, but good for the three of us travellers. Jude was a talkative guide/driver. She spent much of the next three hours as we reached the “wrong” end of the Great Ocean Road telling us about the itinerary and a great deal of what we would be doing for the next couple of days, the sights, the animals, and the places involved in both.

Our first stop was in a little town, whose only claim to fame is that some guy, on his way to somewhere else broke an axle on his wagon and had to stop to get it repaired. He had to send the axle someplace else to be repaired and it took six weeks. In the meantime, he found the place to have many advantages, including that there was plenty of water in the area. So he decided to stay. The place was so forgettable that I have forgotten its name. But, in an effort to be memorable as a touristic place for people to go and spend some money, they have commemorated the guy with the axle with a giant replica of, you guessed it, a broken axle.

Just at the beginning of our stint on the Great Ocean Road, Jude stopped for gas. And, as it would be oh, so stimulating to watch her refuel the bus, she dropped us off at the nearby Cheese World, where it was possible to do some cheese tasting of the products of the cheese factory across the road. I didn't taste any, not being a great fan of cheese (Hey!  I heard that!), but I did find it quite amazing that the factory takes delivery of over 2 million liters of milk. Every day!!!

Next it was off to Logan's Beach. This is a very nice beach, with crashing waves and a long stretch of nice-looking sand. I'm sure it would be very nice to spend time there in the warmth of summer. This is wintertime here at the moment, however, and there would be no swimming this day. What we were hoping to see, though, was whales. Specifically southern right whales. Starting in June and continuing for a couple of months, pregnant female right whales head up to Australia from the Antarctic to give birth and start rearing the baby whales. This was early in the season, but it was possible that there would be whales in the area. Alas, our luck was not to be on this, and we spotted no whales. Incidentally, the name of the right whale comes from the whalers of the past, who saw these whales and found them to be the perfect whale to catch, kill and use. So they called the right whale, as in the correct whale to pursue. And to extirminate from existence, of course.

From Logan's Beach it was on to Tower Hill. This is a national park and an extinct volcano. Because of the amount of volcanic ash in the crater area, it is extremely lush in vegetation and life in general. In fact, because of its natural advantages, the area teems with just the sort of life that visitors to Australia want to see, namely kangaroos, koalas, and emus. We headed into the cone with high hopes of seeing us some Aussie fauna. I had seen emus and kangaroos before. I had even seen and held koalas, but I had never seen a koala in the wild. So here was my chance. Anna had seen these as well, but Julie had only arrived in Australia a week or so previously, so hadn't seen any of the animals yet. As we descended into the volcano's crater, we saw all the different layers of ash that had been laid over the time of the volcano's active period. Then we passed a few emus on the edge of the lake in the crater. They were some distance away and Jude didn't stop, saying we would see lots later and from a much closer distance. We arrived at the visitor center and were turned loose to have a look around. Jude gave us some pointers on where to find the various critters. We began by stalking kangaroos. They were to be found along a path that led to the top point in the crater.

And then we spotted them. There were quite a few, resting in the trees, eating some grass, and generally being quite casual about the presence of strangers. I guess they get a lot of strangers in them parts.

The view from the top was also quite nice.

Then it was on to the picnic area near the visitor center. There were lots of eucalyptus trees there and that was where we could stalk koalas. So we snuck around the trees quietly. I'm not sure why we were being so quiet. Koalas sleep 20 hours a day and don't move quickly at the best of times. But we skulked about as though we were disturbing a gang of high-strung prairie dogs or something similar. And we found nothing. And more of nothing. And a whole lot of nothing. Finally we headed back to the bus, disappointed and thinking we just weren't to see any koalas. We looked up into our last hope, the final tree before the bus. 

And there was a koala languishing in an upper branch, munching on some leaves. She was awake!! Yeah!!!

Jude, on hearing of our troubles, took a few extra moments to have a look around and found two more koalas hanging out, but they were both asleep and the best sighting was the one we had just before the bus. But there were no more emus, and Jude remembered that this was breeding season for emus and so figured they were off in the bushes doing their thing.

So, we piled into the bus and headed for the Bay of Islands.

The Bay of Islands was the first spectacular part of the Great Ocean Road. The coastline outside of the Great Ocean Road is made up of limestone. Being very soft, as far as rock goes, limestone is easily eroded, and as the southern ocean (I always heard it called the Antarctic Ocean. I'm not sure why they changed it. Maybe it has something to do with the “ant-”, kind of like AntiChrist.) pounds against it in ceaseless watery violence, particularly during the winter, the coastline is in constant retreat. One of the people we met told me that they lose 5-15 millimeters of the coastline to erosion every year. However, the stone does not erode away at constant rates everywhere. Some spots wear away faster than others. As time goes on, the coast is eroded into points and bays, and sometimes there are little free-standing islands left as the rest of the coast erodes away from them. The Bay of Islands is one of those spots. There is a fairly large bay that extends inland several hundred meters. But in the bay there are numerous islands that have been left behind. It creates a fantastic sight.

Next we headed to the Bay of Martyrs. This bay has a sad history. Before the Europeans arrived, the Aboriginal culture had been present on the Australian continent for what they now believe to be well over 30000 years. That's right, thirty thousand!!! But as seemed to be the case with the Europeans, they arrived as greedy marauders. They made questionable land agreements with the Aborigines. In cases where the Aborigines had the temerity to try and assert their rights and claims, the Europeans became violent. The Bay of Martyrs was one such place. The Aboriginal inhabitants of the area made a stand, and a forceful one at that, defending their land with arms. Of course, the arms that were available to the Aborigines were mainly sticks, and spears, and whatever other arms they had acquired from the white man when he first arrived. And they were only a couple of thousand strong. The Europeans had guns and cannons (I assume that anyway), and they had thousands of soldiers. The Aborigines were overmatched and lost battle after battle. And the Europeans would take any of the Aborigines they captured to the cliffs and toss them in. The indigenous population went from a couple of thousand to a couple of hundred before the conflict was done. Hence, the Bay of Martyrs. (I'm not sure the name is fairly bestowed. Martyr is one who is killed in a holy cause. And then the martyred are held out to motivate those who follow. I'm not sure all that applies here... But I am an outsider, so I guess I can't really comment.) In any case, the coast is just as spectacular.

Next it was on to a cool hole in a cliff, carved by the ocean. It was called the Grotto.

We were supposed to go to one more spot on this first day, but we were a little behind. You would think that with a small group, this wouldn't happen. But Jude admitted to being always behind on things, particularly in the winter with tighter hours because of available sunlight. And then we would also get a bit complacent since there were only three and you would think it wouldn't be hard to keep to a good time schedule. And so we would get into something and lose time a bit and then get scrambly because we were suddenly behind. In any case, we were behind by this point and, if we were going to be able to watch sun set over the Twelve Apostles, we had to high tail it and get over there. So we skipped London Bridge for this day and it got added to the beginning of the second day of the tour.

And so we headed over to the Twelve Apostles. They have an interesting history. When the area was first settled, there were 18 rock stacks. And the first one looked, apparently, like a pig. I couldn't see the resemblance myself, but it was certainly large, so the rest of the name for the stacks made some sense. It was originally called the Sow and Piglets. As time passed and more people came to live in the area and, more importantly, visit the area, the thoughts of the locals turned to how to encourage more people to visit. Tourism has always been important, I guess. And for some reason, those in charge of promoting the area for tourism felt that the name of Sow and Piglets was not enticing for bringing in the visitors. I find this shocking. I think the name of Sow and Piglets is fantastic. I can't imagine why people would not be instinctively drawn to an area with such sight to be viewed. Oh, wait, I've seen lots of farms and my fair share of pigs. Maybe I wouldn't need to see any more. Ahhhhhhh!!!!! Now I understand.

These same people figured that maybe a name change would bring more people to visit. So they brainstormed and came up with what they thought was a great name, the Apostles. They liked it. And it is a very intriguing name. But although tourism picked up, it didn't get to spectacular, or even desired, levels. So they gave it some more thought. They really liked the apostles, and they didn't want to give that up. Now by then, time and the ocean had been working hard and four of the rock stacks had been toppled, leaving only 14. Someone had the brainstorm to call the formation the Twelve Apostles. This did the trick. People were intrigued. People were curious. People wanted to see this formation that was being likened to something out of the Bible. And they started coming in droves. Now, some of those who came were not particularly math challenged. And they counted. As I already mentioned, there were 14 stacks, but the name was the Twelve Apostles

When this was pointed out, the powers that be explained that there were twelve off in one direction, while two were in the other direction from the viewpoint. They were called the Rockpiles, or something like that. The other twelve, those were the Twelve Apostles. Ah. Spin doctors had humble beginnings. Anyway, with that background, we went to the viewing platform to watch the sun set over the Twelve Apostles. Unfortunately, the day was cloudy and it was more of a fading of the light. I imagine an actual sunset must be quite amazing, though.

Then, with nobody having died, we headed to Port Campbell and our accommodation for the night and had some dinner and hit the sack.