I spent three months traveling around Australia on my gap year
before going to University, so it was surprising that I had never
managed to visit the Great Ocean Road, one of the most beautiful
destinations in Australia.
Before moving to Singapore, Rich had never visited Australia, so when a work trip came up to Sydney we decided to use the opportunity to visit Australia. The first stop was Sydney where we took in the main sites including Bondi Beach, Manly Beach, Botanical Gardens and the Opera House. I even managed to fit in a boat trip while Rich was working to see the humpback whales, which migrate
past Sydney's coast every year. We stayed at The Langham Hotel on
the Rocks, the oldest part of Sydney. From here we could see the
Sydney Opera house and Habour Bridge. The Rocks were bustling with cafes, pubs and restaurants tucked down cobbled streets. This was probably the closest I had come to a good old fashioned English pub since leaving Singapore. We had a number of friends and family
living in Sydney so it was great to catch up with them and learn about
life in Sydney.
We were training for the marathon at the time so we took the opportunity to see the city by foot. We did some fantastic runs through the harbor and Botanical Gardens. There was a local fish market at the end of the harbor which sold the most enormous fish and seafood.
On the weekend we headed out to The Blue Mountains where we
visited the Three Sisters and Echo Point and saw where the bush fires
had ripped through the countryside.
From Sydney we flew down to Melbourne to see my family. On our
first night we met up with my cousin Claire and had drinks down by the river next to Federation Square. We then went to a Spanish tapas
restaurant tucked away in the lanes. The lanes were probably my
favorite part of Melbourne, with hundreds of cool quirky cafes, bars,
restaurants and boutique shops to visit. With all the art galleries and
museums and graffiti art it is no wonder that Melbourne is seen as
the art and culture center of Australia. The walls of the lanes were painted with graffiti and the whole area had an edge to it.
On the second day we joined our tour bus and headed out along The
Great Ocean Road. Melbourne is renowned for having all four
seasons in one day and we were certainly not disappointed in this
regard as we made our way along The Great Ocean Road. What
started as a brilliant blue sky quickly turned into torrential rain and
then hail. This was not going to dampen our spirits though as we
stopped for walks through the rainforest, took pictures in front of the twelve apostles and had coffee in the quaint coastal towns.
Unfortunately Rich had injured his foot running so he wasn't able to
do much of the walking. We hadn't appreciated how far the drive was
between The Great Ocean Road and The Grampians mountains, so we were relieved when our driver let us stop off in a town to pick up some dinner. We arrived at our hostel in The Grampians mountains in the evening and were greeted by a roaring log fire.
The next morning we woke up early and ventured out to the cricket
pitch where we saw kangaroos. There was a frost on the ground and
the air was freezing. After breakfast we made our way up to the mountains where we walked down an extremely steep cliff to reach the bottom of a waterfall. We then visited an aboriginal history center. The tour was finished off with wine tasting at a vineyard before making our way back to Melbourne. We spent our last evening in Melbourne at my Aunts house and had a delicious family meal.