Breakfast in Tokyo, Lunch in Cape Town & Dinner in Medellín

I saw the heat forecast for this area today, rented a car for the day, drove to Torquay (home of surf mania for Victoria) and went surfing.  Then I explored a few other beaches near Torquay, ate dinner on the beach and watched a spectacular sunset.  Perfect way to spend a hot day here, even if it never got as hot as forecast.  The surf wasn’t that good today but it was nice to just be out there.

When I got back to Melbourne, I took a slight detour before returning to my hostel.  Driving around the F1 grand prix circuit in Albert park, a couple times.  They have setup all the advertizing boards and put in the safety barriers now so it’s pretty cool driving around it.  Not something you can do in many places, I did walk around part of the Monaco track but driving is quite a bit better!

I should get a new camera this weekend so no more of my excursions go un-photographed, that is my goal for tomorrow.

Today I spent driving around the Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island with a few other  people staying at the hostel.  The weather was wet in the morning, dry later on but cool and windy enough to need a jacket all day.  The coastline is nice, but not quite as appreciated by me as much after just being on the great ocean road especially since the weather was overcast and chilly.

Phillip Island is home to fur seals and little blue penguins, but these areas are extremely over commercially developed with massive new building with exhibits in them and the opportunity to see the penguins come in from sea at night costing $25, an absurd amount in my opinion.  Having seen these penguins for free in large numbers in New Zealand I did not give them any money here.

The day did not have a happy ending as while we were exploring one beach on the island, my awesome Canon A720 camera slipped out of my pocket into the water.  I don’t know how, it was in the same pocket of my jacket I always keep it in with no previous issues, but it did!  My memory card survived but it was the end of camera dammit.  Now I have to find a camera I like and buy it as quickly as possible, taking time and money, too much of both.  I’m planning to be in the Grampians on Monday and I have to have a camera when I’m there. 
Here’s the last picture of the aprox 5000 I’ve taken on the camera…

I’ve spent the last two days taking a tour of the great ocean road on the South coast of Victoria. Most people who take a tour of this do it in one day, which after taking the (recommended) two day version I can’t imagine doing it all in one day.

The Trip:

Day 1, the drive started at 7am. A few hours of driving inland to reach the far end of the great ocean road. Driving through flat dry farmland, nothing to see there. Driving to the far end of the road from Melbourne first instead of doing the traditional route meant that the whole time, none of our stops were packed full of other tour buses. In fact most were pretty devoid of anyone but our small (20) group. Anyway, once we reached the far end of the road the first site of the coast was this. Logans beach.

Not bad as a starter eh? Next was back inland a bit to a wildlife reserve with Koalas and Kangaroos.

Then we were driving along the shipwreck coast (named for, duh, the amount of shipwrecks that happened here), seeing the bay of islands and the bay of martyrs with high cliffs and stranded rock formations offshore. Very windy, that and the vegetation reminded me of the South coast of New Zealand.

The main stop along this section of coast is the “12 apostles” rock formations. (Purely a marketing term, and there’s actually 13). We got there for the sunset, which wasn’t one of the spectacular ones there but was still nice.

Next morning we got started out at 7:30am, off to see the London Bridge formation and then on to a gorge where a famous shipwreck occurred with only 2 people surviving out of nearly 60. This gorge has several caves, a wonderful sheltered shady beach and high cliffs all around. Quite beautiful.

After that it was back to the 12 apostles, this time in full daylight.

We then drove through the green coast, seeing some rain-forest. Something I had no idea existed in the part of the country. Complete with the largest tree ferns I’ve seen on this trip by far.

The last section of the drive was the surf coast, this is the original part of the great ocean road with the design apparently based on US highway 1 the Pacific hgwy. I drove along that in September and the roads are similar. The road hugs the ocean all the rest of the way, with stunning overlooks around most corners. Beach after great looking beach, stunning coastline. The shades of blues and greens in the water are amazing along here. One stretch of this coast line also has so many Koalas that we saw 10+ in the trees just driving through on the bus without stopping.

The drive along the whole coastline is about 250km, and like I said before I can’t imagine doing it in one day. There’s so many stops, My group spent 2 long days seeing stuff, we didn’t stop at everything but we did plenty and had time to explore quite a few spots. Excellent tour and guide. This being the first real travel I’ve done since I’ve been in Melbourne, it was very refreshing to be exploring again, around (a great group of) travelers currently in the traveling process and making new friends. A great change from the sloth like behavior of many of the residents at my hostel in the city here. I took several hundred pictures over the 2 days, I’ll sign off with this classic image of Australia….

Well after spending the weekend planning stuff for the next few months/continents of the trip, Sunday afternoon I decided to take a break from that and go explore St Kilda.  After stopping at a different one of the excellent bakeries than last time I was there, enjoying that just as much as the previous one, I walked to the other side of St Kilda (eating my fruit tart), away from the beach where the centre of town is.  Equally as nice as the part I’d been to before, with far fewer people crowding the streets.

On my walk through town, I stumbled across live jazz in one cafe, and then some middle eastern band playing at a Morrocan restaurant.  The amount and diversity of the music scene here is fantastic.

In the morning I’m getting up bright and early for the 2 day tour I’m taking of the great ocean road, recommended to me by several people here.  I’ll have plenty of pictures to post when I get back from that.  My days left here are going to be increasingly full with all the surrounding areas I want to see before leaving for Tasmania and the stuff I need to plan/book for the rest of the trip.  Easier to do that stuff now that when I’m moving around with no certain internet access.  Now I’m off to bed so I can wake up in time for the bus in the morning.

The weather here the last couple days has been absolutely perfect, just some haze in the air from the bush fires, and this weather is supposed to keep up all week long.  I spent today enjoying the fact that I’m no longer ill, kept it local by walking all around the lake in Albert Park, near my hostel, where the F1 Grand Prix is held in March.  I walked down the pit lane.

Then down to St Kilda, sampling a pastry at one of the famous bakeries there and then checking out the beach for a while.  Perfect day for it, not quite hot enough for me to actually go swimming though.  I also actually remembered to take my camera out with me today, so rare since I’ve been in Melbourne.

So my health on this trip so far had been great, no sickness, nothing even minor really.  Up until the last week that is.  I was pretty under the weather for a few days, thought I’d kicked whatever it was that I’d caught by myself until Monday night when my throat and mouth started swelling up a lot.

That led to me going down to the ER Tuesday morning, being admitted that night and spending the next 2 days in hospital.  It wasn’t anything too serious, just a bad case of tonsillitis, being on anti-biotics for 2 1/2 days cleared it up and this evening I am back at my hostel feeling fine.  All in all nothing catastrophic, a couple days of complete and utter boredom at the hospital and a chapter that doesn’t need to be written again on this trip.

This week has been defined by the weather.  The high of 44.6 degrees on Friday was the peak of the insanity.  On Wednesday when I was at the Australian Open for the quarter finals, they closed the roof on the main arena and suspended play on the outside courts because of the temp.  While that was fantastic during the matches, when I left and walked to the train station it was like walking into an oven, the wind is hot, the suns intensity burns right through you and there is no relief.

This weather continued on Thursday and Friday with records being set for high temperature in what is apparently the worst heatwave here for 100 years.  Lovely when the place I’m staying doesn’t have air conditioning.  Due to this fact I spent many hours swimming in the bay over the last couple days.  Today is back to reasonable summer temps.

I did get some work on Friday, just half a day, but with quite a few more days likely when they need extra people.  Some income at last!

I have spent 20+ hours in the last 2 days at the Australian Open, and what fantastic hours they’ve been.  If you aren’t a tennis fan you probably wont find much of anything interesting in this entry.  Also, I took pictures of just about everyone I saw, way more photos than I’m posting on here.  See my flickr page.

Ok then.
Saturday I got there at 11:00, saw Mario Ancic play Gilles Simon, Radek Stephanek play Fernando Verdasco and in between those games, check out the practice courts to try and see the top player practicing.  This paid off big time, I saw Andy Murray, Fernando Gonzalez, Novak Djokovic and then, just after leaving a game that was tailing off, I saw Roger Federer.  Got to watch him practice for 15 minutes, and then autograph a ball for me.  Score.

The evening was even better, the night match on the outside court (one I could get in to) between Fernando Gonzalez and Richard Gasquet was fantastic.

Starting before 8pm and not finishing until almost midnight, the match lasted 4 hours and 10 minutes.  The fact that I was starving hungry and freezing for the entire match took absolutely nothing away from the enjoyment of it.

A stunning match with fantastic tennis by both players, what looked like an easy match for Gasquet near the start ended up going deep into a 5th set and Gonzalez finally winning it 12-10. Epic, the match of the tournament so far.

On Sunday, there was no singles tennis on the outside courts due to the draw being advanced now so I watched a few doubles games and spent lots of time staking out practice courts.  It paid off wonderfully again.  I saw Federer for a 2nd time, and then Gael Monfils, Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, Venus Williams the Bryan brothers and then to cap it all, Rafael Nadal doing an intense hour long practice session that I watched the entirety of.

Ironically at the end of it all, Federer’s was the only autograph I ended up with, and I’m just fine with that.
So over the last 2 days I have eaten very little, drank litres upon litres of water and spent a surprisingly small amount of money to see great tennis and a who’s who of the tennis world.  I’ll be back there for more on Wednesday for the Quarterfinals.

I spent all day yesterday at day 3 of the Australian Open, and by all day I mean 10AM to 9PM. 

I had a ticket for all the outside courts (anything but the main two), managed to see several good players including Marat Safin, Fernando Gonzalez, Marcos Baghdatis and Tomas Berdych.

Watching tennis at the arena is so much better than on tv, the players are stronger, faster and hitting the balls harder than you get the sense of on tv.  I now have a ticket to the quarter finals next week and will probably go again this weekend if the weather is reasonable.

In general the weather since I’ve been here in Melbourne has been great, no rain in almost 3 weeks and most days aren’t too hot.  It can, however get really hot here if the wind is coming off of the desert.  One day earlier this week it got up to 40 by 2pm, then the wind changed, and by 2:30 it was less than 30.  I’ve never seen the temperature change so fast in my life.

The activity of today, in addition to job hunting, was fruit buying at the Queen Victoria market here.  I picked up passion-fruit, peaches, strawberries, pineapples and more.  All fresh, all cheap and all delicious.

Well I’ve been in Melbourne for a week now. 

I keep liking it more every passing day.  Today I went to the Aquarium, saw the strangest looking fish I’ve ever seen and King penguins from the Antarctic.  These guys blow the little blue penguins out of the water (figuratively that is).

After that, I had Japanese for lunch, stopped at a pub for a couple great beers and was on my way back to my hostel when I stumbled across a really good band playing SRV style blues at another bar just off the main square. 

I stayed there and listened to them for a while, there was also a jazz quintet playing at another place across the square.  The choices I have to make.  The most amazing thing is, I keep randomly finding stuff that’s great.  For the most part I’m not reading this stuff in guidebooks, or even getting many recommendations from people.  There’s just cool stuff all over the place here, plenty of people out and about enjoying it too.

The weather has been just about perfect almost every day since I’ve been here too.  Next thing, just need a job.  That’s this coming weeks goal.