Lindsay and Ryan Do the World 2008/09

Yesterday, we left the Frankston hotel and dropped Toni off in Melbourne after he sorted out his money/Visa situation and headed to the Great Ocean Road.  We did half yesterday and half today. You definetly need two days to do this road. There is so much to see.  It is 285 kms long.  It starts in Torquay and ends in Warnambaloo.  We stayed over night in Apollo Bay in a nice small hostel.

Yesterday, we stopped at a few different beaches and lookouts.  There are too many to name.  At this one lighthouse lookout we saw a small white dot on an island. We zoomed in on it and it turned out to be a lone penguin!  We wanted to see them in New Zealand but never got to, so now we got to see one, from afar but still!

Around 6:30pm, we were driving past a  field with some horses in it, and I saw some ‘deer’ and didn’t really think anything of it, but then I thought to myself “Wait a second, we are not in Canada, those aren’t deer, they are Kangaroos!!!” LOL.  I yelled “Stop, Kangaroos!!” and Ryan slammed on the brakes and we turned around.  We got some good pictures and video of them looking right at us.  We have seen lots of wallabies that we thought were kangaroos but there is no mistaking them now. Kangaroos are much bigger.  We were just saying that we need to see Kangaroos and Koalas before this trip is over. 🙂

The next morning we left Apollo Bay to do the rest of the Great Ocean Road.  There was a  lot to see on this last half of the road.  We drove a little ways down this side road to see a lighthouse.  While we were driving through this forest I spotted a Koala in the tree!! It was climbing up the tree really fast and that is how I spotted it.  We pulled the car over and walked in the woods a little bit to get a better look.  When we were taking some pictures of it I saw another one a few trees over.  They were kind of far away but you could still see them pretty good.  We were so excited we saw a wild Koala, we didn’t think we were going to.  And then when we were leaving this side road, Ryan said “imagine if we saw one just hanging over the road in the trees” and then I yelled “Stop, Koala!”  He didn’t believe me at first.  And there one was right beside the road in a tree.  It was about 10-15 feet up in the tree.  We got some great pictures of this one. It looked like it just woke up and had fuzzy hair sticking out everywhere! Lol.

We continued driving and stopping at the 12 Apostles, London Bridge (a rock that looks like the bridge), Bay of Islands, along with a lot of other scenic lookouts.

Overall the Great Ocean Road, lived up to its name, it is Great!  However, it was 43 degrees today and there were a million flies that would buzz and land right on your head whenever we got out of the car.  That was quite annoying.

On a side note, we weighed ourselves the other day in Frankston and Ryan weighed 218.8 lbs and I weighed 123.0lbs.  Ryan lost a lot of weight in the last few days because he was sick and had the flu, we think.  I never got sick though, so we are not sure what made him sick.

On another side note, we are in Jail!  Haha, not literally. We are staying in an old jail that has been converted into a hostel. $22/night.  We could have stayed in an old jail cell but they cost more! haha.  It has the old stone walls for the exercise area and big steel doors, with gates everywhere. Its actually really interesting.

We will write again when we get to Adelaide.

What a crazy last few days we have had.  We started travelling south from Sydney with our friend Toni from Germany. We were going to give him a ride to Melbourne and he was going to split the cost of the car rental with us.  Everything was going well until we started looking for a hostel for the night.  There are no large towns from Sydney to Melbourne, just little tiny towns with less than 5000 people in them, therefore no hostels.  We stopped in Jervis Bay earlier in the day to see the whitest sand in the world. It was really white but I think Whitehaven in the Whitsundays was nicer, more fine.

So it is about 10pm and we still hadn’t found a hostel and we are out of gas and all these little towns close up, no gas stations were open.  The gas light was on so we couldn’t even drive further.  We thought we were going to have to sleep in the gas station parking lot!!  Ryan went to the police station to ask if they knew where a 24 hour gas station was and it happened that there was one just up the street. So we made it there but it was already closed but the owner was still there. He opened the pumps back up for us and we filled up.  We decided to drive through the night, taking turns driving. Ryan drove until 1230pm and then needed a rest so I drove for another 2 hours. We pulled over in a rest area and slept until 730am.  I was wedged in the back seat while the boys were sprawled out nicely in the front seats.  Worst SLEEP EVER! Lol.

So we got to Melbourne and there was not one hostel or cheap hotel in the whole city because of the Australian Open (tennis).  So we booked a small hotel room about an hour from Melbourne. We had no other choice because we were not sleeping in the car again!  It turned out to be a wonderful little hotel with a kitchenette and two beds.  We stayed for 3 nights.  Ryan got the flu while we were there so Toni and I just relaxed in the hotel room while Ryan slept.  It was actually really good.  BUT then this morning we woke up with our door open???  Why you ask? We were robbed!!! YES, someone actually came into our room while we were sleep and stole Toni’s pants and wallet!  He had everything in there, his memory stick, ID, money, Visa. Everything.  We reported it to the police and I guess we will see if anything shows up. Luckily nothing else was taken.  We just can’t believe someone would have the nerve to come into our room while we were sleeping there! I feel sick about that!!  OMG.

Anyways, we are dropping Toni off in Melbourne today at a hostel, he has some emergency money coming from Visa today and then Ryan and I are headed towards the Great Ocean Road and on to Adelaide for a few days.

We will write again after the Great Ocean Road.  Bye for now.

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