Gatecrashing the Great Ocean Road

The Australian Adventure
Part 5
Original e-mail date
Mon, 21 August, 2006

Hey up, everybody!

Here it is; it's overdue, it's scary, it's longer than ever - it's the über-mammoth Bumper Edition of my gargantuan self-reflective travel log!

I've been so busy in the past few weeks, working hard, playing hard, and trying desperately not to spend too hard! So much to report. Too much to report! Let me cast my mind back to a suitable point where I can resume... Ah yes. Our road trip along the Great Ocean Road. A good a point as any!

So, one weekend a few weeks back, a bunch of us got together and rented an eight-seater car. We hit the motorway and headed south-west. First stop was a place called Torquay, so I refrained as much as I could from doing Basil Fawlty impersonations. It was difficult, so very difficult... ("Don't mention the war, I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it!") It was essentially a surfers beach, much like Bells Beach, which we found a little further along the coast.

Later that afternoon, we happened across a picturesque seaside town called Lorne. All of us instantly fell in love with the place and wanted to raise families there - there was just something so inherently nice about it. We ate at the "Lorne Fish and Chip Shop" (est. 1954, and boasted the slogan "If it was any fresher, it'd still be in the sea"), perused the attire in "Lorne Girl" (the local equivalent to Topshop), and we even considered booking ourselves into the Lorne Hotel... forever. ("You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.")

The place lent itself to picture-postcard views; it had a river, with ducks (oh yes, ducks), a beautiful ranch-style backpackers' hostel with a bistro underneath, a quaint little supermarket, and even some plastic statues of women with oversized mammary glands. The only bad thing I could see about the place was an eatery called "Kafe Kaos" - I had mental flashes of me walking in there and falling down the stairs... Other than that, it was all groovy, and we spent the rest of the trip sighing and saying things like "I miss Lorne"; "I love Lorne" and "It's not as good as Lorne".

As we meandered our way along the coast, we passed through loads of little villages. Some of the houses were very strange - Australia seemingly allows its architects to go completely wild. One building perched on the edge of a cliff actually looked like the Jetsons' house. None of the towns were, however, as good as Lorne, though a breathtaking moment did occur when we saw a rainbow form across one of the bays; you could see it end right in the middle of the ocean. The photographs we took simply don't do it justice.

The State of Victoria is actually known as Australia's "Garden State" (although, unlike New Jersey, it wasn't the inspiration for the Zach Braff film.) There are lots of cows, and it's very, very green. Parts of it look a little like - dare I say it - Blighty. After taking a rather lengthy detour to find a lighthouse (we ended up just driving round the car-park three times with the radio on full blast to freak out the locals - we later discovered it was the lighthouse where they filmed, aptly enough, Round the Twist...), we pulled up at the Twelve Apostles.

Now, to be honest, I wasn't all that enthralled about seeing a bunch of rocks sticking out of the sea, but by the time we arrived the sun was setting, and we ended up going on a helicopter ride right over the top of them. I'm known for being unenthusiastic about these things, but it was my first time in a helicopter and I was loving it! Afterwards, we got talking to the helicopter pilots, and they invited us to a party that evening.

After coming down (both literally and from the adrenaline high), we drove onto Port Campbell, our stop-off for the night. It really was a one horse town - the only shop shut at 7pm and the nightlife made Rotherham look like Las Vegas. Luckily, we'd been invited, by-proxy, to the party at the aptly named Surf Club, so we checked into a small little backpackers hostel, had a quick nap, then turned up fashionably late.

It turned out to be a guy called Tom's 21st birthday party, and we walked into a room full of his family and friends just as they were making the speeches. We felt a little out of place, but we didn't care! We took full advantage of the free food and the free drinks, had photographs taken with the birthday boy and his grandma, and boogied the night away to the rock band that were playing. Everyone was wondering just who the hell we were! Afterwards, we all poured out of the club and across the street to another hostel, and we stood by the beach looking at the stars... but it was flippin' freezing so we went back to our backpackers. The next morning we hit the highway, stopping off at one of the many McDonalds in Geelong to reminisce about the beautiful Lorne...

Upon arriving back in Melbourne, we still had the hire car for another few hours, so we drove off to find Ramsey Street. It's actually called, disappointingly enough, Pin Oak Court, and, as everyone seems to say, it's much smaller than it appears on TV. I don't know how Billy Kennedy and Toadie used to play cricket on there.... Still, I've now walked down both Coronation Street and Ramsey Street, so I can die happy. Well, it's not the Nobel Peace Prize, but I can die marginally contented, anyway. And, it gave me plenty of inspiration for my Neighbours spin-off - Ramsey Street: 2150.

A couple of days after the road trip we checked out of the ultra plush Urban Central and moved round the corner to a hostel called, Bev and Mick's. (absolutely true - but not a Crokey-Boss in sight.) We've been living here for the past three weeks, and we really like it. It's situated above a pub, is quite small and has a distinct lack of wallpaper, carpets, and, in some rooms, ceilings. Craig describes it as "rough and ready", but the owners are very friendly and the atmosphere is really chilled out.

The pub downstairs is rather smoky so we don't spend all night there, but I've won the quiz a couple of times so we had to use up my $150 bar tab! On one of the quiz nights, they had bonus rounds. There was a race to down a pint of fizzy soda water and munch through a whole Boost bar. I came second, but I managed to be the champion of "Rock, Paper, Scissors". It was weird, I seemed to be able to read everyone's minds - it was like I was possessed!

We originally shared our room with a New Zealander - he was a 33-year-old bearded ex-hip-hop DJ called Jaz, and he was the laziest man alive. He was worse than me when I was living in Southampton - the guy NEVER got out of bed. He's since left, and we're now sharing with a Ricky Gervais look-a-like from Colchester called Tom. We've spent a lot of time with two girls from Northern Ireland called Lynne and Lisa (two of the Great Ocean Road ensemble who now also live at Bev and Mick's), and we made new friends at the hostel including Jaz's mate Mike (another Kiwi who reminds me of Garth from Wayne's World), and a German girl called Pia. We're loving meeting new people, but we're sick of constantly having to say goodbye... such is the nature of our Odyssey.

The last few weeks really have been a bit of a blur. On the tourist front, I checked out the TV50 exhibition at the Australia Centre for the Moving Image; Craig has visited the odd art gallery; we've visited the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Shrine of Remembrance; we went to a free wine tasting in a Bottle Shop; and we finally, finally made it to the observation deck at the top of the Rialto Tower. Don't worry, we took squillions of extremely boring photographs of the Melbourne skyline for you all to fall asleep in front of. The funniest thing about that day was the video they play when you go up the tower. It was the tackiest, most cringe-worthy promotional film for Melbourne that you could ever make - one of the lyrics to the cheesy overlaying song was: "Melbourne... It's a never-ending story!"

Last Friday a huge group of us went on a night out in St. Kilda. Well, I say we went out - we ended up spending the first half of the evening in the bar at Urban Central and then the second half inside another English-themed pub. I didn't come to the other side of the planet to be reminded of Slough. Nonetheless, everyone came out and it was a fantastic night.

A lot of my time in the past few weeks has been spent with a Mexican girl called Mariana. She used to live at Urban Central, but now has her own apartment in the city. She is studying environmental engineering at university here for one year as part of her course back in Mexico. She's here on scholarship scheme; not only is she bi-lingual, she's won dancing competitions, plays the piano, and writes articles that get published in Mexican newspapers. I think she wants to be some sort of environmental journalist.

We met about three weeks ago, and we got on really well. Yesterday we had a really nice day; we went out for coffee, did some shopping and then I cooked us a meal. It's been difficult though, because she has so much homework to do for her degree and I feel as though I'm keeping her from her studies. I do like her, very much, and it's going to be incredibly hard to say goodbye to her. Our time together has been far too brief, and I think it will be my most difficult farewell of the trip.

Employment wise, we haven't fared all that bad. We've had quite a few jobs - I took over Craig's job for a week at the building on Queen Street that's undergoing renovation. I had to put my practically non-existent DIY skills to the test - they had me sanding and varnishing tables! And I was introduced to the legend that is Jeff.

Now, I think he was a janitor of some sort, but he just used to sit there and drink tea all day. He wore the same knitted jumper each day of the week and even though he was in his late fifties he still lived with his mum. He was a fantastic guy though, and agreed with everything you said. His catchphrase was "Yeah, yeah... oh shit yeah!". I asked him once where he'd been travelling. He said he'd been to England, and thought London, Liverpool and Manchester were pretty good. I asked him if he'd been anywhere else. He said he'd seen a lot of Europe, including Germany, and he thought it was pretty good. He told me he'd been to Rome, and seen the Colosseum, so I asked him what he thought of that. He took a sip of his tea (his tenth cup of the morning), swallowed thoughtfully and said... "It was pretty good, yeah". Legend.

I worked alongside a Scottish lad called Gordon, who was a nice bloke. The guy who owned the building owned lots of backpacker hostels in the city, so we were always able to go for a free pint after work at Flinders Station Hotel, and, on occasion, we'd check out the seedy strippers in the nearby Hosies. It was quite a good little job, but I could only work there for one week as the inspectors were sniffing round and it was only a cash-in-hand job. The following week, Craig and I each did a day on another renovation job. It was horrible work for a miserable man. Somehow, when I introduced myself, the guy misheard my name as William. Instantly, before I had time to correct him, everyone thought that was my name, so I ended up having a full day of builders calling me Will...

We've both had jobs setting up stalls at the Melbourne Exhibition centre, and we've both spent a Saturday morning apiece washing cars at a second-hand dealership. My favourite job so far has to be the one I did for a couple of days last week at a little cafe in the South Melbourne Market. I had to load and unload the dishwasher, toast sandwiches, wipe down tables and take coffee out to people. It was great. The people were really friendly, and they wanted me to stay, but, sadly, it's time for us to move on...

Yes, in a couple of days we hit the road. We've been living here in Melbourne for a total of two months, and this city has really captured my heart. Maybe, time and funds permitting, we'll get a chance to visit it again in the summertime. For now thought, we're heading west, then north (via that big red rock thingy) then due north-east. And all in a week and a half!

So I suppose it will soon be time to finally buy a wide-brimmed hat, slop on some sun-cream and don my sandals and shorts! I won't miss the cold weather, but I will miss this amazing city.

I'll be in touch again when I can. Although the chronology has all gone to pot and they're getting a bit mixed up, the latest photographs, as ever, are at the usual address. You know the drill.

Speak to you all soon,

Liam