The Great Ocean (Road)!

And so a final post from Melbourne before my soooper early flight out to Perth tomorrow. My final days have been spent doing 'Victorian' (what people from the state of Victoria refer to themselves as. Sadly the culture appears to be largely sin literature so possibilities of joking about my Masters are limited. Shame) adventuring. The weather turned and I finally made it to the beach. Unfortunately with a Canadian guy named Carl who seems to have a borderline obession with eating clearly inedible animals and enlightened me for a full hour on the merits of Muskrat. I'm still fairly sure I would decline. The beach however was lovely, the water a shade chilly, apparently theres some kind of South Pole not that far away.

In the last few days I've also finally made it to Victoria Market which was indeed very markety, although not a patch on the crazy life blood pounding through a South American equivalent. It was however the Mecca of the fake UGG, which was entertaining; "get your real fake 'uggs' here!".

However, the highlight of my final few days has to be travelling the Great Ocean Road. The road, as you might have guessed, skirts the Ocean and is dedicated to the Ozzy soldiers who died in WW1 (glossing over the fact that almost as many returning soldiers died helping build it than did in the fighting...)... it is in fact the biggest war memorial in the world. The road runs from Melbourne to Adelaide and stops at many beaches, places of note and townships along the way. Plus also takes in the world famous Twelve Apostles, which are a group of (now 7) rockstacks off the Southern Coast of Oz. The trip was without a doubt epic; gorgeous blue skies, amazing scenery, gallons of suncream and a sighting of my very first Koala! The beauty of coastal Oz couldn't even be dampened my the tour guide who was (as nicely as possible) not a natural storyteller. But I was away with tales of shipwrecks, and in the Twelve Apostles park even managed to get chatting to a park ranger who was encouraging me to try the plantlife (assuring me of its edibility)... I can highly recommend New Zealand spinach!

We visited Bell's Beach (see video below), the lighthouse made famous by Round the Twist (have you ever, ever felt like this...), Torquay, Anglesea, Lorne, The Twelve Apostles, Lock Ard Gorge and London Bridge (which is a rock formation that looks like London Bridge... ish). All amazing, and glorious sun the whole way!