After another arresting experience - I went on a tour of the old gaol in Melbourne, where you are locked up and subjected to a taste of the old procedures - I hurriedly left and embarked (on St George's Day - I wore my 'Barmy Army' cap all day, of course!) on a 3-day trip along the Great Ocean Road towards Adelaide. This is a bit of a misnomer, as only about a third of the road is actually beside the ocean. It was a particularly calm day when we travelled the 'surf coast', so we had to imagine the waves and surfers! But the day was made by a trip into an area of eucalyptus trees, where we saw several koalas in the wild (confession - the 3rd photo is actually a cheat, taken in a koala park near Sydney). We were able to get up quite close, although the koalas stayed up in the trees. After a night in a pretty basic hostel in Apollo Bay, a quiet but pretty seaside town, we were picked up by another driver. He proved to be a stereotypical Aussie guy - racist, sexist - referring to his passengers as e.g. 'those Swedish sheilas' and making jokes about mean Scots etc, interspersed with political jibes. Or maybe I just don't share his sense of humour... Never mind, we decided to ignore him, and enjoyed the day, with a trip down to see the truly awesome twelve apostles - see second picture. They are crumbling as we speak, and are a wonderful sight, especially in the late afternoon sunshine. We then visited 'London Bridge' - a formation which partially collapsed a couple of years ago, leaving a couple stranded on the island formed from the broken arch. The story goes that they were reluctant to be interviewed by the eager tv crews when rescued - they were married, but not to each other...
We also caught sight of lots of kangaroos running about wild near the road - in fact we almost ran one over, they are so tame...
On next day to the Grampians, where the first picture was taken. We had a great walk up to the Pinnacles - huge rock formations. It was the sort of walk I really enjoy - lots of scrambling over rocks, and steep gradients. We were then picked up again by our day one driver, who proved to be very helpful - I had booked a hostel in Adelaide, but when we arrived he said to me 'It's very noisy - not your sort of place, I'd go to the YHA if I were you'. This turned out to be an excellent piece of advice - the original one has a bad reputation, and the YHA is the best hostel here so far - huge clean kitchen, plenty of places to sit and read quietly or watch tv, crisp clean cotton sheets like we had when I was a child - fresh from the laundry. Bliss.
My customary luck held when I arrived in Adelaide - I strolled down the road to get some milk and discovered a huge party in the street. Of course, Anzac Day! This is a huge event, commemorating the courage and staying power of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who landed in Gallipoli in the First World War. In every city they have a dawn service and a big parade. I had stumbled across the ensuing street party - live bands, beer tents, hot dog stands. Lots of people in uniform, young and old, all sporting their own medals on their left breast, their family medals (parents', grandparents') on their right. I chatted for a while to an ex-serviceman who told me all about it, and said that on this day (a public holiday) everyone is particularly friendly and courteous to strangers in the street - it's a great atmosphere. Interesting in the light of current discussions in the UK papers about whether enough respect is shown to people in service uniforms, irrespective of whether one approves of current overseas military actions. I felt honour bound to raise a can (yes, a can - strange) of Smirnoff Ice to them, and to bop along with the music. Rude not to, I thought...
Adelaide is known as the city of churches, but I haven't noticed their presence any more than ini any other city. It's not a place you think 'I must go to Adelaide and see the...', but nevertheless, it has enough interesting places to keep a traveller here for a few days. Today I've been a few kms out of the city to Brighton on the tram, walking from there through Hove to Glenelg. It was a bit like being in Sussex, really, a bit chilly with showers!
I have been feeling the lack of company my age recently - the 3-day tour was full of teens and twenty-somethings; so I was amused to see on entering the kitchen this morning (Sunday) at about 8.15 that everyone else there - about 10 people - was, shall we say, 'mature'. I don't think 8 in the morning exists if you're under thirty and have no children! I had a nice chat with an English couple resident in NZ, before going back to my room after 9am and trying to find my toothbrush etc without waking my 'roomies'. The joys of shared living!
Off to the 'Red Centre' - Alice Springs and Ayers Rock (Uluru) next - watch this space.
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