Australia Recap 11/22/12 - 12/1/12

Recap of Australia:  

Time in country:  10 days
Money spent: approximately $900 USD each
Currency:  Australian Dollar
Conversion Rate: roughly 1 to 1 for simplicity reasons

Food:
Food here is a bit like the U.S. due to the fact that you can get whatever you're after.  Also, due to the country's proximity to Asia, there is an abundance of Asian cuisine offered around the country (and for pretty cheap).

Meat Pies.  Similar to our chicken pot pies on a small, personal scale:  a flaky pastry filled with various meats, veggies, and sauces depending on what you're looking for.  

Fish & Chips (fries) shops are also everywhere.  The most popular fish used is actually Gummy Shark, known as flake. 

Australians love their "barbies", known to us as barbeques.  


Places Visited (in order):  Sydney, Portland, Great Ocean Road, Melbourne

Random Thoughts:
Australia, it's known as Oz.

As you can see on the map, we barely even covered a sliver of Australia.  It's roughly the same size as the U.S., so there's lots to see; however, we didn't have the time and money to really "see" all of Australia on this trip.  It's a very beautiful country though and somewhere we would love to go back to.

The Great Ocean Road is spectacular! If ever the opportunity to go experience it, Go!

Australia is a little bit more expensive than the U.S., and where we noticed it the most was the price of beer.  A 6-pack of standard beer was well over $12, and a draft beer at a bar/ pub was $7- 8.

Australia is home to plenty of cool animals that we don't have back home, and they were such a treat to get to see.  Kangaroos, koalas (they're not called koala bears apparently, just koalas), wallabies, etc.  

The Australian hospitality was amazing!  We were lucky to stay with friends on two different occasions, and they took wonderful care of us.  It couldn't have been better! Thanks to our Australian friends.

Melbourne 11/29/12 - 12/1/12

One of the main reasons for us to get to Melbourne was for Matt to meet up with his friend, Mike, that he met and travelled with in Central America during 2009.  They have kept up on Facebook and he was very excited they'd get to see each other while we are on our journey!

Mike picked us up from the airport and we began a great weekend with more AMAZING local Australian hospitality.  As Mike is currently renovating a house, we all stayed with his dad close to the middle of everything.  His dad was so kind to have us and extremely welcoming of us into his home. 

We spent the first day getting settled, eating, playing frisbee and footie in the park, and of course watching a DVD of a championship footie match.  The season runs from March - October, so we weren't able to see a game in person, but we learned all about the game from our own footie expert and biggest Geelong Cats fan, Mike.  You might ask yourself, "What is Footie?"  It's short for Australian Rules Football;  a mix of football, soccer, and rugby jumbled into one game.  This game was also founded in Melbourne.  The game is quick paced and full of action, and we both thoroughly enjoyed this new sport!

On Friday, we went into the city to walk around and visit the famous Queen Victoria Market while Mike went into work for a few hours.  Lots and lots of food, clothes, shoes, everything you could ever want to buy.  Later on in the night we met, Bec, Mike's girlfriend and all went out to eat in Melbourne's "Little Italy" section and then to Koko Black for dessert.  Delicious!

Our last full day in Melbourne, we went to the city for a big breakfast in one of the side streets/alley ways.  Then we went on a cool drive outside of town to the Dandenong Mountains.  It was very peaceful and serene up in the mountains. 

Afterwards we went to Brighton Beach for a short walk around and a look at the colorful Brighton beach huts.

After our fun-filled day, we went out for a fantastic dinner at a cool little place called Cookie in the main downtown area.  The restaurant had a dress code of no shorts, but thanks to K-Mart Matt was able to join us for dinner for only $8.50 :-)!  He had 2 pairs of jeans to start off the trip, but neither survived. 

Our dinner was delicious and we thoroughly enjoyed the company!  It was sad to be our last night, but felt good being with friends we hope to see again.  

Mike and Bec took very good care of us during our visit and we were very grateful.  The next morning we were up early to say our good-byes and were off to the airport for New Zealand!

Great Ocean Road 11/27/12 - 11/28/12

Leaving Portland, we took a couple of days to head east back to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road.  It's a 150 mile stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia that hugs the coast line with plenty of spots to park the car and walk out to great looking view points of the Southern Pacific Ocean.  There are numerous landmarks of limestone and sandstone rock formations, formed by erosion, spreading the coastline.  It's one of the most amazing displays of the power of nature and weather.     

We got lucky and had beautiful weather to start off the day.  The sunshine and clear skies made the colors from the rocks and the ocean so intense.  It was breathtaking.  At the first stop on the Great Ocean Road we walked down the path and when we saw it for the first time we just said, "WOW"! Here are some pictures from some of the "main" stops.

London Arch, formerly known as London Bridge, which has an interesting story told below:

The Arch:

The Loch Ard Gorge:

The Grotto:

The Twelve Apostles (the name is misleading because there were never 12 limestone stacks, it started at 9 and 1 collapsed, so there's 8 stacks now):

We stayed at Cape Otway that evening in a cabin before we made our way to the end of the road the next morning.  We got to see lots of koalas in our camping area.

The next day the weather was overcast and gloomy, so we finished off the drive along the ocean and headed up to see about an open range zoo.  Since we aren't heading to Africa on this trip, we thought why not visit some African animals while in Australia at the Werribee Zoo?!   We rode around in an open vehicle and saw hippos, camels, scimitar oryxes, giraffes, zebras, rhinos, ostriches, and numerous other animals!  Kristin loved our mini African safari. 

We rested up in Werribee that evening before we returned our car the next morning and met up with Matt's friend, Mike, in Melbourne.

Road Trip to Portland 11/24/12 - 11/26/12

After flying out of Sydney and landing in Melbourne, we quickly picked up our rental car to head west in order to meet our friends, Aaron and Tracy, in Portland.  We originally met them in Colombia, and arranged to meet up with them as they were back home in Oz.

This was a day of firsts.  Our first rental car of the trip, our first time driving on the left side of the road, and our first official hotel of the trip.  Matt adjusted pretty quickly to driving on the left side of the road; however, it took longer for Kristin to get used to riding on the other side of the car.  

The journey out west was just as great as the destination, as we passed green pastures, fresh cut hay fields, plenty of livestock, a beautiful sunset, and even a wind farm.  We felt like we were back home in Texas.  

Once we made it to Portland the next morning, it was fantastic!  We were staying with Aaron and Tracy at Tracy's parents' house  and the hospitality was AMAZING.  Australians give Texans a run for their money on who provides the best "southern hospitality".  Thank you again to their whole family for taking such good care of us those few days!

    

We spent the first day catching up with one another, taking in the sights of Portland, and checking out the Nelson light house.

Our first night they made us feel right at home and put on a traditional Australian roast dinner for us, which we deemed our Thanksgiving meal.  There was chicken, potatoes, veggies, and even stuffing.  On top of that, her Mom made us pavlova which was a delicious Australian treat!

The next day we went out for some traditional Ozzie Fish & Chips, and then took a drive out to Bridgewater Bay for a walk along the cliffs to see fur seals.  

We did manage to see a few seals down on the rocks, but we were more fascinated with the 40-ish kangaroos we saw on our way to the point.  They were right off the main pathway, and let us watch them from a fairly close distance.  It was pretty cool to see them up close and then be able to watch them jump away.

There's a young joey in this one's pouch.

That evening the family put on another great meal for us: an Australian bbq.  It was such a joy to feel right at home on our short stay, and words can't express how grateful we were.  It was great making new Ozzie friends as well:  Tracy's mom and dad, Shirley and Brent, and her brother, Sean.

We had such a wonderful time in Portland and were sad to leave the next day, but we had to keep moving in order to see the Great Ocean Road next.