The Great Ocean Road, aka The PCH

Well, after recovering from some serious jetlag I realized that I didn't post any pictures of my last weekend in Melbourne. Friday night I got lucky, as my friends from Sydney were in town. It was the opening weekend of the Melbourne Comedy Fest, so we went to see Charlie Pickering - a young Australian co-host of a satirical news show 'ala The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. He was quite funny...wish we could get his show in the US!

On Sunday I booked a bus tour of The Great Ocean Road. This road starts about an hour outside of Melbourne and hugs the cliffs along the 'Southern Ocean' (which is apparently the stretch of ocean between Australia and Antarctica).


The idea for building the road came from California's Pacific Coast Highway - there were many similarities. The small towns along the road are known for their great surfing, and in fact there was a surfing competition at Bells Beach, featured in the movie Point Break. There were lots of great views, despite a little rain.


Next to Bells beach were a ton of wild kangaroos (which you may have to squint to see)!



We even saw some Koala's - who, it turns out, eat their way out of their habitat by eating the trees bare! This little guy was asleep!


Just like California, this area of Australia is home to some of the largest trees in the world -- although these were not Redwoods, but Gum trees.


The end of the tour took us to an National Park called The Twelve Apostles. Thousands of years the water and wind have eroded the sandstone cliffs, leaving a pretty amazing scene along the ocean front.


This structure was called "The London Bridge" and used to be connected by a second arch to the mainland. The story goes that there was a couple out at the end of it the day that the 1st arch collapsed!


All in all, quite a scenic trip. It was 12 hours long in a bus full of foreign tourists though, so it made for quite a long day. I'm glad I got some sight seeing in, but sure am glad to be back in the US!