August 26 Wednesday I stayed close to the hostel to rest after the marathon walking session yesterday and I got in touch with Scott, so I could begin backing up my pictures and video to his server. It will take me days to get it all uploaded to him, but it is good to get a start on that. I'll probably have a chance to upload some from Adelaide and then again the last couple days in Sydney when I am stationary and have a good pipeline.

August 27 Thursday I intended to go and see the other half of the National Gallery of Victoria, but I never made it to that part of the city. I did walk around some more and saw some more interesting bits of the city. Mainly it was a day to get ready to leave, so that included some grocery shopping and repacking my bag.

August 28 Friday Jon and I checked out of the hostel and left Melbourne behind. We quickly went through Geelong on our way to the coast and the Great Ocean Road. The first town on the Great Ocean Road is Torquay and we stopped for a couple pictures at Bell's Beach. A little further down the road is Point Addis where the first of the impressive cliffs are. This whole stretch of coastline is known as the Surf Coast and the windy weather from the past few days has the surfers out in droves. Next stop was at Aireys Inlet and Split Point. There is a nice lighthouse and several viewpoints overlooking Eagle Rock and Table Rock. At the town of Lorne we went slightly inland and hiked to Erskine Falls. Right above the town we found Teddy's Lookout, and just southeast of town we made another hike to Sheoak Falls and the Swallow Cave. Each stop was wonderful. We were starting to run out of daylight and had been told that Kennet River was probably the most likely place to see koalas. We tried to get there before it was too dark, but did not make it. The decision was made to check in Apollo Bay if there were other koala sites ahead of us and if not we could backtrack to Kennet River in the morning. So we continued on to Apollo Bay and checked into the Surfside Backpackers. A side note: for the second half of the day each time we stopped the car it would not start again, but since it is a manual I could give Jon a push start as long as we parked in appropriate locations. That worked for the whole afternoon.

While preparing our respective dinners Jon and I met an Irish girl named Orla. She was trying to get to Adelaide and had to be there to leave with a tour group at 6:30am on Monday morning. She had left Melbourne with a local bus and once she was already on the Great Ocean Road, she discovered that bus service did not continue to Adelaide on the weekends, so she was stuck and risked losing her large deposit on the tour. One option she was considering was going back to Melbourne and getting a direct Greyhound to Adelaide. I could just see Jon's eyes lighting up. He was immediately smitten with her and so he set about looking at how we could speed up our trip and help her out. This could be fun. I have become navigator and picker of places to stop and do things, so I looked at the maps. We had planned on seeing the second half of the Great Ocean Road on Sabbath, staying in Warrnambool or Port Fairy that night before heading up to the Grampians/Hall's Gap area, and then depending on what we found between the Grampians and Adelaide we would get there when we got there. Jon, like most of the travelers I have met who have their own cars, does not like to drive at night unnecessarily. This is because of the kangaroos and other wildlife that present a great road hazard (much like deer in the US). But now the circumstances had changed. He was a knight in shining armor and if we needed to drive at night we could do it. Together we mapped out a list of spots we wanted to see and figured out that we could do them all and still make it to Hall's Gap in one day. Then we could see the highlights of the Grampians and still make it to Adelaide late in the evening. Orla was still weighing her options, but let us know before we all went to bed that she would come with us. This turned out to be a real blessing for a couple reasons.

August 29 Sabbath Now with three of us and a foreboding gray sky, we set out to see what the day had in store for us. The car started right up (and never had a starting problem all day, which I appreciated) and we went further up the road that our hostel was on to the hills behind Apollo Bay to find Marriners Falls. It began drizzling as we started our hike, but we were not to be deterred. We had to make seven creek crossings and because of the recent rains the stepping stones were all under water, so we had to remove our shoes and make the crossings that way. Lots of fun in the 50 degree weather. By the time we got back to the car my shoes and socks were soaked and my overcoat and lower pant legs were similarly drenched. BUT it was worth it

We drove out towards the Cape Otway lighthouse, but only went as far as Bimbi Park. The lighthouse has a $15/person fee to get to the house and viewpoints and we knew the spectacular spots were still further up the road. The reason we were there was to see koalas and almost immediately upon hitting Bimbi park we started spotting them. I think they are rather lethargic on a normal basis anyway and with the rainy weather most were hunched in crooks of trees riding it out, but a few were engaged in eating leaves. We could not get too close to them because of fences, but I was happy to see them in the wild and in person. Far more rewarding to me than seeing them in a zoo.

Next, we headed inland at Lavers Hill to go up and see Triplet Falls in the Beech Forest part of Great Otway National Park. It was another set of lovely falls and a very pleasant, real rainforest walk. After that we headed on down the coast to the big rock formations. First were the Gibson Steps, an amazing view, but we could only go halfway down the cliff face because of repair work due to landslides. Next were the Twelve Apostles, huge freestanding stone structures. There are only eight apostles left with the others being reclaimed by the sea, most recently in 2006 one collapsed. Because of the rain we got the added bonus of waterfalls coming off the cliffs into the ocean. And our timing was impeccable because the clouds broke and the sun made itself known for the time we were at the Twelve Apostles and then the rain came. We journeyed further and spend nearly an hour at Loch Ard Gorge, which has a number of interesting arches, razorbacks, and other stone structures. We also made a short stop at The Arch, but skipped the London Bridge. This was a more famous arch that collapsed in June of this year. We also stopped briefly to see the Bay of Martyrs, which has many smaller rock formations out in it. Then it was getting dark and we made the push up to Hall's Gap through Dunkeld. By doing this at night we did miss two waterfalls I would have liked to have seen: Wannon and Nigretta Falls east of Hamilton, but we have seen so many waterfalls, I will not complain. At Hall's Gap we checked into the YHA Eco Backpackers and I got a hand drawn map and walking info from the guy at reception to help prepare for tomorrow.

I had mentioned that having Orla along was a blessing. When we first hit the rain along the coast, the wind was so strong that it broke the windshield wiper on the drivers side. So we rigged the wiper with fishing line and with Orla manning one side and me watching the other side we could keep the windshield clean for Jon. Great teamwork.


August 30 Sunday Orla, Jon, and I left the comfortable confines of the Grampians YHA at 9:20, drove into the Hall's Gap town center (where I grabbed a park map to aid us in finding the spots on the hand drawn map from the hostel and Orla picked up some food for herself at the towns only grocery store) and then headed towards the signature point of the Grampians: The Pinnacle. There is about a three mile trail out to the Pinnacle that goes through a section called the Grand Canyon. Very interesting and made more so with the flowing water down in it. Nothing like our Grand Canyon, but I liked it. The Pinnacle is just as impressive as they say it is, a single rock finger sticking out of the cliff face with a expansive view of the valley and town below. Our next stop was the road side Boroka Lookout which takes in view on the other side of the Grampian range, looking towards the Little Desert area. Our second walk of the day was from Reeds/Reids Lookout to the Balconies. I write Reeds/Reids because the parks own interal signage uses both at various times, so they are confused themselves. The Balconies are two staggered rock shelves jutting out from the cliff. Definitely not for those afraid of heights. The person at the hostel had told us this was a 90 minute hike, but it was a mostly flat walk of only 1 km. It would have been worth walking 90 minutes to regardless. Before leaving I got a nearly 360 degree video shot from the Reed Lookout Fire Tower.

Next was a stop at Mackenzie Falls, the other stop on almost every tour out in the Grampians. Again the signage is somewhat confusing, but we made the correct choice. 1.75 km to the Falls lookout or 1.15 km to the Falls base. The tours go to the lookout, so we obviously went to the base. Our path took us past two other waterfalls and I can confidently say that our views of the main falls were far superior to the tour lookout. This is a tremendous waterfall. One of the best I have seen in Australia.

We made a final stop at the Gulgurn Manja Shelter before making a beeline for Adelaide. The Shelter is one of the Aboriginal sites with cave paintings. The guidebooks say that 75% of the known paintings in the Victoria territory are located in the Grampians. Most are not marked on maps to keep them safe from tourists, but this site is easily accessible and was a very nice example for me. Jon said he has see far better in the Macdonnell Ranges north of Uluru, but since these are my first and possibly only cave painting, I was happy. We still had four hours of driving to do when we left the Shelter, a couple with the remaining daylight and a couple after dark. The drive went smoothly with a refueling stop in Bordertown, just inside South Australia territory. Orla and I had to be the manual windshield wipers on several occasions as individual clouds dumped their excess water. The three of us make quite a good team and the two days traveling together have been fun despite the less than ideal weather. It will be interesting to be on my own again in Adelaide.

August 31 Monday I spent a lot of time online, trying to back up more of my files to Scott's computer, but the hostel here only has a 50 Mb connection and back in Melbourne it was a 100, so everything is slower. In the afternoon I walked around the city some near the hostel, found the city center, a number of churches, two free museums that I explored, and lots of places to eat. I posted again looking for a ride up to Alice and checked the bulletin boards at the hostel. There are several people heading out west to Perth (like Jon, who I've been traveling with is), but no one heading north. I got a response from a German guy who will be doing the same thing as me in about three weeks, but that doesn't help either of us now. Jon and I finished settling our money for the trip (an excellent deal in my book) and then talked about the possibility of going to the Flinders Ranges and Coober Pedy together before he goes west. It would help me out quite a bit, but would be slightly out of the way for him. Coober Pedy is intriguing though because most of the citizens live underground (it gets that hot in the summer) and staying in an underground hostel would be an experience. We will have to make up our minds in the next couple days.