road trip!

the great ocean road is a 7 hour drive along the coast east of melbourne. it's one of the big tourist attractions around here because of the 12 apostles (large stone formations) in the middle - plus it's just really pretty.
tiffany, andrea, a friend jesse (who's visiting from surfer's paradise), and i went for a 2 day road trip down the great ocean road a few days ago. such a blast! the trip went as such...
we headed out thursday morning in our rented holden astra - a thrill in itself because none of us (excluding jesse) had gotten the chance to drive on the left since we've been here. it started out as all good road trips do...rocking out to 90s tunes! it was very opening credits for that 70s show! (just a different decade) it was a beautiful day - a bit of a rarity for victoria - and the ocean was bright aqua/blue. amazing!
we turned off on this gravel road through a eucaplypt forrest to see if we could spot any koalas...we did! they were so hilarious! i climbed a tree towards the first one we saw. although seemingly sleepy, supposedly they're are pretty vicious so i didn't get too close, but i couldn't help trying. we went up a bit further and saw several more. one of which was trying his hardest to get the stupidest leaves, making death-defying moves in the process. we have it on video tape.
our original plan was to get to the 12 apostles for sunset, but storms turned up and it was pointless, so we made a detour towards some waterfall. it was 20 minutes out of our way and when we got there it was raining and turning dark. after the effort, though, we couldn't not go and see the falls, so we layered up and headed down the 2K path. by the time we got there, it was really starting to get dark and the tall rainforest trees weren't helping the situation. the falls weren't very impressive at all, not worth the getting wet, but oh well. we snapped a picture or two and then booked it back to the car.
the next town was princeton where jesse lived for about 2 months when he first got to australia. he worked at this kids farm camp, kangaroobie, as a counselor, so we stopped by to say hey to his old co-workers and bosses. we were planning on making it to the next town and staying in a hostel there, but his bosses offered for us to stay the night there for free - how can you pass that up? they fed us a huge dinner of leftover steak and scalloped potatoes from the campers' dinner and we all sat around the dinner table the rest of the night swapping stories. they were so nice!
i mentioned something about horses at dinner, and matt (a boss) offered to let me ride in the morning. i was so excited! he loaded up the yute with a couple saddles, told us which horses to ride, and sent us on our way. the whole thing was a little nerve racking for me. although i was a trail guide for several months, these were horses i didn't know, who didn't get ridden all that much, on land that was unfamilier. plus, jesse had never ridden before so i was totally responsible for him as well. we caught our horses, after a bit of a chase, i gave jesse a quick lesson, and we were off. i kicked into lame gear and wouldn't let our horses even trott. last thing i wanted was a friend's broken leg to deal with. it was a nice ride anyway - just wandered around the farm a bit and enjoyed the freedom of being back on a horse. i wanted nothing more than to take off galloping across the paddocks, but it was not to be. next time. oh but on the way back jesse let me drive the yute. it was a standard. i'm bad enough at driving a stick in the first place, but it's a whole other ballgame when the shifter's on the other side. i'm proud to say i didn't stall it once, although i did pass by matt with a look of terror on my face. he just laughed at me.
we were back in the car by mid morning and got to the 12 apostles shortly after. they were pretty impressive, that's for sure - much bigger than expected. they're slowly dissapearing however...one of them fell a few months ago. they're just made of limestone and the waves are wearing away at the bottoms. all-in-all though, they're just rocks. we stopped a few senic vistas and ran around on the beach for a few hours before heading back home via the freeway (a shorter return by 4 hours) and made it home in time for the footy game!
an awesome two days!