The Great Ocean Road: Melbourne to Apollo Bay 9^th December 2014

Our next section of our trip will take us from Melbourne to Adelaide before flying onto Perth to be with Phil and Becks for Christmas. On our way we will travel the length of the Great Ocean Road and visit Mike’s uncle in Victor Harbor as well as Kangaroo Island, Adelaide and the Borosso Valley.

Melbourne to Adelaide

We left Melbourne behind and headed west to start the the Great Ocean Road journey. This road runs along the south coast from just west of Torquay for 214km.  We made a diversion to take a look at Torquay since this is reputed to be the surf capital of the south coast being the home of Rip Curl and Qucksilver brands in 1969.

Torquay Surfers

There were quite a few keen surfers out in the water at Torquay but not much action in the waves.  Nevertheless, the sun was out, the sky was blue, the water looked inviting and we were playing the Beach Boys on the iPod but we knew it would not be as warm in the water as in Port Douglas so were not tempted to join them. 

We stopped at the Great Ocean Road Arch and took photos and read the information about the building of the road.  The Great Ocean Road was started as a project to employ servicemen returning from WW1. The first sections were completed in 1936.

Great Ocean Road Arch

We drove onto Anglesea and then Lorne where we visited the Ocean Road Discovery Centre and had some lunch with a view of the ocean. We dipped a finger in the water, to at least say that we had sampled the Bass Straits. The Bass Straits separate Australia from Tasmania. 

Great Ocean Road coastline 

When we got to Apollo Bay we decided to go on and visit Otway “Lightstation”, which was in the Otway National Park.  This had been recommended to us by Brendon and we had time to spare before we could check in at our B&B.  We were astounded to see numerous koalas in the trees, we must have seen nearly a dozen and then down near the light house saw a kangaroo. 

Koala with joey

Chilling out!

Check out my tail!

The lighthouse has been in continuous operation since 1848 rotating the large Fresnel lenses and tungsten lamp, and on a bed of mercury driven by a motor.

On the way back in the car we stopped to take a landscape photo looking down towards Apollo Bay and spotted a fairy wren. 

Fairy Wren

The wren then spotted the car wing mirror and decided to peck her twin sister. We were somewhat concerned since the car door and window were open at the time.

Mirror image

On the way back to Apollo Bay we saw a wallaby by the side of the road as well as a koala. The koala was running along the side of the road, trying to find a way through the short fence that separated the road from the beach.  

We had dinner in a sea food restaurant called Vista and then walked back along the beach to the harbour and around the coastal golf course. We might try our had there tomorrow morning since it looked in pristine condition but relatively cheap..

Melbourne 5^th to 9^th December 2014

Arrived in Melbourne the previous night and stayed with Mike’s cousin Hazel, her husband Brendon and daughter Debbie. Their other daughter Katie was heading towards base camp at the foothills of Everest.

On our first day in Melbourne we were shown the transport options in and out of Melbourne city by using either a tram or train. We started our first day by taking the touring bus, a one and a half hour hop-on hop-off ride around the city, to get our bearings, which only cost $5 each.  

Melbourne City Tour Bus

We then took the lift to the top of the Eureka sky scraper to get a bird’s eye view of Melbourne. The tower is 297m high and has the top 10 floors’ windows coated with gold to signify the fact that Melbourne was the place from which the gold miners started their journeys.  It was a particularly cloudy day but we could just see out to the coast by the harbour. 

Eureka Sky Scrapper

Soccer stadium and Government House

Melbourne taxis line up for custom

We descended the tower and walked over to the arts quarter of the city to grab some lunch and a quick look round a display in the theatre.  

Sheila joins the chorus girls

There was a fascinating film of an Australian in the early part of last century practising on a high wire in his back garden; he had spent 7 hours a day for months perfecting a backwards summersault from feet to feet! He was incredibly skilful.

There are many parks and gardens in Melbourne so we walked across the street and saw many trees with the anti-possum plastic sheaths around the trunks as well as a few miner birds.

Australian miner bird

We had a quiet evening with Hazel and Brendan and Debbie, but the night time was disturbed by a most tremendous thunder storm directly overhead and three incredibly loud bangs at 5:30am, being coincident with the lightening.

On the Saturday the sky was still overcast so Brendon took us for a stroll around the Malvern suburb and we saw some fascinating individual houses both those that originated in the mid-1800s and some very modern ones including one where Sir Robert Menzies a previous prime minister lived. We did a bit of shopping and then headed for the bakery for the morning coffee.

Christmas comes early in Melbourne

In the afternoon Hazel and Brendon took us for a ride in the car along the coast east of the Melbourne harbour and out to Brighton where there are colourful beach huts. In 2011 one of the huts sold for $215,000!  Afternoon tea was a chance to cut into Hazel's amazing Christmas cake.

Brighton Beach

Sheila & Mike on Brighton Beach

The Gang

Sunday was overcast and drizzling so we drove into Melbourne to see Ned Kelly’s armour that was on display in the Melbourne Library. 

Ned Kelly's Armour

We parked in the Melbourne Museum underground car park and walked down to the Library. The Library is an impressive building inside with a centre dome and circular galleries where there are a number of exhibits. After the visit we ate a roll in Subway and then headed through the China Town area to the spot where we were to meet Amanda Sinden that evening. Amanda is the daughter of friends of ours in Sevenoaks and also a friend of our daughter Amanda. 

China Town in Melbourne

From the intended evening venue we walked back to the museum and took a look around. The building is quite impressive as are some of the exhibits.

We drove back to the house in Malvern, getting caught up with the Sunday traffic leaving Melbourne, showered and changed and then drove back into Melbourne. On our walk around the city during the day we had spotted an all-day secure covered park, which was only charging $6 on Sundays for the whole day so we headed there to park the car and then walked down to meet Amanda.  She took us to the Melbourne Supper Club and up to the Siglo Bar. The entrance is through a door on the street and if you have never been there before it would be difficult to find.   

Drinks in the Melbourne Supper Club

We then went on to the ChinChin restaurant , which is certainly worth a visit.  Afterwards we walked down Hosier Lane to take a look at the graffiti and then headed to Malvern.

Hosier Lane Graffiti

On Monday we changed the car at the airport since the hire company of the car (Apex) we had been using has no depot in Adelaide. We managed to get a rebate for the cost of the new battery, which was pleasing. On Monday afternoon all four adults played golf in Brighton and fortunately, for the first time for a few days, the sun came out.

Hazel hits out in Brighton

On Tuesday morning we packed and said our farewells and headed off along the Great Ocean Road in the direction of Adelaide.  

Echuca/Moama to Melbourne 4^th December 2014

Echuca to Melbourne

In the morning we popped down to the Port of Echuca by the side of the Murray River to see the heritage exhibits. 

Sheila & Mike enter the Port of Echuca

This included the river steamers, one of the very old and heavy barges, early versions of the large steam engine tractors and a log buggy (wagon) with wooden wheels made from cross sections of a trunk that would have been pulled by bullocks.  

Mike with log buggy

Steamboat flying Murray River Flag

There was also a winery selling white port in gallon sized containers.  We checked out the name of a bird in a local art gallery where there were a few paintings of birds and the artist decided to give us a musical rendition of the “official” Aussie welcome even at 9:30am in the morning.

We headed out of Echuca and onto Bendigo.  The road went largely straight for miles across arable plains along avenues of eucalyptus trees. At one point along the route we spotted dozens of Dutch Barns full of bales of straw, a quantity for Sheila, who was a farmer’s daughter, found mind blowing.

Bendigo was the centre of the gold rush in the 1800s and drew a massive number of foreign workers, particularly Chinese, to work in the mines. Considerable wealth was gained by some of the miners and today the city is quite extensive with a population of 110,000 or more.  There is also an Australian bank named after Bendigo and well known in Australia. 

We decided to take the local tram through the town to see the various heritage sites.  This service was run by volunteers and a recorded commentary was provided with a few additional comments provided by the drivers.

Bendigo Tram

Sheila checks out tram depot

On leaving Bendigo the terrain changed markedly with the addition of rolling hills, the first we had seen since leaving Albury. We stopped along the way in Malmsbury for tea and cake at a local bakery, a not an uncommon occurrence in the afternoons.

Afternoon Tea

Eventually we reached the outskirts of Melbourne and our satnav system, which was picking up the local traffic information, constantly recalculated our route to work us around the 5pm traffic jams. Melbourne have trams and we came across the unique feature of a “hook turn” where one is instructed, both by road signs and the satnav system, to bear left to turn right so as not to impede the trams traveling down the centre of the roads. We were fortunate that someone was in front of us to demonstrate the manoeuvre otherwise we would have been in a pickle.

Hook turn

Albury to Echua/Moama 3rd December 2014

Albury to Echuca

The explorers William Hovell and Hamilton Hume travelled from the Yass area, north of Canberra, to Albury in the 1800s and were the first white men to see the Murray River, which they named the Hume River.  The river was later renamed the River Murray. Hovell inscribed a tree to mark the feat on the 17^th November 1824. This tree still stands in Albury next to the Murray River, which was just across the road from the hotel where we were staying, so in the morning we walked across the road to take a look and read the details.

Sheila & the Hovell Tree

NB. The plastic sheet around the tree is used to stop possums climbing the tree and damaging it.  This is a fairly common sight.

We then drove up to a lookout overlooking the city to get an almost 360 degree view. From the top we could just make out the Hume Dam, which was formed across the Murray River, and helped to form the extended Hume Lake that we had seen the day before. We made an attempt to leave but the battery was flat again so had to call out the breakdown service. This time we got a new battery. I will have to see whether we can claim this off the rental company. 

Galah - another local bird

On the road again we headed for Echuca/Moama and like Albury , which is in NSW, and its twin city Wodonga in Victoria,  on opposite sides of the Murray River, so Echuca is in Victoria and Moama in NSW separated by the Murray.

En route we stopped in Rutherglen, famous for having a large number of wineries, and then called in to Campbells’ Winery to sample some local produce. 

The landscape for almost the whole route of 200km or more consisted of absolutely flat plains with grazing sheep and cattle and some crops and tree lined straight roads.

We came across Lake Mulwala, on the edge of Yarrawonga, and could see that the lake had been extended in the past with similar signs of erect dead trees in the lake as we saw in Lake Hume. This looked quite eerie as though a major disaster had taken place. 

Lake Mulwala

We stayed in Moama just across the Murray River and in the evening walked down to a local restaurant for dinner and sat outside to eat. However, dark clouds were forming to the south and it looked as though a storm was brewing in the distance. We ate up fairly promptly and made a hasty retreat and as we walked down the road lightening was throwing sheets of light across sky. We made it back in time before the rain arrived.

At last Australia reveals itself!  Jindabyne to Albury 2^nd December 2014

Jindabyne to Albury

The storm from the previous night had completely gone and we awoke to blue skies with only a few clouds and a great view down onto Jindabyne Lake.  We headed for breakfast at the Rydges Horizons Snowy Mountain, where we were staying, to be offered not just the inclusive continental breakfast but a cooked breakfast with a wide range of options.  It was a tad slow but very welcome and little did we know that it would be some hours before we ate again.  

Having eaten and packed we made tracks for Thredbo along the Alpine Way.  Thredbo is the Snowy Mountain’s ski and snowboard centre and we did see a bit of snow on the top of the mountain and the piste runs down from the top, but this wasn’t the reason why we had made a beeline for the village. 

Snowy Mountain Pistes

The reason to visit the village was that it happened to have the highest golf course in Australia at 1370m and we had come to apply our skills.  Finding the golf course was easy but finding the location of the place to pay for a round and hire clubs was another thing. Nevertheless we succeeded and headed off to try our luck. The course was 9 holes, but with a par 5, 4s and 3s, and relatively tight with a fierce rough, ideal for losing balls. Stepping into the rough was a bit daunting since it was not clear what might be lurking. Around one of the ponds we could hear a frog croaking but couldn’t spot it.

Sheila playing golf in Thredbo

The end of a round

Having been exercised we left Tredbo relatively late, around 2pm, and headed off for Albury, knowing that we had some distance to travel considering the time. Many of the trees around the valley looked as if they were dead as the grey barks of the eucalyptus had no foliage which made them look petrified.

Petrified looking eucalyptus

We took a break in a clearing, known as Tom Groggins rest area, to eat a few crisps, a slice of cheese, a tomato and orange, which is all we had left in the car from the previous day's lunches. Sheila suddenly suggested that I turn around slowly, which I did, only to see a kangaroo bounding across the gravel car parking area and behind our car.  I turned to Sheila and then realised that, almost camoflauged behind her were a number of others . In fact we were encircled by a family of probably 5 to 6 kangaroos with the mother feeding a relatively large youngster.  We finished eating and moved back to the car and all of the kangaroos then regrouped. We waved them good bye and left them in peace.

Kangaroos

Female kangaroo with its joey in pouch

After the excitement of seeing my first kangaroo we headed on to our destination. The winding mountain road eventually opened up on one side to become a lush valley and to our surprise we spied three emus eating not too far from the side of the road.

A group of emus

Further down the road we spotted the Murray Hydro Power Station 1, part of the extensive Snowy Mountain Hydro scheme, and headed down the drive and into the visitor centre but also noted that the gates automatically closed at 4pm. By now it was 3:55pm so we checked inside and they confirmed that we might be locked in so we made a hasty retreat!

Snowy Mountain Hydro

At Khancoban we stopped for a pot of tea and a cookie, filled up with petrol and headed west out along the Snowy Mountain Highway towards Tallangatta.

It had been our intention to stay in Tallangatta but the limited accommodation and facilities made me decide to travel further to Albury.  Tallangatta is located on the south side of Lake Hume and the valley was flooded in 1956 to enlarge Lake Hume, which was eventually dammed, and the town moved west to a new location. Driving around the lake, one sees remnants of trees at the edge and middle of the lake – most odd.

Hume Lake

At Tangambalanga we joined the Murray Highway and headed north along the side of Lake Hume. At one point in the journey we crossed over the Murray River into Victoria from New South Wales (NSW) but then later realised that, Albury where we were staying for the night, which is close to the Murray River, is in NSW and only 500m from the state boarder, the Murray River being the state boundary.

Mike finished the day off with a glass of Campbells of Rutherglen's Bobbie Burns Shiraz, very nice and a wine made closeby.

Canberra To Jindabyne 1^stDecember 2014

Canberra to Jindabyne

We hadn’t quite finished with Canberra and since the trip to Jindabyne wasn’t particularly long we went up to Mount Ainslie that overlooks the city and got a bird’s eye view of the plain on which Canberra is sited. (A recommendaton from a colleague at work, who has travelled extensively in Australia.) This area used to be inhabited by the Ngunnawal aboriginal tribe and was a meeting place with their aboriginal neighbours.

Canberra from Mount Ainslie with ANZAC Parade in centre

From the mount we descended down to the Australian War Memorial and entered the building. This has got to be one of the best organised and presented war museums we have ever seen. It presents the various wars that the Australians have fought offering a perspective from the ANZAC point of view that one rarely sees in Europe, particularly their experience in Papua New Guinea and Singapore. We undertook a cursory view for about an hour and would have needed a whole day to do it full justice but we needed to make tracks.

ANZAC Parade

We left Canberra behind and headed south to Cooma and then south west onto Jindabyne passing through a much flatter landscape than we had seen before but with the same parched fields on either side of the road. 

Road from Canberra to Cooma

A hailstorm let rip at one point in the journey and having picked up a car with numerous roof and bonnet hail-dents we decided to stop and take a quick lunch break in the car. Within seconds of the storm abating the temperature was up to 28C and rising to 32C. Down the road it hardly looked as though a storm had happened.

Just outside Cooma we visited the Snowy Mountain Hydro Discovery Centre. The hydro scheme links up various mountain water resources with 7 major power stations, 16 major dams, 80km of aqueducts and 145 km of tunnels to provide hydro-electric power. The system was started in 1949 and took 25 years to build. We hope to visit part of the system in our journey tomorrow. The Centre provides a realtime summary of inter-state electricity requirements, transfers and the current dollar price/MW.

Realtime power requirements & transfers across Australia

We arrived in Jindabyne, on the edge of the Snowy Mountains, just as a storm was brewing over the mountains followed by thunder and lightning.

By the time we went out for dinner the storm had passed and the sky was clearing across the mountains and Jindabyne Lake, itself part of the Snowy Mountain Hydro System.  The town is not quite at the foot of the mountain but there are plenty of ski and snowboard hire shops in the town.

The wine for the evening in an Italian Restaurant was a Tyrrell’s Moore Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 and very acceptable. Looking on their website it looks as though they are not available to be bought directly by the general public. Tyrrell’s is quite a famous family of wine producers and have interests in the Hunter Valley.

Our accommodation was at "Rydges Horizons Snowy Mountain", just on the edge of the lake. After our evening meal we walked down to the lake to catch the last of the evening light.

Lake Jindabyne