Christmas Trip to Victoria

We're home!!! We had an awesome trip down to Victoria and have mixed feelings about being home, but since we're back in touch with cyberspace the blog is now active again. Being a little intimidated about recapping 10 eventful days and uncertain if our blog can handle all the photos, I've decided it's time to introduce a new tool: Picasa. So you can get a verbal recap of the trip (with a few pics) here, and you can get a visual recap on Picasa (just click "Picasa" and you should get there).

We basically just worked our way along the coast, heading south then west, until finally we needed to head home. Here's a map of the route we took, more or less, with the little letter-bubbles indicating our campsites:

View Larger Map

We camped the whole time, which worked out really well with Ani - and we only had to pay one night! And it's just so nice having the kookaburras serenade you in the evening, watching the moon rise, knowing kangaroos are hopping around you. Since this was our Christmas trip, we decided it was only appropriate to have some Christmas decorations.

The weather was not quite what we were expecting. We had this vision of a warm, sunny, coastal trip - tank tops and shorts - never using the tent's rainfly. We shouldn't have been so naive - someone who lived in Melbourne for 10 years and Sydney for 5 told us that Melbourne is grey-er and rainy-er and just not nearly as sunny as Sydney. And indeed, we had various degrees of rain and wind for several days. We saw a weather report in a local newspaper that said "some showers then rain," followed by "rain then showers." And it never got very warm until we got away from the coast the last 2 days. So we ended up getting sun on our faces and our feet (walking barefoot on the beach), but everywhere else is still pretty white. Luckily, most of the rain was intermittent, the clouds made for nice sunsets, and the wind created some great waves, so the weather didn't interfere too much.

The wildlife was great. We saw a few black wallabies (one of the many kangaroo-like creatures, aka macropods, here), echidnas (the only egg-laying mammal other than platypuses), little (or fairy) penguins, emus, AND we saw our first koala!!! So I feel much more at ease with the title of our blog, now. Ani likes the kangaroos and seagulls the best - they're the most fun to chase.

We also saw some beautiful scenery. The Great Ocean Road drive (a stretch of coast west of Melbourne) has recently been voted the #1 thing to do in Victoria, and it was definitely stunning. But there were lots of pretty coastline views, plus waterfalls and rocky outcroppings and rolling hills - lots of great scenery.

And, since everyone needs to eat, we decided to incorporate as much local food as possible. Therefore, we stopped at dairies/cheese factories, fisherman co-ops, fruit stands, mustard makers, and wineries. We missed out on the olive groves and the pick-your-own blueberry farm, which was a bummer - just need to go back! We also enjoyed our fair share of coffee on the trip, flat whites to be specific, but I'll explain more about coffee in another blog entry. But it was a great way to warm up or get out of the rain or eavesdrop on local gossip in cozy little cafes.

The one most unexpected and disappointing adventure of the trip revolved around the camera. As you may have noticed, my prose is not exactly something to brag about, so I really depend on my camera for helping share our experiences with y'all (and to help us remember stuff, as our memories aren't what they used to be, for which we blame grad school). So, Day 4, after the pelican feeding, the camera battery died. No worries - we have the car converter-thing to charge the battery. But it doesn't want to work. So the next morning, we hit a mall, buy a plug adapter, and hang out in a cafe for 2 hours so we can charge the battery in an outlet there. Great! Then, no more than 1.5 hours later, the camera manages to fall out of Kerry's pocket on the beach. Again, it's all good - it's an empty beach and we can follow our footsteps back to the camera. To celebrate finding the camera, we take a happy photo of us - and when we turned the camera off, there was a painful grinding sound and the lens jammed. The camera - our wonderful new, blue camera, should still be under warrantee, but we need a camera NOW. So we head to the nearest little coastal town and buy a mini screwdriver kit, find another cafe to settle in, and begin the operation. But it doesn't work. The Olympus is beyond hope, I start to get the shakes from shutterbug withdrawl, and some of the prettiest coastline is yet to come - so we go in search of a disposable camera. We find one for AU$20 at the Post Office - yes, they sell everything. But right as we pay for it, we notice they also have digital cameras (including a respectable Canon) for AU$120, which is only like US$80, or something. So, we ended up with a new digital camera and proceeded to take 276 photos on it - way more than the 24 shot disposable. And the blue Olympus is at the doctor, now, hopefully getting fixed. The Olympus people here were wonderful. Keep your fingers crossed that the warrantee will cover it and that it's fixable, because even though we got a new camera, I still miss my blue Olympus!