On New Years Day we sadly parted ways with Charlie, who had to cut his vacation a bit short for work. After saying our goodbyes at Melbourne International, the three of us headed northeast for a week of adventuring in the Snowy River mountain area of the Victorian Alps (yes, Australia also has Alps!). After watching the epic Australian movie classic The Man from Snowy River for many years, and being seasoned cowgirls, us women folk were quite excited to enter the brumby high country. An accidental cow video: for my Uncle Bob, and anyone else who enjoys accidental cows. Nancy with Wilbur (Chris in Background) We drove northeast from Melbourne for hours and hours, up into green rolling hills and valleys, and finally arrived in the little town of Mitta Mitta. We made base camp at Bharatralia Jungle Camp, an Indian-style bush and wildlife camp run by a lovely Aussie couple, Chris and Nancy Otto. Chris had spent some of his early life in India, so he had modeled this camp to resemble the jungle camps he remembered from his childhood. The ambiance of the whole place certainly felt a bit exotic, particularly with the menagerie of Australian and Indian animals roaming around. Their extended family included herds of blackbuck antelope, spotted deer, cheetle deer, ostriches, emus, a kangaroo, peacocks (all of which were named Raj), an incredibly talkative white cockatoo named Bill, two dogs, and the ever adorable pet wombat, Wilbur. Wilbur ended up being one of the major highlights of the trip and aside from petting him, which was super cool, we mainly enjoyed watching him run – a wombat run/trot is one of the funniest and unexpected sights in the animal world. Here you have it, one whole adorable minute of wombat: Our tent, named Sambar Chris welcomed us upon our arrival and showed us to our accommodation: an enormous safari-style tent, complete with carpeting, double and single beds, end tables, and reading lamps. It felt very Lawrence of Arabia. The tent and our dining space, an open-air, garden patio area, really sealed in the “we're far from home” feeling. Throughout the week, whenever we had down time, the camp worked its magic and lulled us into a deep state of relaxation. Shockingly enough, and much to everyone's delight, it even had an affect on my mother! Often it would take effect as we watched the sun set behind the hills, sipping tea and observing the brightly colored parrots feeding nearby. It was a pretty euphoric experience, and it often felt like time just seemed to pause during those moments. Woman in the bush - climbing the Mt. Welcome track with spider stick in hand. During our active and energized daytime mode, however, our time was mostly spent apart pursuing very different ends. Ben made a serious personal resolution to conquer the trout of the local rivers, while my mom and I explored the walking and hiking tracks in the surrounding area. One such track was up Mt. Welcome, the large hill right behind the camp. The beginning of the trail was clear enough to follow, but as we climbed higher up the ridge, the path began to disappear into the bracken. It quickly became evident that no one had hiked this particular trail in at least a few years, and our casual hike up the mountain soon turned into a serious bushwhack through thick brush, fallen trees, and thousands of spider webs. The ridge also never seemed to end – false top after false top straight up the spine of the ridge, with no summit (or trail signs) in sight. After hours of trudging, wondering whether it would be best to carry on or return the way we came, we found the top, but there was no indication that we had made it other than an old 4WD road. Nonetheless we were overjoyed to have reached a turning point, and we traveled the long way back down the steep and aptly named Mt. Disappointment track until we arrived exhausted and a bit bloodied back at Jungle Camp. Fortunately, the rest of our excursions were much less scratchy. Meanwhile down on the river, Ben was experiencing some serious fishing frustrations. Try as he might, the plentiful trout of the famous Mitta Mitta River wanted nothing to do with him. Apparently they were literally leaping out of the water all around him as he feverishly tried fly after fly and all manner of tricks and techniques. It was easy to see that the fish were getting to Ben; each fishing trip he returned grumpier than before. In the end he did manage to catch a fish – not a trout, but still a fish! We never found out what kind due to his incoherent grumbling. One particularly lovely day, the three of us joined forces to climb Australia's highest peak: Mt. Kosciuszko. As the kookaburra flies, Mt. Kosciuszko was fairly close to Mitta Mitta, but driving there was another matter. A long but beautiful winding drive took us across the New South Wales border and high into the Snowy Mountains. At the base of Kosciuszko was a well-established ski resort, and in the summertime the ski lift was used to shuttle hikers up to the alpine plateau where many of the bushwalking trails begin. We couldn't help but feel like we were cheating, but due to time constraints we hopped on nonetheless and casually ascended the ridge, getting spectacular views of the mountain range and the valley below. Once at the top of the plateau, the summit was only about 3.5 km and the chairlift had gained much of the vertical distance for us. Considering this peak was the highest point on the continent, the hike up was surprisingly mellow and really ended up being more of a pleasant stroll. The alpine landscape surrounding us was uncannily similar to parts of the Colorado Rocky alpine areas, so we felt both nostalgic and immediately at home. It was exceptionally picturesque and we could feel the exhilarating and quite literally breathtaking effects of the high altitude on the inclines. A large snowfield near the mountaintop brought more familiarity, and we stopped for a nice, long and happy frolic in the cold, slushy, summer-in-January snow. Woman from Snowy River. Worth many sheep. We reached the summit fairly quickly and the views were stunning; we truly felt on top of the world. It was already late afternoon, but we took our sweet time, soaking in the mountain glory and fresh air. We eventually started to wander back down the trail, pausing to examine the wildflowers, lichen, and rocks along the way, while the sunlight became increasingly more rich and golden. By this time the casual day visitors had gone, so it felt like we had the mountaintop all to ourselves. We intentionally missed the last chairlift down, wanting to hike the full trail to the base – a steep, steep nature trail – to get in some major distance and a little more mountain time. It was punishment for our knees but worth it for the thrill of the hike. We made it back to the car just before sunset, having hiked a good 16+ km that day. Back at camp, we were exhausted, but completely satisfied. YUM On our final night at Bharatralia Jungle Camp, we opted in for a spectacular three-course Indian dinner, homemade by Nancy and Chris. We did pretty well for ourselves when self-catering most nights, but this meal was truly a treat - samosas, crunchy pekoras, spicy chutney, shrimp curry, all made from scratch! Our taste buds finally accomplished what our eyes had started: we were transported to India for an evening. The morning of our departure, Ben got an early start to take one last crack at the Mitta Mitta River, while my mom and I took a full-on animal tour. When we walked up to their house to begin, Bill and Wilbur waddled around the corner to say hello. After the four of us exchanged pleasantries and a certain wombat nibbled a few feet affectionately, Nancy appeared and took over the walkabout. My mom and I would've been thrilled to just play with Wilbur all day (it was delightfully hilarious to watch him tag along and snuggle with Nancy's feet), so we were even more excited when we were able to feed and pet many of the other beautiful animals. A few of the blackbuck antelope followed us around closely and ate right out of our hands, and my mom had an intimate one-on-one feeding with the old gray kangaroo. The ostriches were another fascination, though we only came close to the female. At 6'5” with velociraptor talons like you wouldn't believe and gleaming red shins for the mating season, the male ostrich was intimidating to say the least, and we gladly steered clear of his reach. Here's a short clip of Bill the cockatoo performing one of his tricks - and screaming in the wraith-like way that the white cockatoos here do: Ben returned from the river fishless, and grumpy as ever, but overall he appreciated the many hours spent fishing in the gorgeous Mitta Mitta River valley. We packed up the car, said our goodbyes to Chris and Nancy (and Wilbur) and began the long drive back to the real world.
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Our serious holiday adventures began with a trip down the Great Ocean Road, a long drive along Victoria’s stunning southern coastline through quaint surfing towns and national parks. Inspired by the coastal highways of California, the road was a kind of Australian WPA project to provide employment for returning soldiers from the First World War. Our first day mainly featured driving and the weather was a bit rainy, but our first views of the Southern Ocean and rounded seaside cliffs were glorious nonetheless. We spent our first night in Apollo Bay, a small surfing and fishing town right next to the water. To celebrate the official beginning of our holiday road trip, we had some wine that we had bought in the Barossa Valley and ate at the local fish n’ chips shop for dinner. This was the first opportunity we had to introduce Nancy the Ketchup Addict to sweet chili sauce, an Australian phenomenon. This fateful introduction resulted in her purchasing roughly 2 liters of sweet chili sauce to bring back home (despite our insistence that you can easily get this sauce in the states). Our first koala!! He didn't seem to share our enthusiasm. On our second day along the Great Ocean Road, we had our first taste of Nancy and Charlie’s “animal magnetism,” which would become increasingly evident as the days progressed. Seven months, six states, and over 22,000 kilometers had passed since the two of us had arrived in Australia and neither of us had even caught a glimpse of a damn koala bear. We were beginning to think they were a myth, a ploy of the Australian tourism industry, which probably planted animatronic koalas in zoos and in the wild for episodes of Jack Hannah’s Animal Adventures. As we drove through patches of gum trees toward Cape Otway, we noticed a few cars pulled over and some tourists looking up into the trees – a good indication of wildlife about. We quickly spotted a fat ball of grey fur, dozing lazily and a bit precariously on a limb directly over the roadway. YES! We couldn’t have been more excited, a real living, breathing, squishy KOALA in the WILD! As we were giddily taking photos of this unconscious little dude, we realized that we were surrounded. We paced up and down the road looking through all the eucalypts around us, spotting little furry snoozeballs everywhere! Within a few hundred meters of where we stood, we took note of at least 30 koala bears in the trees. In the words of the late Mitch Hedberg, “Cutest infestation EVER.” This place was the koala Mecca we waited seven months to stumble upon. I say this not only because of the sheer number of koalas, but also because of how closely we were able to observe them. We walked down the road towards the cape and off to our left we found ourselves five feet away from a momma koala and her baby! They were positioned on a tree branch just above our heads and the two of them seemed quite unaffected by our presence, therefore giving us plenty of time to take close to 500 photos of slightly different poses...we get a little trigger happy with the ol' camera sometimes. Koalas: the stoner slackers of the marsupial world For those who don’t already know, koalas really don’t do anything but sleep, mainly because they are constantly dehydrated and the oil in the eucalyptus they eat drugs them out pretty hard. So, when the sun came out from behind the clouds and woke a few of them up, they began to move around a bit and you would have thought the sky had begun to rain kittens. It’s too funny how humans react to furry things doing the most mundane crap, but we’ll be honest, we were right there with everyone: “Oh my god look, look, it’s scratching itself” “WOW, that’s soooo awesome, he’s yawning” “Aw cuuuute, look at that one, it’s passing out again” People are ridiculous, but we had a blast. Why I do declare Mr. Beauregard, are those gum tree leaves for me? Our luck seemed to improve even more as the day progressed. That afternoon, as we were driving back from a lovely walk along the vegetated dunes of Cape Otway, we spotted another koala, awake and munching away, this time right at eye-level next to the path. This little dude proved to be quite content with us right next to him, as long as he still had a branch of eucalyptus to devour. NC actually got to feed him when he ran out of leaves, handing him a huge branch of eucalyptus, which he eagerly snatched. Koala-tastic! On several occasions we took a few hikes through Otway National Park and some beautiful rainforests. Like many places in Australia, these walks felt like a step back in time and you half-expected little dinosaurs and minivan-sized insects to burst through the ferns and giant gum trees. The epiphytes and mosses alone were a spectacle, with so many varieties, all of which looked so soft and inviting, you just had to stop and pet each tree affectionately. The waterfalls, as you might expect, were all lovely and every once in a while we came across some rusted, moss-covered logging equipment from the 1800’s, which was a bit eerie. Twelve Apostles in stormy seas We continued westward on the Great Ocean Road along what is known as the “Shipwreck Coast.” Stretching for about 130kms, this bit of coastline with its striking limestone cliffs and rock formations, thick fogs, and rough seas has claimed over 700 vessels since the 19th Century. The limestone pillars and platforms provide for some incredible scenery, one of the most popular sites being the Twelve Apostles, where twelve enormous pillars of rock stand free along the coast. On our way to Port Campbell, we stopped at the Twelve Apostles just after sunset and watched as fairy penguins waddled quickly in a large cluster out of the ocean and into the brush for the night. We were pretty high up on the top of the ridge and the light was very faint, but the scuttling tuxedo-clad dots were adorable nonetheless. We returned the next morning to view everything in the daylight and, while it was blustery and cold and packed with tourists, the sunlit coast was gorgeous. The limestone columns stood like sentinels in the churning shallows. After Twelve Apostles we hit up a few more sites including Lord Ard Gorge (site of a famous shipwreck), London Bridge (which, ironically, fell down recently), and Bay of Martyrs. The Lord Ard Gorge site in particular had a bunch of nooks and crannies to explore including an awesome cave. Cheese, Tea, Scones, and Mother-Daughter Bonding Hitting the end of the Great Ocean Road, we turned back towards Melbourne, but made a small detour at Timboon Farmhouse Cheesery for some free cheese tasting and Devonshire Tea. They make a “non-traditional” feta cheese here that we particularly enjoyed, soaked in oil with herbs and spices. It’s non-traditional because they make it with cow’s milk instead of goat/sheep (and it did taste a bit more like mozzarella than feta), but it was delicious. Many places in Australia advertise Devonshire Tea, which is usually a cup of tea served with scones (more like American biscuits), cream, and jam. After a day of wind-battered sightseeing, a relaxed session of Devonshire Tea in an English-style garden was just the ticket. It’s official: returning to Melbourne on December 14th marked our complete circumnavigation of mainland Australia! By plane, train, and automobile we traveled over 22,000 kilometers and found ourselves back where we had first entered the country, bewildered and bleary-eyed like newborn kittens, on May 21st. It was great to be back, and we were looking forward to spending some quality time exploring Melbourne, Victoria, and Tasmania in our remaining months down under. Roughly eight months had passed since I had seen my mom, so when she arrived at the Melbourne airport on December 16th, it was a warm and fuzzy reunion to say the least. She and Charlie (who arrived a few days later) were finally taking their first real vacation in (some obscene number of) years and, much to the delight of Ben and myself, were spending Christmas and New Years with us down under. We spent our first few days in Melbourne, showing the two of them around and walking a ridiculous number of kilometers during our daily touring. We had beautiful weather for the most part; it was unseasonably cool so the climate change from winter to summer wasn’t too harsh for them. Exploring laneways with mum! We wanted to make sure they really got a good feel for Melbourne and all it had to offer, and even though they only had few days it wasn’t too difficult since we walked in, out, and around the city until our feet turned to nubs. As we may have explained in one of our first Australia posts, what truly sets Melbourne apart from other cities is its laneway café culture. Secret alleyways and corridors are hidden all throughout the city center, each one containing anything from upscale restaurants to specialty shops to cheap cafés, awesome graffiti and public art. Soaking in all the little hidden gems of Melbourne counterculture was a great way to spend a few afternoons. Other highlights of our wanderings included the Queen Victoria Market, the Botanic Gardens, walking along the Yarra River, and (particularly for Ben and myself) the plethora of delicious, real food available to us. After eating nothing but canned food and the occasional reject orange for several weeks, being able to go to a restaurant or café or bakery was magnificent. Melbourne has a fairly large Asian population, so cheap dim sum, pho, and sushi rolls were abundant and made for some fun nights out in Chinatown and Little Vietnam. Thanks again Mom and Charlie for keeping us well fed! |
Marielle & BenWe're two people in the midst of severe quarter-life crises who decided to leave good jobs in a bad economy to travel to the other side of the world because, well, why not? Archives
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