The beginning of the Great Ocean Road....
Trip Start
Jun 09, 2003
1
116
169
Trip End
Jun 02, 2007
Torquay,
Australia
Sunday, February 13, 2005
I was beginning to suffer from cityitis in Melbourne. I was getting hacked off when every time I tried to do something constructive I came up against a brick wall, so I jumped on a train and headed off down the Great Ocean Road (hereafter referred to as GOR). The train arrived in Geelong and I wandered around for a bit before deciding just to jump on the first bus out. The first stop was Torquay and the beginning of GOR. It was also the birthplace of surfing in Australia.
I headed to the Bells Beach Lodge - the only backpackers in town and managed to get a bed. It wasn't long before I discovered that half the population of Scotland was also staying at the hostel. Well not really, but I met more Scots there in one night than I have in the whole of the rest of my trip
Bells Beach
. I was persuaded that evening (it didn't take much!) to head out to a karaoke night at the Bells Beach Hotel. After discovering the delights of sweet cider I got everyone on the dance floor when I sang YMCA. With so many Scots in the building we decided that we just had to get up and sing the Proclaimers song '500 miles'. So we did. Crawled into bed at about 3am.The following morning I enquired about getting a bus along GOR. It wasn't to be unfortunately and hiring a car was going to cost me an arm and a couple of legs so I decided it would be no bad thing just to hang out in Torquay for a few days. Louise, who was semi-scottish, and I decided to hire bikes and cycle out to Bells Beach where the final scene in Point Break had apparently been filmed. It was a long cycle up and down lots of hills and having done virtually no exercise in over a month I was glad that Louise was as equally out of practice. It was worth the effort when we got to Bells Beach and we sat for a while watching the surfers. There weren't too many big waves though, so eventually we cycled back along the cliff top path, which was much easier and a lot more scenic. We enjoyed a huge lunch before crashing out back at the hostel.
On Friday morning Louise and I went to the Surf Museum which was fascinating
Surf Boad
. I learnt a lot about surfing that I previously didn't know (my previous knowledge was pretty lame). Apparently the biggest wave ever surfed was 71 feet, last year in Hawaii. I said farewell to Louise who was heading back to Melbourne and I headed to a local community centre where some Tibetan Buddhist Monks were making a sand mandala. They were on a 6 month tour of Australia trying to raise funds to build a hospital in Tibet. It had taken them all week to make the mandala, about 6 monks each working about 8 hours a day, so you can imagine the work that must go into it. The mandala, ususally circular, represents the whole of life and the universe. When the mandala is finished they have a ceremony where they completely destroy it and through the sand out to sea or into a river. It's said that the sand carries blessings wherever it goes. After so much work it seems a shame to destroy something so beautiful but it's to show that nothing in life is permanent and is constantly changing. It was a great honour indeed to watch them at work. I went for a walk along the beach before packing my bag as I had to catch an early bus back to Melbourne the following day. However it wasn't to be. Jen and Jo, 2 lovely ladies from Edinburgh decided to twist my arm and get me to stay as they were all going out on Saturday night. I have to say it didn't take much twisting as I really liked Torquay. The following day I pretty much lazed about all day while everyone else was out tomato picking. Watched Point Break and decided amongst much debate that Bells Beach wasn't in fact the beach they used in the final scene. Ah well, the bus came to pick us up and take us back out to the Bells Beach Hotel where I enjoyed an evening of playing ping pong, until we broke the ball and dancing into the wee small hours. Fell into bed once again at 3am and got up at 7.30am to catch my bus. Jen and Jo were angels and got up to come and see me off. Got to the bus stop and realised that on a Sunday the bus didn't leave until 9.30am. Ooops. Anyway for some absurd reason everyone in the hostel was up, despite most people not getting to bed until well after 4, so we sat around chatting until 9.30am when I boarded my bus and waved farewell to Torquay. I was heading back to Melbourne for one of the world's biggest festivals, but that's a story for another day...
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