We flew to Melbourne on a late-night flight, arriving just
before midnight. Camille was soooo very tired, and we had to drag all our
luggage a looong way before we finally got a taxi to our place. I thought I’d
booked something close to the airport. But it turns out, it was a good 25
minutes from the airport, and quite a pricey ride! But we weren’t renting a car
our first day, so it was better to be closer into the city, near a good train
connection. The place we stayed was something I found on booking.com, and was a
bit older, but really nicely cared for and comfortable. The host left us bread,
jam, juice, milk and butter in the fridge, as well as some hot cross buns for
Easter, and four chocolate bunnies for the kids. We thought that was a nice
touch, and the kids dug right in on the bunnies, even before bed.
In the morning, we had the hot cross buns for breakfast – they’re
a somewhat sweet roll with raisins. The kids liked them best with butter and
jam, which was nice. Then we got ready and set out to find the train. It wasn’t
a far walk, but it was a bit of a fiasco getting tickets. With the kids, we had
to buy special cards to put money on, and they weren’t cheap! After a bit of a
hassle and some waiting, we finally got the train and headed downtown. We got
out at the main station, and walked several blocks to get to the Eureka Sky
Deck building. Our friends, Tanya and Michael Peel had arranged to meet us for
the afternoon, and were waiting outside the Sky Deck with two of their three
little boys. It was so lovely to reconnect with them! Brian and I knew them
when we lived in London; they went to church with us, and we attended Michael’s
baptism. They eventually moved back to Australia and are now living just
outside of Melbourne. Michael arranged to take the day off so we could spend
quality time together. They waited for us while we went up the Sky Deck tour.
Then we had lunch together and wandered through some parks together for a few
hours.
The Sky Deck tour was great! 88 floors to the top, and some
gorgeous views of the city from the tallest building in Australia. We mailed post
cards to grandparents from the “highest post box in Australia,” which was fun.
Brian and Samantha and Spencer paid extra to go out on a glass floor block
called “The Edge.” They said it was pretty cool! I stayed with Camille and
Natalie, who were having a great time playing in the instant photo booth.
With Tanya and Michael, we went to a food court for lunch
and let the kids choose whatever they wanted, which was fun… We are NOT eating
out a lot on this trip, so we try to make it extra special in some way when we
do. Spencer and Natalie got individual pizzas, Camille got popcorn chicken,
Samantha got a big Caesar salad, and Brian and I both got Thai food. It was fun
“pleasing” everyone. We were going to follow it with ice cream for all, but the
lovely little ice cream shop we looked at was charging $5 for a one scoop cone!
So we got a large soda at Subway and shared it instead, for $3.80.
It was really fun catching up with our friends, hearing what
they’ve been up to and how their kids are doing. It felt like we had hardly
been apart, though it’s been nearly a decade. I love those kinds of connections
that just still feel very close.
After we left them, we rode the tram down to a pier and
walked along a boardwalk. The kids waded in the ocean for a few minutes, but it
was cold and getting dark. So we went across the street to a fish-and-chips
shop. We made all the kids try the fish, and told them they could fill up on
chips if the fish was not to their liking. Only Spencer really enjoyed it, but
they all gave it a good effort anyway.
The next day, Brian set off early to go get our rental car.
(He’s so amazing to just keep going, going!!) I got the kids up and moving and
we left our fun little place to go for a day trip on The Great Ocean Road! It
was a long day with quite a bit of driving, but we had a really nice time. The
GOR was beautiful and did NOT disappoint! We stopped at a lighthouse with
incredible views of a rocky coastline below. Then we stopped at a lookout after
winding along a huge expanse of beach for several miles.
The highlight, of
course, was getting to the Twelve Apostles rock formations, out in the sea. That
was pretty spectacular. We stopped at the nearby Loch Ard Gorge and let the
kids wade and dig at the beach there. It got its name because a ship called the
Loch Ard crashed nearby. Of the 40-something people on board, only two survived
– a man and a woman. The man washed up on the shore of the gorge, then heard
the woman screaming and holding onto wreckage from the ship. He swam out and
rescued her, then they both had to be rescued from the gorge. Pretty harrowing
story!
Anyway, it was a great day for me. I love picturing those
cliffs and crashing waves in my memory now!! So beautiful and stunning! We
wound our way back through the countryside and stayed at a place near the coast
in Torquay. It was a great place – a two room condo unit done by Worldmark. We
slept in a little bit there and had a nice breakfast and quick swim before
taking off to start our drive up the other side of the coast, toward Sydney.
On our way out of town, we had planned to stop and ride The
Puffing Billy, a historic steam train that runs through the rainforest. Well, we
miscalculated our time and ended up not making it there until after 1pm, and we
still had a 7-hour drive ahead of us to get along up the coast. So, we opted to
not ride the train, sadly. But we did stop at Grant’s Picnic ground nearby, a
place Kerri had recommended. We had sandwiches and snacks, then took a little
nature walk through the rainforest. The kids got to feed big, white cockatoo
birds right out of their hands!! It was pretty exciting, and we took a ton of
pictures and videos of them.
Then, we drove. And drove. And drove. It was long and
tiring. But we listened to some CD audio books that I checked out from the
library before we left. That was a huge help with keeping the kids occupied in
the car. “Land of Stories” is our series. Pretty entertaining, but not too
scary even for Natalie and Camille.
We stayed in a little KOA park place. Nothing fancy, but
good enough for the night. There was a playground right behind our little
cabin, so the kids got to play for a few minutes while Brian and I packed up.
Funny thing about that place… there were these peeping birds that did a high-pitched
“peep!!” every few seconds, allll night long! Crazy!! Made it kind of hard to
sleep!! Ha!
So, one of the main reasons I wanted to drive the coastal
highway was to go to Pebbly Beach, which I had read about. There were pictures –
LOTS of pictures – of wild kangaroos that just hang out on the beach. It was somewhat
out of the way, and would have been a few hours faster to drive inland and go
through Canberra instead. But I was set on visiting Pebbly Beach, and so we
did! And… no kangaroos. Sigh. Well, actually, eventually one tiny baby kangaroo
came out and just stood there for a few minutes. But the kangaroo aspect was
rather anticlimactic.
The good news is, we got to meet up with Toby and Sarah
McAllister and their children! At Pebbly Beach! Yay! They were also friends
that we had known in London. They saw our posts online and arranged to meet us
there at Pebbly Beach. We had soooo much fun visiting with them, letting our
kids get to know each other and play in the water and in the sand. They have a precious little 8-month old baby girl, Aubrey, who was super cuddly and fell asleep in Brian's arms. What a love!
We stayed
for a few hours, and they had brought some snacks and treats that they shared
with us – even fun Australian treats for the kids to try. We talked about what
each of our families has been doing recently, and all the fun, crazy memories
from our time together in London North Ward. We laughed and joked a ton! We
really enjoyed catching up with them and had a hard time parting. As we were
leaving, Natalie called out to them, “Bye! We’ll see you later!... or, actually…
probably never!” lol!! I hope that’s not the case. But it made us all laugh!
On we went. On and on into the night, on to Sydney!! Which
will be another post. =o)
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