Archive for the Category ◊ Melbourne – Adelaide – Alice Springs – Cairns – Melbourne ◊

13 Oct 2008 Adelaide

The first thing after breakfast was getting to the Airport. We took a taxi and got ripped off. In no way should a taxi ride cost $60 to the Airport, but it wasn’t up to me to argue since it wasn’t my trip.  Taxi drivers will rip you off if you’re going to an airport in Australia from a hotel or vise-versa. We got ripped off when we arrived in Sydney too.

Adelaide Botanical Gardens

Adelaide Botanical Gardens

We arrived safely in Adelaide and toured the city. There really wasn’t too much to see but a Natural History museum with a nice dead zoo, Ayer’s House, and a botanical garden. We walked around the Garden which is very nice, but the city itself is nothing special.

12 Oct 2008 Melbourne

We had a relaxing day in Melbourne with not too many activities since we were really tired from the day before. It had been a very short night since Hendrik and I had to pack for the trip in the wee hours of the night and then get up really early to return the car in the morning. Hendrik’s parents got us a hotel room in Melbourne City so we could all go to the airport tomorrow morning together. So I took a nap in the hotel before our walk around town and lookout from the Rialto Tower.

View from Rialto

View from Rialto

11 Oct 2008 Great Ocean Road

The next day we hit the Great Ocean Road.It was a sunny day which was great because it would have been pointless in the rain.The views of the crashing surf are gorgeous and definitely the most spectacular views are by the Twelve Apostles. Of course that’s where hordes of tour buses stop and way too many people mill about the small lookout but what can you do. Just do your best to take pictures without anyone interfering.

Twelve Apostels

Twelve Apostles

There were other lookout points for rock formations which were also gorgeous, and had less people around, like the London Bridge. It was a long day of driving and I would have loved to spend more time around the coast and possibly try surfing in Torquay, but we only had one day.

Be weary of cops down there though because later we received a ticket from a speed camera when we had driven down there with our van for going 108km/h (67m/h) in 100 (62 m/h) zone which isn’t fast at all compared to other places of the world, but in AU the speed limit is low and you have to follow it exactly. I was driving the rental back to Melbourne, as Hendrik and I chauffeured his parents around all day. I was making my way slowly (100k/h) down the long straight road and Hendrik was bored and impatient and told me to go faster, that nothing would happen.So I told him over and over again that he’d pay for my ticket if I got one and when he agreed I sped up.About five minutes later I saw a cop do a Uie, and now he was following me.I promptly slowed down, and he followed me for a few minutes and then pulled me over.I only got a warning but I made sure not to let Hendrik live it down and it was even more ironic when we received the ticket for the van since Hendrik had been driving then.So don’t speed, you will get pulled over.

10 Oct 2008 Oct 10 Melbourne

Hendrik’s parents came to visit us in Australia and planned a trip around the country and took us with them. This is the trip we took with them. It was more luxurious than the previous trip which means no campervan and instead nice hotels so it was definitely more pampering. They arrived in Melbourne in the morning and we met up with them and decided early on to rent a car and drive the Great Ocean Road. We had hardly seen the most spectacular aspect of it and wanted to see the Twelve Apostles. We spent a long time in the tourist centre planning the trip and then wondered aimlessly around Melbourne.

Melbourne Train Station

Melbourne Train Station