Crikey! Clay in The land of Oz This is place where I will document my adventures from the road starting with Australia. (Well most of them) So in case you thought you were going to miss out on every single detail of my adventures -here ya go!

Day 20: The Orange Blossom Special

A huge tour group has booked the entire car except form my seat. They are a group of senior citizens on a two day trip to Melbourne. I became an instant celebrity when I showed one of them how to raise the arm rest table (like on an airliner) and ended up going up and down the isles doing it for all the grandmas. Pretty soon I was helping with bags and opening water bottles. Once we were settled, the ladies next to me started up a conversation and it was pretty interesting, most of them had been around the world and a few had been to the states. The same group did a 20 day rail tour of Canada just last year.

I took the "train time" to catch up on the blog and organize the next batch of pics. We passed through fields of blooming canola plants and the entire countryside was covered with the yellow flowers. Canola? Who would have thought it??

Here is where the trip gets tricky, up to now I have had every moment planned out and organized. From here on things will be a bit more loose and mostly in the big cities or tourist areas. No more camping! I even bought a pair of scissors and gave myself a quick haircut and shaved off the beard. No use being scraggle - puss while in the city.

So the train dropped me off at the industrial town of Geelong. I expected there to be a station where I could get some info and catch a train down to the coast. The bad news was it was a simple platform with no roof and certainly no friendly window where I could get some much needed info.  I had reserved a rental car and was planning on doing The Great Ocean Drive by car. I was little apprehensive about driving on the left. I did it in the UK but had a co-pilot who calmly kept me on the correct side of the road, plus by now I was dead tired. It turns out that Avis closed before my second train got in, so I was “stuck” taking the bus out to my next stop Apollo Bay. Once again what I thought was going to be a bummer was a huge blessing. The road through Geelong was brutal with tons of roundabouts and crazy merge points and when we got to the coast, it was hairpin city, just like Hwy 1 in Cali. Besides that, the bus was 12$ and the car rental was going to be $300. The bus driver was silent the entire time as he dropped people off at their stops and I thought to myself that he must be really uptight. Soon there were only two of us on the bus. At one stop, the driver walked back to my seat and started up a conversation. He turned out to be one of the coolest guys I’ve met here! We talked about politics, koalas in the road, where to stay in town etc. He saw a koala walking on the side of the road and stopped so I could have a look and instead of dropping me off at the station he took me all the way into town and dropped me at the front door of my Hostel. Front door service!

  When I checked in, I mentioned to the owner that I was stuck without a car, he said he had a friend that would hire me one for a nominal fee. Stoked! I was going to get to drive after all. I told him to set it up for first thing in the AM.

My host drove me down to a cottage where I would be staying. I was sweet with a full kitchen, fireplace and a huge queen bed. Reggie said he would set the car up and left me the key.

As I plopped into bed I noticed a book on the nightstand, it turned out not to be just any book: “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea”  Quite possibly my second favorite book of all time!  Another odd but very good coincidence.

It would be good to travel with Cpt. Nemo again.

Day 21: Stay On the Left!

Up for “brekky” as they call it here. Reggie popped in and said the car would be brought here at 8:30. COOL! Sure enough a gentleman who introduced himself as John showed up in an older Nissan caravan. I was sort of hoping for an automatic but sure enough it was a 5 speed. I dropped him off in town where he was meeting his wife. He gave me some tips on where to go and directions back to his place and off I went – On the left!

It came back to me pretty quick and soon I had the MP3 player fired up and was rocking down the road. I bolted up the coast to hit the hot spots before the busses filled with tourists arrived. It was cool to be driving a local car, I felt like I was blending in J

The

The drive was winding and twisting, again nearly identical to Hwy 1 in California except for the occasional koala in the road. I did indeed beat the crowd to the beach and got some decent snaps. The water looked really inviting (if not a bit cold) and I was reminded it had been over a month since I had swum in Mother Ocean. Alas, reason prevailed, probably not a good idea to swim by myself.

I stopped in a little beach town Port Campbell for lunch, I’m tired of sandwiches so I braved the “nachos” for $12. I warned the hostess that I was a bit of an expert on nachos being from California and all. She had a good laugh and told me not to expect too much. In fact they were not half bad with real cheese and decent guac. I washed it down with a local beer “Red Duck Amber” by far the best beer I’ve had here. As much as this country is associated with beer it all kind if tastes the same with little variation. Red Duck was the exception and tasted much like my own brand. Everybody loves their own brand!! 

After lunch and at the advice of my host, I hit the back roads into the rain forest, it was a dirt track for about 80 miles and it was awesome. Absolutly one of the best drives I have made in my life (and that is really saying something) I parked and hiked into the trees and way back off the beaten path I found a grove of trees that somebody built a huge tree top walkway and tower. It was a strange sight in the middle of nowhere to see this steel structure way up in the canopy. I made the climb up and the view did not disappoint. There are 300 ft eucalyptus and beech trees here and the tower went right to the top. I was hoping to see some animals (sugar gliders??) but all the wee beasties are nocturnal in this part of the world. Bummer.

Back to the van and on to another hike, this time about 5 miles through giant ferns to Twin Falls. The hike was rough but the end was worth it. Amazing waterfall and the pics look good. Thankfully the hike back was shorter from the top of the falls. Back on the road and the trip back to return the car was very cool. Winding back roads through the trees, I went the rest of the day without seeing any other people or cars.

I found the farm and let myself in the cattle gate. I walked up to the farmhouse but there was nobody home. Hmmmm this was odd. I took the opportunity to walk around and check out the alpacas and sheep. When I came around to the front of the house I ran into John and his wife sitting on the front deck watching the sunset with a bottle of wine. They were engrossed in conversation and didn’t hear me come in. John introduced his wife Betty and sat me down for a glass of wine. They were both really interested in hearing about my day and my adventures in the outback. They ended up inviting me for dinner and I stayed with them into the night. Betty was a delight and we hit off well. She was really into aboriginal issues and was interested on my “take” of what I saw up North.

The home cooked food was awesome, tuna casserole, farm with grown corn and much local wine. It was a great evening. When John brought me back into town, I knew I had made two new friends and we exchanged emails with the promise to stay in touch. Only in Oz!  

Back at the ranch I jumped on the computer to book my next stop. I found a bus that was going North to a town of Warnamabool along the same road that I drove just today. It would be nice to get a look without driving and it was only $8.

Day 22 Padre Fans and the WILD Women of Warnamabool

I hopped on the bus – I did a double take on a guy in my row - he had a San Diego Padres hat on!

“Dude cool hat”

“Thanks, I have some friends there, I go there a lot”

“That’s where I’m from! Padres kind of choked last week”

“Bro I know! That was painful”

We were going to different towns so I said “later dude!” and headed into the thriving metropolis of Warnamabool, Victoria. The owner of the backpacker hotel picked me up at the bus stop and drove me down to his place. He checked me in and seemed pretty cool. He mentioned that it was going to be a wild weekend. (I thought “do I look wild”??) It turned out that a local Woman’s Net Ball team was coming in later than night. I didn’t really understand what he meant by that.

Note:  Net Ball (pronounced Ne-pple) is a game played here that is basketball without dribbling or a backboard. They pass the ball and can’t take any steps, it’s a pretty big social gathering in the country and the girls and ladies get to go out once a week without husbands, kids or boyfriends. Some leagues are pretty serious while others are “beer leagues”. At the end of the season the girls take a traditional road trip together and tear it up. By the way, Ozzie women are as wild or wilder as the men are.

 Soon the Nepple team arrived: There were 15 of them ranging in age from 18 to 50. They were loaded for bear and many had a drink in each hand.

These girls tore it up like I’ve never seen.   

I was joined in my viewing in the lobby by a Irish bloke who was also staying at the hostel. He was like a hungry wolf watching a herd of sheep. It took him 5 mins to make his choice and move in. It was pretty astonishing.

 So let the party begin. We drank until 10:00 PM then boarded taxis into the small downtown pub district. Aussie country bars are pretty tough and I heard our host warn the girls not to ever let their drinks out of sight. Nice. We went to an Irish Pub and waited to get in. My accent is standing out as we talked with the others in que and many of these folks had never met an American before. The drink flowed at the Pub I switched to Jameson’s in honur of my new Irish friend. There was a band playing lame America rock songs (although it was pretty hysterical to hear “Blister In the Sun” sung with an Aussie accent) they do LOVE our music over here.

Next stop was an upscale place with an $8 cover, one dude in line yelled “Don’t let the American in, he started the Iraq war!!” It was pretty funny (ha ha) and I replied “Ahhhh Baby let me in - I’m Elvis” in my best Pressley accent. They let me in but still charged the cover L

The bar had a bad vibe and several fights broke out within about 10 mins of our arrival. I knew I was not going to stay long and by now it’s almost 2:00 AM. Most of the girls were on the dance floor and I hung out for a few songs and then let them know I was heading out. I grabbed a taxi and was in bed by 3:00.

The group came in with the sunrise. (Or so I was told.) One of them had a gash and lump from a flying beer bottle. This is like a freakin movie.

Day 23: Choices

They were quite a sight at brekky, half of them puked and a few had already hit the hair of the dog. Sure enough, the Irishman hooked up with his choice and I guess they made quite a ruckus in the 16 bed dorm, although I didn’t see him until dinner.

I spent the day walking around town with the girls (I kind of crashed their scene a little but what the heck) They rented paddle boats and went around in circles, then they each did the “flying fox” zip line at a nearby park. I for the most part just hung out and stayed on the sidelines out of the way.

I split off from the group and went back for a nap, waking in time for a home cooked dinner of salad and lasagna. (The girls had taken over the kitchen and were cooking up a storm) I was told right after I had left the group “things got wild” and there was a bit of flashing. Not sure who and what was being flashed but whatever it was I missed it. I’m not really into any of these girls but they are nice and shared their food with me, plus they put on a good show.

A few girls left that afternoon and a few more showed up. Now the party turned into a bachlelorett (spelling?) party (they call it a hen party) and things got really crazy.  There was drunken tumbling, limbo, conga lines and they harassed one of the local blokes into doing a strip tease. At this point I had to get my camera and catch these girls in action. Not even the Irishman could  keep up. He and I had a few drinks and I told him I was not going to make it out with the “pack” that night. He agreed and was going to stay in as well. A Scottish girl came into the bar and announced she and her mates were going to get up at 5:00 AM and watch England play S Africa in the Rugby World Cup. I made a mental note that I would do the same. J If anything just to hear those accents!

We heard later that the Netball (pronounced Ne-pple) girls had gotten banned from two pubs and kicked out of another. I made the correct choice by staying in and watching TV. No need to have an international incident this weekend.  Besides Ali G was on and we laughed out butts off.

I did indeed get up and joined the UK girls for Rugby at Dawn. (I’m getting into rugby as well as cricket.) I wish I could understand the girls when they tried explaining to me what was going on in the game. The UK lost so they were kind of bummed and it was kind of a buzzkill.

Day 24: Road Trip

I was all set to catch the train back into Melbourne when the Irishman came to my room and asked if I wanted to ride with him into the city. This was a cool turn of events, and I was never stoked about taking the train. So I hopped in his recently purchased yellow 1978  Holden Ute and off we went. He has a year visa so he purchased a car and was driving around the country before starting helicopter pilot school up in the top part of the country. I have actually been considering getting a heli license so this was very intriguing. We had a nice ride into the city stopping in the country for snack and a look around. At my suggestion we went to the Royal Australian Airforce Museum which turned out to be pretty cool. The Aussies have an interesting military history including their own controversial involvement in Viet Nam. I did not know that it was Aussie ground gunners that shot down The Red Barron in WW1. Fascinating stuff.

We made into the city and to the hotel I had booked, the Irishman got a room as well and we had steak dinner and drinks. Folks down here are unbelievably friendly and we spent the night chatting with our fellow bar patrons. Around 9 we decided to go find a movie theater and catch a flick. This was great as I had not been to a movie in about 2 months     (a record for me, by a lot.) W got a taxi to the cinema and watched “Rogue Assassin” (It was called “War” in the US) a marshal arts flick with Jet Li.

We were out front killing time before the movie started when I spied a MEXICAN restaurant across the street. Garth the Irishman had never had a margarita so it was ON. The place was called Taco Bill’s and it was not half bad. The margis were tasty and I even splurged on some Flan. Oh the taste of home!    

The movie was “ok” and we caught a taxi back to the hotel. We exchanged emails and said goodbye as he was leaving in the AM to head back home.