Melbourne and The Great Ocean Road

Last Thursday night, the kids, Mark, Dean and I boarded a plane in Newcastle. After that lovely airport experience, we hope to never have to fly out of Sydney again.

We landed in Melbourne (pronounced Melb'n, NOT Mel-born) at 8:00 and were snuggled in bed in our old but good enough hotel right down in the CBD (pronounced as Jordan loves to say: Say-Bye-Day.) First thing Friday morning, the 5 of us bundled up with coats and hats and waded through ankle-deep leaf piles to the Queen Victoria Markets--600 plus booths of produce, meat, bread and aisles and aisles of what I lovingly refer to as "crrrrap" (you must exotically roll the 'r' to get the full effect.)

But allow me to back up a moment to the leaves.
It is autumn down under the equator.
However, in mild Newcastle, the trees whose leaves turn rust and gold and fall off stand out amongst the deciduous trees that retain their green leaves apparently all year round.

But not so further south in Melb'n. Here, all the trees were in the process of changing and losing leaves by the millions. What added to the excitement of fallen leaves was that many were the circumference of soccer balls. Their size caught Gabe and Jordan's attention. The two of them spent the weekend competing to see who could find the biggest.

This is the park across the street from
our house.


We kicked and skipped our way through the puddles of leaves to the markets. Melbourne effectively paralyzed me with its cornucopia of sensory stimulation. There were people of every culture, language and costume; smells from morning bakeries and restaurants whose door opened onto the city blocks we walked along; cold winds whipping through my clothes; sounds of people laughing, vendors selling, and children screeching.





This is Gabe and Jordan trying to plant a
palm frond in the wind at the beach in
Melbourne. They did finally manage to
get it up! For a minute.









We spent time meandering down the long aisles banked on both sides by wares of all kinds. Mark and Dean surprisingly enough, lapped up the unending supply of touristy crrrrap to bring home to loved ones--oops, that might end up being you! I chaperoned the kids who are learning spending techniques and watched them pass by much of the crrrrap, that was either too expensive or too, you know, crrrrapy.







Then it came time to decide what we were going to do the rest of the day. I sometimes freeze in situations like this when the options seem limitless. Luckily Mark and Dean have much more honed filters so they can sift through it all and zero in on the things that our crew would most enjoy. Where I see limitless options, Mark tends to pave a most practical path. We left the Market and spent the rest of the day getting on and off the tram, exploring several pockets of this great city. I have decided that if I come back in another lifetime as more of a city girl than I am now, I will live in Melbourne. The only thing that it has working against it is the weather. It's either really cold or really hot. Otherwise, it is easy, friendly, culture-rich, eccletic and beautiful as it wraps itself around a bay, has saved lots of room for enormous parks and has a river running through it.

We have a sequel to the story about the mentally unstable populace on city street engaging and terrifying our children. The kids inadvertently plopped down onto a tram seat across from a man we later determined was mentally handicapped or developmentally disabled. What was remarkable was that both kids, independent of each other, picked up on the fact that even though this man looked and talked abnormally and even though he was very talkative to them, he was safe and friendly. Gabe noticed that the man sat back when the kids sat down, allowing them space rather than getting in theirs. Jordan picked up on his ability to think logically because he suggested that the kids use their newly acquired chopsticks to bang on pots and pans early in the morning to wake up their parents but that they only do it once. He said the first time would be funny but after that, they might get in trouble. That proved to Jordan that his brain wasn't "messed up like that lady." Fascinating to watch them learn discernment. Not that it was our intention to introduce the topic of differentiating between alcoholism, mental illness and mental retardation, but at least they are handling these unforeseen situations quite well.

After a very long day with miles of walking and tram-riding, complete with a pre-birthday sushi dinner for Dean, we all collapsed in bed back in our hotel rooms.

Saturday morning, on Dean's birthday, we awoke to pouring rain. It was disappointing to say the least as we'd hoped to spend some time in the Botanic Gardens and Gabe had his heart set on visiting the local amusement park, Luna Park. (I am sure that is where Dean wanted to spend his birthday as well!) This would have been Gabe's first viable opportunity to ride the big roller coasters since he's just recently poked his head up over 48 inches.

What the rain did do for me was force me to stay sitting inside the car most of the day which was the right way to spend the day before a marathon. We did don rain coats and jump out to explore the fabulous children's section of the Botanic Gardens before we left town. The garden paths wound in circuitous routes demanding adults to stoop beneath the low cut trees. We explored a dense and very vertical bamboo forest, hopped from rock to rock along a small stream and watched the kids crawl through the tunnel of a huge tree. I love kid-centered places, especially outside in natural settings where children get to feel like masters of their own domain. It's so magical in places like that. It awakens the few nerve endings left in my body that can still feel that magic too.

Into dry clothes and back into the car, we headed south and west. Destination: The Great Ocean Road.

Through Geelong (which we all took to calling either G-love or Geelong Funk, thinking fondly of George all day) and then into Torquay which advertises itself as "The Surf Capital" (though they don't specify of what they are the capital--Victoria? Australia? The world?) As Torquay gave way to even smaller coastal towns like Jan Juc, Anglesea and Fairhaven, we were awed by the scene to our left. The ocean crashed on rocks and rolled gently onto beaches. The color was that same turquoise blue that never fails to evoke comments of disbelief that that color actually exists in the wild outside a tube of toothpaste. The waves were five and six feet high and higher. In some places, because of the sandbank formations, the waves rolled in unbroken for many meters. In other words, very fun to ride on a surfboard which many people were doing.

On the other side of our curvy road was bush and hills. I imagined, before white people built roads and buildings, what it must have been like for the Aboriginal people to crest the cliffs after their trek through the thick, dark forested bush and pick their way down the steep declines to end up right there on the beach. Likely, what they did was follow one of the rivers that carved a valley between cliff walls that would lead them down gentle slopes and then open out onto the beach.

Once we reached the town of Lorne, the adults in the car became singly-focused on assessing the remainder of our drive to Apollo Bay for run-ability. Lorne would host the marathon's starting line the next morning and 8am and Apollo Bay , where our rental house awaited us, would host the finish. We drove the 45 K (28 miles) noticing the abundance of healthy rolling hills. None of them impossibly steep but the sheer quantity of them made me wonder what I was getting myself into. During our drive, we were all gaining hope that the dreary rainstorm of Saturday would mosey on out of town by Sunday morning. Call it naivety or self-preservation but I truly had an inability to fathom that the gods would allow hundreds of hark-working, dedicated and pure-hearted runners who were not out to hurt anyone (aside from themselves, of course) to run in such dismal conditions. Little did we know that rain was only one of the climatological elements we needed to pray would go away. While we were working on hoping the weather would improve, we didn't consider that it might actually get worse.

We made it to Apollo Bay in time to pick up my race packet, go to the grocery store, and make and eat dinner and a special birthday cake. I went to bed that night listening to the rain and the every-increasing wind outside the window. I didn't sleep much.


I woke up early Sunday morning, bundled up and hopped on one of the buses that carried a few hundred of us to Lorne. It was raining and windy and then it would stop and the patchiness of the clouds would spur false hope that maybe it was going to clear just in time. That would have made for a great story, wouldn't it? But literally three minutes before 8:00, it started to pour again and it was at that moment that I opened my closed fist and let my last kernel of hope for good weather fall to the ground and roll into a puddle.

I ran this marathon and in spite of the on again, off again rain, in spite of the strong often gusty head winds and in spite of being unprepared to ascend and descend so many hills, I had a great time. The few times the sun came out lifted my spirits the way those crazy spectators can sometimes do when they are ringing their cow bells and cheering with gusto. I felt fresh and strong and steady the whole way. I was well-fueled and well-hydrated. I had a feeling all the way along that I was only hours away from finishing my first marathon since 2004. And I was right. the bonus was that I beat my previous time by 18 minutes on a much more challenging course with "adverse weather conditions." (You know, that's a nice way of saying the weather stunk which is a nice way of saying something else I won't say on this family friendly blog.)

The part of the race I liked least of all--even worse than the weather or my sore quads was the fact that this particular marathon was three kilometers longer than a real marathon. So after you run the first 42 kilometers (26.2 miles) and cross a finish line with a big digital clock displaying your finishing time, you have another 1.8 miles left to go before you can stop. 1.8 miles down the road is where you get your official time (without which your 42 K time doesn't count though to whom it doesn't count I'm not sure.) It's also where your family is patiently waiting in the same adverse weather conditions to see if you're still alive. So while my goal of running a strong 26.2 miles was achieved, I had to convince my aching quads to keep at it for another 15-20 minutes. I walked for a while which was unfortunate because it made it almost impossible to pick my pace back up to even a jog. But I managed so I could come around the corner running the last several hundred meters rather than walking for no other reason that I thought it might be really confusing to the kids, after we all made such a fuss about this race, for them to see me sauntering over the finish line. And I'm glad I was running when I got to where they were waiting, just 100 meters before the finish line, because both kids grabbed one of my hands and the three of us crossed that finish line together. I was a proud and happy mama.

Meanwhile, Mark, Dean and the kids slept in, made pancakes and built a huge fort in the kids' bedroom. Oh, I forgot to talk about this house. Suffice it to say, Mark and I decided we'd like to come back to Apollo Bay every Christmas break to stay in this house and we'd like any of our family and friends who are so inclined to join us there. It was spacious, clean and well-stocked for a large group to live. and it was just down the track from the beach and a few blocks from town. Pencil it in if you're interested.

After the race, we went back to the house where I sat for the majority of the rest of the day (save for my 30 minute massage during which I, of course, laid down.) Kids played inside mostly and Dean and Mark explored what they reported as a very wild and alive section of beach/sea.

Next day we got out fairly early so we could make a number of stops on our three hour drive back to Melbourne for a 5:00 flight. First stop was (ridiculously for me) a steep little hike to a breath-taking lookout spot above Apollo Bay. What a view. I again thought of the Aboriginals whose home was this area and wondered if they felt the same awe looking down on the edge of the lush land cradling the wild sea.

We met a couple at the top who were on a post-retirement jaunt around Australia in a self-contained camper van. They'd been gone 14 months and when they reached Melbourne, they planned to flip a coin to determine which direction they would take back home, the long one or the short one. What freedom.








Here are the kids climbing even higher on the hill looking over the town of Apollo Bay.

My attempts to walk back down this hill were pathetic. Especially as the kids ran down, back up and down several times for every pained and limping yard I manage to descend.

Our next stop was in Kennet River where we were told that if we drove up this road a bit, we might spy wild koalas. So we did and we did. None of us had even hoped to see wild koalas as they have several qualities that keep them well-hidden.
They are the same gray and beige color of the trees they live in, they are very shy, they look like filler in the crooks of the trees and because they sleep 20 hours a day (that's what a high carb, no protein diet will do for you) they rarely move. But nonetheless, we pulled over on the side of this dirt road and spotted a mother and her little baby in the first tree, sleeping. And if that weren't exciting enough, there was another one in the same tree who was awake and climbing around, albeit at a snail's pace. It was good fun to engage in this mutual checking each other out. They looked at us with the same inquisitiveness that I felt. So yes, Serena, we have seen wild koalas



















Here are Gabe and Jordan waiting patiently in hopes that the parrot will land on them. In the end, the birds out-waited the kids.




Our next destination was a golf course but not for the reasons you might think. We stopped there because we'd heard about a resident mob of kangaroos and we were not misled. We arrived at the golf course in Anglesea and there, on the 10th fairway (the closest hole to the parking lot) were about 30 kangaroos. They were splayed out all over the hillside right below the tee box. I imagine they were safe enough there unless a complete hack came up and whacked the ball all of 30 yards in which case, they'd be at risk of being beamed. Otherwise, most balls probably fly right over their heads. We parked and walked over to the 10th tee box and there were three or four kangaroos hanging out on the side of the tee box, prepared to spectate but, on this slow Monday morning, bored. They were all laid out in the centerfold pose that I love so much about kangaroos.

Onward we went to Bell's Beach, our last tourist stop before we made our way to the airport. Bell's Beach is world-renowned for its surf appeal. I didn't really know what to expect and why we were headed out to this beach but I knew that I couldn't drive right by without stopping to see. And now I get it. We parked on the top of a bluff and walked down some stairs (my poor quads) to a lookout point. From there, we could see down to the ocean which was probably fifty feet below us. None of us had ever seen anything like this before.





The waves which that day were probably five or six feet high, formed maybe 200 yards out and rolled all the way into shore before they broke. Once a surfer caught a wave, which didn't look hard that day as the ocean was glassy and smooth, they could ride it for 20-30 seconds. That's like the difference between skiing in the midwest where you can maybe make 20 turns before you get back on the chairlift and go back up and do it again and the Rocky Mountains where you can get off at the top of a chairlift and spend 15 minutes coming down having to stop and catch your breath because the runs are so long. It was unbelievable to watch these surfers ride a wave for so long. They must have been in heaven. No wonder this spot is so well-known, even amongst non-surfers like us. If I were a serious surfer, I would make sure not to leave this lifetime before I surfed Bell's Beach.

That being our last stop, we made our way to the airport and successfully and easily arrived back home in Newcastle, well-traveled and happy.

Since last weekend, we've all gotten back into our Newcastle routine. We are all battling colds and sore throats but nothing too traumatic. Dean left and we were sad to see him go. It was wonderful to spend such good time with such a good friend.


























That's all for now!