Great Ocean Road

A flight from Gladstone to Melbourne, $650. A rental car with air conditioning for two days, $118. A campsite along the Great Ocean Road for two, $23. Seeing a wild koala jump from one tree to another… Priceless! Yep, it’s true! Jill and I met in Melbourne for my three day weekend, remind you that was after an eleven day shift. I picked up the rental car from the airport and drove into downtown to pickup Jill. She had gotten in about four hours before me and took a bus tour of the city (great idea!). It was a city like all others, an international section, a university with lots of green spaces, a part of town with lots of skyscrapers, and heaps of people walking the streets. It was a nice city, but the open road is where we were headed. After getting lost in Geelong, we finally found the Avis shop and were able to swap our car for one that had air conditioning, instead of blowing hot air when it was 25°C outside. Uuggg. We camped our first night in Otway National Park. We decided to watch the sunrise, so we exited the park while it was still dark. There right in front of us was a wild koala climbing down a tree! We were amazed! We had luck on our side! Not only did we see a beautiful coastline filled with amazing erosional features of limestone (seastacks, bridges, tunnels, blowholes) but throughout the day we saw wildlife, including another wild koala in the daylight that jumped from one tree to another, two emus, puffins, a fox, lots of kangaroos, bandicoots, lizards, swarms of dragonflies, and ringtail opossums. To see photos and the koala jumping video click here:

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/alidennison/GreatOceanRoad#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebGxpGKGamM