Road trip: Day 1 - Melbourne to Warrnambool

I've taken my time getting around to writing about our road trip in early January. It's a long weekend for Australia Day, so I thought I should get off my butt (or, rather, on my butt) and blog. 

On our first day Luke and I drove along the Great Ocean Road (GOR) to Warrnambool. 

Iconic Bells Beach near Torquay. Not a great day for the beach 

(for us, I mean, not surfers) - it was very windy and a bit chilly

The Split Point Lighthouse at Aireys Inlet

It's a pretty little lighthouse

Although the sky was mostly grey, there were some sunny

 breaks which turned the shallows a beautiful aqua blue 

The lush rural hinterland near Apollo Bay...a dramatic

contrast to what was to come later in our trip

That's the ocean at Apollo Bay in the distance

Our next stop was at Cape Otway. There's a lighthouse there, but we thought the admission fee was a bit steep, so we walked to the little historic cemetery nearby instead.  In the late 1800s it was the burial place for about a dozen people mostly connected with the lighthouse (including several infants) and victims of drownings at sea. 

One of the graves is for a seaman who died in the Eric The Red shipwreck in 1880. The ship had sailed from New York en route to Melbourne carrying exhibits for the International Exhibition.

Another is for Thomas Monk who died in the Blanket Bay disaster. 

It reads: In memory of Albert Griffiths Chief Officer aged 33 years * Thomas Monks aged 34 years * Alexander Mathieson aged 23 years * Who lost their lives in the Blanket Bay disaster 21st March  1896 * Erected on the grave of Thomas Monk by their shipmates and friends

There were tracts of skeletal trees on the road between the GOR and Cape Otway. They were eerily beautiful and reminded me of the trees we saw on top of Lake Mountain in 2012. I don't think they were dead as some were sprouting leaves. I'm not sure what was going on with them. 

Some - the ones with more leaves - had koalas in them! 

 This was the first of several wildlife encounters on our trip

Mmmmm... gum leaves...munch munch munch

We stopped at the little town of Lavers Hill for sustenance and I was thrilled to find a packet of homestyle gluten-free melting moments biscuits. They were delicious too - far superior to ones I bought recently from the gourmet mecca of the David Jones food hall. 

Next up was Melba Gully, a patch of mossy, ferny, licheny, fungusy rainforest with some superb trees. 

 This one has a face, a spooky face

 Moss-covered tree

 Above tree, with tree fern

Fungus on a fallen log

Next up was the best-known stretch of the GOR - the bit with the Twelve Apostles and the other rock formations beyond.

 The Twelve Apostles

 The Apostles again

 The Loch Ard Gorge. The open wild Southern Ocean lies 
through that gap in the rocks 

The Loch Ard Gorge is my favourite. It's a secluded cove bound by high cliffs, with a little beach and a cave at the back with stalactites and stalacmites (below).  I like it because it doesn't attract anywhere near as many tourists as the Twelve Apostles and because when I was in grade six I won an essay competition in which I had to imagine I was one of the two survivors of the Loch Ard shipwreck. My story was published in the local paper. I always think about that when I visit. 

The gorge is named after the ship because the survivors came ashore there. The rugged coast in this part of Victoria is known as the Shipwreck Coast because of the more than 600 sailing ships that came to grief there in the 1800s to early 1900s. 

The cave

 Further alone, the Bay of Martyrs in the golden hour

The sun setting over the Bay of Martyrs 

We continued on to Warrnambool, checked into our motel, managed to get a restaurant meal at 9.30 on a Monday night (Warrnambool is quite large, but still a country town). The restaurant also offered gluten-free options. I was impressed...even though I then chose to eat gluten because bread is delicious.  It's nice to have the option, y'know?

We both slept very well. 

Mossy find, ace meal, hamster spill

The highlight of my Sunday was finding some moss growing in a bag of potting mix. No, really. The open bag has been sitting on the fire escape for ages - since the last time I planted up a terrarium. I poked my nose into into the bag because I needed to top up the soil in one of my indoor plants. And there it was, a little tuft of spongy green. 

The abovementioned terrarium failed to thrive, but I've now planted the moss into it, so hopefully it will get a second wind. 

I made another tasty and ridiculously easy recipe from Pinterest - maple mustard chicken, or Man-Pleasing Chicken as the blogger calls it. It did please my man. He said it was "ace". 

I laughed so hard at the hamster getting spat out of his fast-spinning wheel in this video (about 30 secs in) that I couldn't breathe and my head started aching (thankfully temporarily). The sleep running dog before it is hilarious too. 

Catching up: part I

The city, looking pretty

And now for all the other gleeful stuff that's happened lately. Can I remember it....C'mon, weary brain. 

Oh, yeah. Big changes are afoot at work! I will be taking on more responsibility and shedding some much-disliked mundane tasks, and I'M GETTING UNDERLINGS TO BOSS AROUND! Wooh! The topic hasn't been broached yet, but I expect some extra dollars will also be forthcoming. Money's not my prime motivator, but a little more in the pay packet is always welcome. 

I'm hoping these changes will ease the sense of ennui that has been creeping into my working days for a few months now. I had actually been toying with the idea of looking for a new job, but I realised in the last week or so that I now feel like I've settled into the firm - I know plenty of people outside my own team now and I've gone beyond small talk in the kitchen. I feel comfortable and I like it. I'm not naturally a serial job-hopper.  I was thinking it would be a shame to leave after just over a year and have to start making myself comfortable somewhere else, so the new developments are well timed. 

Gimme more hot towels

I had a Thai massage after work Friday, the second I've had recently. (I can't remember if I blogged about the first one.) It was 70 minutes of fabulous. It hurt, but it was good pain. I love the hot towels at the beginning and end. I could seriously spend a whole day lying face down with hot towels on my back, as long as there were someone there to replace them as they cool. If I ever strike it rich, I'll pay someone to do that.

New specs

I have my new stripey spectacles! The frames are black, with black and white vertical stripes on the arms. I like them very much. I'll post a photo soon. I think it's time I had a new avatar actually. I've had the same photo, which I also use on Facebook and Twitter, for years. Clearly I'm not a compulsive selfie-taker. I've also been cultivating my quiff - it's longer than I've ever worn it before and stands up better without the aid of product now than it ever did before with product.  

Two herons

Remember me saying that I liked to think there was only one Nankeen Night Heron that I passed on my way home from work? And how we almost had one of those nodding relationships you develop with people you see on the train platform every morning? Well. THERE'S TWO OF THEM! TWO! Or perhaps even more. They were stalking the shallows about 10 metres apart when I walked past on my way home on Tuesday night. I don't know if they were together together, like Mr and Mrs Plover always are, or just in each other's vicinity. 

Hello, gardens; it's been a while

I made an unplanned visit to the Botanic Gardens on Sunday. I was nearing my front door after a walk up the street, thinking about how I couldn't wait to get back into bed because I felt really average (sensing a theme?) and *scratched record sound* I realised I'd locked my keys in the flat in my other bag.  Waaah. I had at least three hours to wait for Luke to get home from work. 

It was a sunny afternoon and I hadn't been to the gardens for a while, so off I went. I visited the Californian garden. 

 Moss and lichen. Not sure that's particularly Californian...

I walked through Fern Gully

 I can't recall the last time I saw water in the gully

I visited the Fern Gully resthouse especially to find and photograph fungus on the timber roof. And...bingo! There were several of these tiny fungus there, only a few centimetres high. The roof is mostly covered in moss, which is quite dense in places and, not surprisingly for moss, very moist. I had water dribbling down my sleeves as I reached up to take photos. 

The rest house

 This tree is half bare and half hanging on to its autumn

 leaves. Quite striking

 The echinacea is hanging on 

I also went to the herb garden, which has become another of my must-visit places in the gardens. Winter isn't its best time of year, although the lemon verbena leaves still smell divine. 

My (proper) camera battery died and it was quite cold by this stage, so I went to the Observatory Cafe for a hot drink (and ridiculously overpriced tiny cake), then I wandered over to the Shrine of Remembrance, just in time for the lowering of the flags and The Last Post, which I always find affecting. I had the idea of warming myself on the Eternal Flame, but I couldn't get close enough to it, dammit. 

By now I knew Luke was going to be late home so I headed into the city, thinking I'd find somewhere to warm up before heading home, but I found the Light in Winter Festival in Federation Square instead. 

This is the Helix Tree, which lights up at the sound of human voices. They have a choir singing at the base every day at sunset in June, and I heard the Melbourne Mass Gospel Choir. Although I'm a heathen, I do enjoy gospel music.  

And then I headed home and Luke was there and it was warm. 

Mossy

I like this mossy tree in my street. The moss goes all the way up to the branches.