Saturday morning, we woke up kinda early and got ready to checkout by 10:00 and leave. We loaded the cars and continued our trip at a little past 10:00. It was pretty chilly today too, and I regretted only packing one long-sleeved shirt. Our first stop of the day was Aireys Inlet, a scenic spot with the lighthouse from my pictures. We walked around the various paths for a bit, taking pictures and enjoying the landscape, and then got back in the car to continue our journey. The view from the road was amazing. The Great Ocean Road winds itself along the coastline for kilometers, so you are hugging the side of the mountains and able to enjoy the ocean and rocks almost the entire way. I took some pictures from the car, but eventually stopped because, while they were still gorgeous, a lot of the scenes looked kinda similar. We stopped for lunch in Apollo Bay, one of the larger towns on the Road. I wanted to try and get seafood, so I ordered muscles in a tomato sauce. They were good, but not filling enough, so Eric and I also bought a few dim sims. The ride continued, and we made it to our next hostel in Port Campbell. Today’s ride was about another 2-3 hours, I think. This hostel was much nicer than the first one. To start, everything we needed was contained in one big building, unlike the last one. In addition, they had computers with internet access for a fee, a bigger kitchen area, and the bathrooms were a lot cleaner and actually had paper towels. The rooms only could fit 8 people each, so we had to split 5 of us in another room. I had a bed in the room with 8. We checked in and showered after the day in the car. The shower pressure at both hostels was surprisingly strong. Stronger than the ones in my Hall. After relaxing for a bit, a group of us took a walk down to the shore about 1 minute from our hostel. We took more pictures and walked around to the dock area. There were some guys fishing and, as we were making our way onto the platform, one dude caught a fish. He swung it onto the platform and then stomped its head off with two quick drops of his foot. Having never seen that done before, I was amazed and took a few pictures of the headless fish. It started to rain, so we went back to the hostel. [I just remembered something from the day before. At one store we were at, we saw a bottle of alcohol called “Mount Gay Rum.” Just thought that was something funny.] We had wanted to go see the Twelve Apostles at sunset because we had been told that that was the best time to go, so we planned on eating dinner and then driving the 10-15 minutes back to see them for the 9:00 sunset. We went to a pizza place across the street and ate there. The service was a little slow, and we left a bit later than we had originally hoped. We also got slightly lost on the way and ended up getting there after the sun had set. After unsuccessfully trying to take pictures in the dark, we returned to the hostel for the night. Everyone came in our room and we all played Truth or Dare for a few hours. To explain the photo in my album, at one point I was dared to go in the kitchen and ask one of the other random guys in the hostel to sign my stomach and then take a picture of it. Luckily, he didn’t mind. Got to bed pretty early and woke up before today’s checkout at 10:00. Following a quick breakfast down the street, Sunday’s adventure started back at the Twelve Apostles. Apparently, there aren’t twelve anymore, but it was still pretty amazing to see. They make it really easy to see things from different angles at these tourist stops with a lot of paths and walkways throughout the cliffs. Next stop was Loch Ard Gorge. Here we saw a lot of things, including a blowhole, thunder cave, and some other really cool sights. At one point, we ventured onto the Sherbrooke River area and explored different areas. The waves were crashing nearby, and a bunch of us got wet when we weren’t paying attention. Our last two stops on the Great Ocean Road were London Bridge and the Grotto. Again, both were great and had their own distinct characteristics. We went as far west as Peterborough and then started heading back up to Melbourne. I think we hit most of the big coastal attractions on the Great Ocean Road, and while it was a little cool and sometimes windy, we luckily avoided the rain that had been forecasted for the weekend. Our van took the scenic route back along the Great Ocean Road back to Uni while the car took the more direct route, and we stopped in Apollo Bay for more food on our way around. We started running out of things to do on the approximately 4 or so hour car ride back, so we kept ourselves busy by doing various things such as singing, playing games, trying to spot kangaroos and koalas, photographing road signs, and attempting foreign accents. Those activities made the time pass a little easier. We also heard “Please Don’t Stop the Music” by Rihanna on the radio about 30 times over the course of the weekend. When we finally got back to campus, I think it was around 8:30 maybe. Overall, I had a great time this weekend. The roadtrip was a lot of fun, and we found ways to make it a relatively inexpensive vacation. There was a dessert “supper” downstairs in the common room a little after 9:00, so I went there for a bit and then came upstairs to get some stuff done. I think that the worst part of any trip is when you come back and realize that there are a lot of things you have to take care of now that you’ve returned. So I stayed up late last night doing some things and then went to bed, with today being the first day of classes.
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