Devon's Visit-The Grampians and The Great Ocean Road

At the end of June, I was able to welcome my first visitor from Canada to my Australian home! My friend Devon, who was a girl that I went to University with came to Melbourne on June 25^th. She had been travelling in New Zealand for 6 weeks before that and was ending off her Southern Hemisphere trip with 2 weeks in Australia, the first of which she spent with me! I hadn’t seen Devon since school ended last April, so I was beyond excited for her to come…it made for a long work week since I couldn’t wait! Her flight arrived in Melbourne Wednesday evening and she got to my apartment around 9. Originally I was planning on meeting her for dinner in the city somewhere to celebrate her arrival and us being reunited, but I had come down with a terrible cold a few days before and was so sick that I really couldn’t make it back out of the house to meet her. So instead of a nice celebratory dinner we drank Cup-O-Soups since I was too sick to make an actual meal. It didn’t matter though since we had so much to talk about and catch-up on… we would have been happy eating anything!

The next day I had to go to work which was quite a struggle since I was not at all well! But I was taking the Friday and Monday off so Devon and I could go on a trip and I really couldn’t take a sick day then take 2 days off for fun…wouldn’t have looked very good so I stuck it out at work (probably annoying everyone with my constant sniffling and coughing). I had made a long list of things Devon should see and do while in Melbourne so she set off in the morning to hit the sights! She came and met me at lunch and we grabbed curries from a local restaurant and sat and ate them in the Royal Botanic Garden which was lovely. After work, I met her at home and the two of us and my roommate Kevin walked to a popular Melbourne Pho place that I had been wanting to try for months. The warm soup broth and spicy flavours made me feel heaps better! I’ve decided it’s my new favourite “sick meal”. After dinner, I took Devon to another Melbourne institution….Messina, the most delicious Gelato place I’ve ever been to! (Outside of Italy of course).

I took the next day off of work as well as the Monday since I still had some days in lieu from the expedition I went on in June. So I had a 4-day weekend while Devon was here which meant we could go on an awesome weekend trip! Friday morning we woke up early and walked to a car rental agency in the city. We were heading up to the Grampians for the weekend, which is a national park with amazing mountains, hiking trails and views. There is no public transportation that goes up there however, so we had to rent a car. We were both pretty nervous as it was our first time driving on the left side of the road. The cheapest rental agency was right downtown Melbourne as well so we not only had to drive on the wrong side of the road, but had to do it in rush hour morning traffic downtown Melbourne! Saying the experience was terrifying is an understatement! Devon drove at the beginning since we wanted to get to a quiet suburb to practice a little and she needed me to direct her there. She did a great job and we made it out of the city and to some residential streets. We both took turns driving around there, then once I felt comfortable enough, I drove us through the city and onto the freeway! I had never really driven on a big city freeway before and here I was merging onto an 8-lane freeway on the left-side of the road! It was an insanely busy freeway so was quite stressful but with enough concentration and finger-crossing I made it and we were safely on our way out of the city. The further away we got from the city and the longer I drove the more comfortable I became. It was really quite a fun and exciting experience and it made me realize how much I’ve missed driving since being here! We drove for a few hours, stopping at a grocery store to grab food for the weekend and for a necessary coffee break, and we made it to our hostel in Halls Gap early evening.

Halls Gap is a small town right beside Grampians National Park, and is often the base where people stay when hiking around the Grampians. We had booked ourselves into a cute little hostel there. It was a wooden building and had a nice kitchen and dining room, a cosy lounge room with a fireplace and board games and a TV room where you could watch movies. It was already dark by the time we settled in so we decided not to do a hike that evening. We walked 15 minutes down the road to get to the centre of town (just one main street with a few shops and a petrol station) and headed to the grocery store to pick up a bottle of wine to have with dinner. We cooked ourselves a stir fry for dinner in the hostel kitchen and chatted with some of the fellow hikers and climbers in the hostel. That night it started pouring which turned out to be the theme of the entire weekend, so we stayed in the hostel and borrowed one of the hundreds of DVDs they had there. It was a relaxing and nice evening in, and we went to bed early so we could get up and have a full day of exploring and hiking the following day.

Devon preparing our stir-fry very menacingly!

When we woke up the next morning however it was pouring rain! We decided that we had come to the Grampians to hike, so nothing was going to stop us! We set out and drove to a trail head, where we did a lovely circuit loop that took us along a river and to some pretty rock pools. The area is very hilly with beautiful cliffs everywhere so we walked with the river on one side of the trail and magnificent cliffs on the other side. The other cool thing about the Grampians is that there are wild grey kangaroos and swamp wallabies everywhere!! We literally saw hundreds of them! They would be in mobs in fields, scattered throughout the hills and on the hiking trails. I had seen lots of  kangaroos before but never so many in one area. And they were Devon’s first kangaroos and wallabies which was extremely exciting! 

Devon's first close-up kanga! 

A mob of kangaroos...like deer in the headlights!

It was a miserably rainy day though, and after several hours of hiking we were both completely drenched and freezing cold (keep in mind it was winter which can get chilly here still). So we headed back to the hostel for lunch and a warm up….and subsequently got stuck in front of the warm fireplace for far too long. Once we were warm enough to peel ourselves away from the flames, we stepped back outside to brave the rainy conditions once more. We drove around and did some short hikes to a few waterfalls and one that went straight up a mountain but there was no view at all once we got up there (and there should have been stunning vistas and mountains surrounding us from the picures we had seen) so we decided it wasn’t worth doing any more of those. There was one hike we were dying to do that was called The Pinnacle. It’s one of the famous hikes around there because you climb for hours to get really high on one of the mountains and are out on a pinnacle (as you would have guessed) to get incredible 360 degree views of the whole area. We knew there was no point doing it that day because of the fog, so thought we would save it for the next morning. When we got too wet to stand it anymore we went to the cultural visitor centre that talked all about the Indigenous history and people of that area which was really fascinating. We ended the day with a nice hostel-made chilli and a movie in the warm and cozy lounge room. 

There should have been an incredible view from this lookout but as you can see-nothing!

Look at that fog! 

The next morning we got up early so we could go do the Pinnacle hike we had been waiting to do all weekend. But alas, it was just as foggy as the previous day! We drove up to a lookout and couldn’t even see our hands in front of us…there was zero visibility so we thought we might as well leave the area and try to find some sunshine along the Great Ocean Road. We had a good time in the Grampians but it was a shame that the weather had been so uncooperative. We felt like we didn’t really get to see the Grampians at all so I decided I will just have to go back before my time here is up. We left the Grampians and drove south towards the coast. We went along some beautiful switch-back roads down the mountains, with lovely vistas on the side. We drove for several hours and got more than a little lost a few times. We eventually made it to Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve just to the west of Warnambool, along the Great Ocean Road. Tower Hill is an enormous volcanic crater (don’t worry, it’s inactive), rimmed with volcanic ash. There are tons of conical hills within the crater and a lake in the centre of it. It’s a fascinating geological formation, and is teeming with wild Australian wildlife. We had been told by people in the Grampians that we had to go there if we wanted to see wild koalas, which of course we did. Once we drove down into the crater, we stopped under a big eucalypt tree and looked up for a koala….and lo and behold, there was a sleepy koala right near the top, in the first tree we checked! We ate lunch near that tree, happy as clams watching our first live koala take a nap. Koalas are very lethargic creatures who don’t do much other than eat and sleep in trees, so many Australians don’t find them to be very exciting. It was a completely different story for us foreigners however, we couldn’t get enough of them! We went on a circuit hike around the lake in the valley of the crater, always on the lookout for koalas and other wildlife. We saw one more koala that was on the ground waddling around! And it was literally waddling! They have such a hilarious and awkward walk that killed Devon and I….we both ended up on the ground because we were laughing so hard. It’s pretty unusual to see them moving around on the ground since they are usually found lazing around in trees so we were feeling pretty lucky. We also saw 2 huge emus while on our walk which is another cool exotic Australian animal.

Tower Hill-the volcanic crater with the lake in the centre

This koala was posing so nicely for us beside a eucalypt tree...picture perfect!

The hilarious "waddling" koala

One of the emus we saw along the board walk

After we left Tower Hill we drove along the coast and stopped at some stunning lookouts before making our way to Port Campbell where we found a hostel for the night. It was raining pretty hard by this time and was starting to get dark so we were happy to find a warm place to stay. We made rice paper rolls which we were pretty proud of…they were so easy and delicious! Definitely going to be a staple food for me from now on! As we were doing the dishes we ran into a guy in the kitchen that we recognized but we weren’t sure from where. He reminded us that he had been eating breakfast at the same time as us in the hostel in the Grampians! We had all stood at the window together watching a mother kangaroo with a joey in its pouch. It was cool to see the same person at the end of the day in another city. He was a nice Welsh guy who had been working in Australia as an engineer for the last few months and was travelling now. He was an interesting guy so the 3 of us chatted for a while in the kitchen then Devon and I walked down the street to a pub to get something sweet. It was a cold and windy night, but we sat in a pub by the fireplace, looking out the window at the raging sea outside while sharing a delicious piece of carrot cake. It was a really nice way to spend such a cold night!

Watching the sunset over the ocean and spectacular coast. 

The next morning we got up pretty early and made our way straight to the Twelve Apostles. They are incredible rock pillars in the ocean that I had seen back in February but was more than happy to be seeing them again…they are so breathtaking and it was an amazing place to start the day. It was another freezing day unfortunately and with the wind right on the coast we weren’t able to stay there long (not comfortably at least). We spent the rest of the day driving back to Melbourne with many stops on beaches and at spectacular coastal lookouts. It was unfortunate that it had been raining all weekend, but it meant that we got to see tons of rainbows over the beaches which was really beautiful…not quite worth it but made up for it a little.

The Twelve Apostles tucked behind another big rock pillar. 

The Twelve Apostles with a rainbow!

Once we made it back to Melbourne, we returned the car and came back home to get ready for Canada Day which was the next day. We baked cupcakes with white icing and red maple leaves on them as well as a brownie cake that we iced like the Canadian flag. I brought the cupcakes with me to work the next day and we had a Canada day morning tea where everyone helped me to celebrate my country. That night I had a big Canada day party at my place. Devon had decorated the apartment while I was at work so we had a few tiny Canadian flags on the table. Devon and I were decked out in all of the Canadian clothing that we had and some people had really made an effort and wore red and white. A few of my colleagues came straight back with me after work then I had friends dropping in all evening. It was a potluck (which is not a thing here-when I first told everyone that no one had any idea what that meant so I had to say “bring a dish”) and we had a ton of delicious food! Some people tried to be really Canadian with their dishes…one of my friends who is Canadian as well brought bacon and maple syrup and I made pancakes to top it off. Another friend stopped at a chips place and got poutine then to end it all we had the Canadian flag brownie cake. It was a really fun night, with tons of friends and laughter and a little bit of Canadian National Anthem singing of course. I had thought Canada Day would make me feel a bit homesick and lonely but it was the complete opposite…to see so many of my friends here, all from different groups and ages come together to celebrate with me was so special and I felt anything but alone! I have made some amazing friends here and that night really reminded me of that.

The cupcakes and cake we made for Canada Day.

The next day was Devon’s last day in Melbourne. I went to work like usual and she explored more of the city then that night we went and saw the musical Les Miserables! It had been in Melbourne for a few weeks already and there were signs everywhere. I had been really wanting to go but I assumed it would be really expensive like musicals usually are so I hadn’t bothered to look into it. Devon had seen it in Montreal though and loved it so convinced me we should go here. And the tickets were only $45! Granted we were as high up as you can be, but that doesn’t make much of a difference for a musical. The singing and dancing was still so clear and it was incredible! Such a great musical! I was so glad to have someone to go with because I wouldn’t have gone on my own. Devon took a bus up to Canberra the next morning to visit some friends so we had a sad goodbye that morning. We had such a fun time together and it was so good to hang out again after not seeing each other in so long. We saw a lot more of Victoria than I’d seen as well so it was a great week!