Saturday April 19: Air Ordeal, to the Great Ocean Road, Chocolate, Beach, Kangas and Koalas

Dana is itching to get on the Great Ocean Road so I’ll make this quick.

Looooong plane ride (16 hours)….

what to do after dinner and 6 hours sleep? Games on the iPhone, which I thoughtfully loaded in SFO. Meditation and medication (Aleve PM and NoJetLag), unannounced midnight snack (which we didn’t discover until 2 hours before breakfast), making notes of the little events to date for later blogging.

Wonderfully fluent arrival and entry – only glitch being having to declare the tubed shot meds, leading to a nonsensical (maybe token) standing in line to be sniffed by a dog – twice. Fun detail, the dog stopped at the thermos D was holding, only for a second, and then proceeded to sniff her hands and lap thoroughly, and went on, then on the second round repeated the whole thing. He did not do that to me or anyone else.

We got the rental car and then D connected with Siri to get us en route for our next night stay at Apollo Bay…

first stop the Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie, where we joined hundreds of Aussie families and other tourists for an Easter Saturday sugar overload.

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There was an Easter Bunny doing selfies with families, a huge Easter egg hunt, a little menagerie of Aussie animals, including these little guys (have to get the name later):

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We moved on to the Anglesea Golf club, famed for kangaroos on the course – these actually on the driving range.

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Then a long detour mistake through Otway National Park gravel roads, aborted by a friendly dirt bike rider who got us back on the GOR, to Aireys Inlet where these 1975 refugees from East Timor (along with many others along the GOR) were surf fishing:

Then a somewhat spectacular lighthouse on the headland in the background…

Then Erskine Falls, from the upper viewpoint…

and lower viewpoint.

the latter involving a cardiac risk descent and climb.

Then, after some misdirection, a lovely walk along the Kennet River Nature Trail, with its gorgeous Aussie trees…

resident wild kangaroos…

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and the highlight…

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a wild (really) koala, who had his own way of descending.

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Then along the GOR (dead wringer for the southern Oregon coast) and then on to the Apollo Bay Motel for the night (as mundane as it sounds, but with an excellent restaurant across the street where we managed to get the only available table, outside on a chilly night huddled next to burner). Huge pile of excellent spicy black mussels for me.

Then to the room, with a feeble attempt at blogging, by me broken by two or three sudden lapses into unconsciousness, like a general anesthetic response, rather than just dozing off – D had done the same in the car earlier.