[Travel]
[travel] Day tripping in Victoria
Yesterday jackwilliambell, yuki_onna and I day tripped down to the Great Ocean Road. (Sadly, calendula_witch stayed in the hotel room with the con crud.)
We stopped first at the Werribee Open Range Zoo. That’s primarily an African-themed wildlife park, but we took the walking trail through the Australian section. There we saw emus, kangaroos, a wallaby, Cape Barren geese, and various other Australian birds and wildlife.
A Cape Barren goose
The kangaroos were being lazy and unphotogenic. The emus were everywhere.
From there we stopped at an airplane hangar where an RAAF B-24 Liberator is being restored. We got a tour from an elderly gentleman who’d served aboard that type aircraft during WWII. Their example is an airframe rescued from being used as a backyard shed, with wings and tail sections from a crash in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, and other parts from the United States.
Outside, we saw what appeared to be Phil Dick’s BMW.
From Werribee, we drove to Geelong, then Anglesea, where we stopped for an enormous Aussie lunch. Humongous burgers (and a chicken sandwich for me) covered with an egg, a beet, chili sauce, avocado, et cetera.
Note the french fries. They are on practically every menu in Australia, even in white tablecloth places serving ethnic cuisine.
After Anglesea, we drove down the Great Ocean Road to Lorne. Saw some beautiful, and odd, things.
The George Jetson beach house
From Lorne we turned inland to Deans Marsh, then Winchelsea. Beautiful farming country. jackwilliambell wanted to head up into the Grampians, but I was quite tired, so we drove back to Melbourne from there.
I don’t think for a moment that I saw Australia yesterday. Just one little corner of this vast, beautiful country. But it was pretty, and fun, and I’m glad we did it. I just wish calendula_witch could have made it.
Today we tour Melbourne laneways with several folks and a local guide. Tomorrow, the long flight home.
Photos © 2010, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Posted: 3:37 pm Tue September 07 2010 |
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Heath Graham
September 7th, 2010 at 3:54 pmGlad you’re getting to see a bit of the place while you’re here! Enjoy the laneway tour – there’s some great stuff and it changes all the time. Keep an eye out for the tile space invaders by the French artist Invader – I’ve found eleven.
Errolwi
September 10th, 2010 at 2:17 amThere is a good podcast interview with the B24 team at http://www.planecrazydownunder.com/2010/03/28/episode-28-save-the-liberator/
We spent Wednesday and Thursday at Apollo Bay, further along the road. It was good to escape downtown after being in one for a week and a half.