This was our first time flying with Tiger. The price was right, it was on time, and so far we haven't had a bad experience with them (fingers crossed).
We soon realized Melbourne was a very different city.
To get into the downtown part of Melbourne, you need to buy a toll pass. There aren't booths to drive through, so if you don't have a ticket bought already, the scanners will ticket you after a few days. It's similar to FasTrak but you can go in and out of the city for 24 hours on one ticket.
Really awesome architecture in Melbourne, but we were on a schedule so back on the road we went.
At last.. what we really did this for.. THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD!
Epic road, epic beaches, epic water, epic cliffs. It was truly paradise. Australia, who would have thought?
Somebody was way more excited about the Hyundai than we were :D
We stopped in this little town around Apollo Bay and walked around some tide pools.
Ok back on the road!
Ireland?
Nearing the end of our first day on the road, we reached our main destination: The Twelve Apostles!
Within about 30 minutes it went from sunny to dark and rainy, so we caught the sights just in time. And Marina caught a friend!
We stayed in Portland that night. Apparently a lot of these places along the coast were founded because travelers shipwrecked there. The next morning we decided to explore a few more places along the way that we found out about in the hotel.
The petrified forest wasn't actually ever a forest at all.
Too windy and cold! Let's go somewhere warmer.
We found a brochure for this at the hotel in Portland. The cave is about 15 minutes off the main road in Nelson. Awesome pix by Neil!
^ The person who originally discovered the cave climbed down that hole.
After that we pretty much just headed home. Unfortunately we missed all the beaches along the way because we took the highway inland, and by the time we got back to the coast, it was getting dark. Overall we drove about 1000km's and it took about 14-15 hours at a casually rushed pace. :)
Next time on motorcycles!
