Drive on the Left?

Well as I have told you I drove The Great Ocean Road, and yes I really drove. For all of you who are concerned about my ability to stay on the correct side of the road being a right hand side driver as well as my issues with remembering what country I am in, you need not worry. Australia took care of that problem for me by putting up signs all along the road reminding me "drive on left in Australia." See see, on the left:

This made me laugh because obviously there were enough incidents with foreigners driving on the wrong side of the road that the government deemed it necessary to re-orient people to where they were. My favourite part is that the sign actually says, "in Australia." As if they are afraid someone might go home and then sue them for driving on the wrong side of the road because the sign did not clearly explain that it was in Australia specifically. I also enjoyed this because it is helpful to those who have short term memory loss (or long term depending on how long you have been in Australia,) every time you read the sign you are reminded where you are. Who am I, where am I, why am I driving. Maybe the government should be more concerned with keeping such disoriented people off the roads rather than just posting up signs...

Hook Turns?

A little more on the subject of the Melbin (Melbourne) trip, but more in the ways of crazy Australian driving and street signs. Let me introduce you to the hook turn:

No this is not a driving maneuver executed by Captain Hook, however, I think that would almost make more sense than the real explanation. The streets of Melbourne seem to be more peaceful than Sydney: they are significantly wider, void of potholes, straight, and not to mention the drivers seem more at ease, or at least less aggressive. However, despite the lack of road rage, honking horns, and race car driving their streets are made complicated to navigate due to their tram system. Down the center of the streets in Melbin they have tram lines, which greatly complicates the simple driving task of completing a right hand turn(for the right hand side drivers this is the equivalent of a left hand turn.) These trams equal a lack of right hand turn lanes, because that is where they run. To avoid motorists from being squished from oncoming trams they have devised the hook turn. This requires you to pull the very outside left lane (or equivalent right lane,) to wait to make your turn, then you must execute the turn facing traffic and trams from both directions. If you are still confused, I recommend building a model, you can make it more realistic by adding nerves, unsure driving directions, and the pressure of turning traffic lights.

I hope you enjoy that driving food for thought and get ready for the next tidbit about driving on The Great Ocean Road, coming to a Blog near you soon (aka-this one and directly after this blog.)

The GRRRRRREAT Ocean Road

This weekend I went to The Great Ocean Road and it was A-mazing. Flew into Melbourne....everyone says Melbourne is great, it was a nice city, but just a city. The little towns along the way, the road, and the scenery were absolutely wonderful and fantastic, and, and, and, I wanna go back right now! (Whew let me catch my breath, I got a little too excited there.)

OK Melbourne first. For all you non-Aussies, allow me to clarify something about the pronunciation of this city. Yes, yes I know that it seems as if it would be pronounced mel-born, due to the spelling. But nooooooo silly Aussies make fun of you if you pronounce it as it is spelled. Plus they over exaggerate it so that the impersonation is as if I were from Texas (mel-bOURRRRN,) but I digress. So if you ever talk about this city don't pronounce all the letters just simply say Mel-bin. I think that originally they spelled the city as Melbin, and so they pronounce it that way, but some joker had a great idea, "hey guys you wanna know how we can mess with tourists, lets make the spellings of our cities more complicated and then make fun of the foreigners when they try to pronounce the names." Real funny jokester, reallll funny.

Here is Melbin, see it looks like pretty much any other city, big buildings, skylines, people....

OK enough about Melbin the city, lets move onto the Great Ocean Road, I now know why they called it the Great Ocean Road and not the Good Ocean Road. It is more than good it's GRRRREEAAAT, just like Frosted Flakes (an American cereal commercial reference for the non-yanks, YouTube Tony the Tiger if you are curious.) The road winds along the stunning coast for several hundred kilometers. The first leg was done mainly at night, so the coast was not visible besides the moon shining on the water.....BUT I DID SEE A KOALA! This little guy wandered across the road and then was confused when he couldn't get any further, sorry buddy no eucalyptus leaves for you. On a side note I have also after close observation of this creature decided that Disney stole the idea for Stitch from a Koala.

Along the road there were so many beaches, so of course I had to indulge my childish impulses and run along the beach and let the water chase me. This is Bells Beach, the beach featured in the motion picture Point Break(which I have not actually seen, because I never see movies, but this is what I have been told.)

After driving on the windy roads for several hours, vrooom vrooom vroom, finally there was victory!(And yes I actually did drive, it was fun, windy roads, beautiful scenery, however the pathetic part is that I have not driven in so long that my arms were sore for the next two days....) The 12 Apostles! Soooo beautiful.

By the way it was very windy......just in case you couldn't tell.

More Apostles, the water surrounding them is a breath taking colour. It was also so windy that as the waves would break mist would fly off the waves and create little rainbows...it was simply stunning. (Hey Granny I think you should paint this for me!)

The little towns along the way were adorable, with hotels that were actually houses, views of the water, and little cafes using ingredients grown and made locally. If you are ever in the Southern Hemisphere, the Great Ocean Road is a must for both windy road enthusiasts(p.s. expect more posts regarding driving), scenery enthusiasts, or quaint little town enthusiasts. I wanna go back right now! OK well I am off to pout about not being there anymore I hope you are having a wonderful yesterday or today!

Mr. "Platypus"

OK "platypus" update. As you know I have long been sleuthing out this so called "platypus" that Australia claims to have. Most recently Cassi claimed to have seen one in the wild, I prefer to be a realist and call it what it really was, black magic.

Well, after her supposed sighting of the "platypus" I decided to do my own reconnaissance at the zoo aka the original scenes of the missing "platypus" crime. Well at the zoo, I did indeed see a "platypus." It did indeed appear to have the tail of a beaver, the bill of a duck, the fur of a mammal and swim like a fish. I did not see it lay any eggs or stab anything with its poisonous claw so I cannot attest for those myths. I would love to show you the "proof" of the "platypus" however, every picture I tried to take turned out blurry. Either the zoo just puts optical illusions up so that no one can really be certain it is a platypus, or it is just a movie clip being played of the mythical creature swimming round and round. You see at the zoo, the "platypus" viewing area is in a dark hut, in a dark aquarium, and you are not allowed to use flash photography because the platypus has sensitive eyes.

Despite the possible trickery I am beginning to doubt my original theory that the "platypus" is about as real as a jackalope, they may indeed exist, however, I am not completely convinced. At this point it has only been bumped up to Big Foot and Nessie status. This is based on two theories I have(I am heavily leaning towards the second.)

Theory 1:
The "platypus", Big Foot, and good 'ol Nessie are not real, they are merely the product of random gusts of wind, trick photography, wackos and photoshop.

Theory 2:
All three of these creatures are in fact real. However, our perception of them is skewed. We all tend to believe that all of these photos are fake based on the blurriness of the creature. Maybe we should take a different view. I am starting to think that instead of an unsteady hand not being able to focus the camera due to excitement, we have it all wrong. These creatures have one thing in common, their blurriness. Each of these creatures is not mythical, instead they are just a new phenomena of the Animalia kingdom, light bending attributes that create the illusion of blurriness. Only our eyes have only been deceived, we have not in fact been deceived by our fellow Homo sapiens.

I hope to conclusively prove either of my theories before I leave Australia, therefore I must get back to my sleuthing. I hope you are having a wonderful yesterday.