Friendly week
Oct. 2nd, 2004 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccIt's been a bit of a week for catching up with people.
Thursday I took my second day of annual leave for the year and drove down the Great Ocean Rd with a friend from school who now lives in New York and his wife. Who were visiting Melbourne for a grand total of two weeks (!) and managed in that time to catch up with most people.
It was beautiful. I haven't been down there since 97, when Danny & Nicole were out here, and you do forget how lovely the limestone coast is. We didn't quite make the entire road (turned off at Peterborough to head back to Melbourne via the inland route) probably because we started later than anticipated (beautiful coffee, ta Rod) and then stopped longer than anticipated in Lorne (again, great coffee - and food!), Apollo Bay (cold drinks and playing on the beach - and beautiful wooden sculptures on the foreshore), and also because I really don't go faster than 60kph on the windy bits so I had to pull over a couple of times to let impatient drivers pass.
There were a lot of bits we decided to leave for next time: the Cape Otway lighthouse, the Otway fly (it looks like fun), Warrnambool, surfing (bit cold) but we did manage to see the 12 Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge, and the Bay of Islands as well as the views.
The new facilities at the 12 Apostles are quite good, they've built a kind of visitor centre on the inland side of the road, with an underground walkway to different viewing perspectives of the Apostles. All wheelchair accessible too. We reached the Apostles in the late afternoon, not the greatest light for photos although apparently some turned out great (haven't seen them yet). The sheerness of the cliffs always amazes me though: it's amazing that anyone survived any shipwrecks along that coast.
Loch Ard is as amazing as ever - the national parks has done wonders with trail markings there too. I don't think I ever realised that there were 4 trails to choose from as well as the path down into the gorge. We only went into the gorge and to the blowhole, due (again) to time constraints. Next time.
Port Campbell has really exploded from the last time I was there - I think in 95 there was a milkbar, a servo and a dodgy motel. Now the town centre has all been revitalised, there's accomodation everywhere including a backpackers and best of all they have a Timboon icecream shop. :-) So we watched the tide come into the port while munching.
I should mention here that I love surf. I really, really love beaches with surf. I want to go swimming and body surfing and I haven't been for ages. And so Dean's been informed that we're going away for a weekend to Port Campbell so I can watch surf and maybe swim or something. ;-) Oh and eat Timboon icecrea.
The trip back was less scenic but still relaxing, although I had the same truck sitting the same distance behind me from Camperdown to Geelong, which was interesting. Fortunately the distance was a reasonable one, it was just that I kept expecting someone to overtake the truck and be in the middle but it didn't happen. So we travelled in a convoy of the blue car in front, myself and the truck all the way back. Bizarre. The only minor scare was just before Camperdown when a light shower turned the dust on my windscreen into mud, reducing visibility to extremely low and requiring a stop at the nearest servo to clean everything. I hadn't realised up until that point that we'd picked up quite so much dust!
When we finally made it back we had tea on Lygon St with Dean as well and caught up on the stuff we hadn't managed to talk about during the day. Now we've got to visit them in New York. It could happen... :-)
Last night was catching up with a different group of friends, while also managing to see![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
barrington's show. Most of these are friends who I used to play soccer with, but who have either moved or are writing up theses and therefore have no time anymore. The show was fun, although I think we stacked the audience a bit in terms of higher degrees. We certainly had a high number of people claiming to have read and understood "A brief history of Time". I wasn't one of them, incidentally. I don't think I've even opened a copy.
Afterwards we caught up withbarrington and two of his other friends that had gone to the show in the bar downstairs. I swear I've seen the woman before - did she go to a Multiverse or something? BundyChris corrected one of the points of the show (my fault, he did say he didn't think he should and then I made him by mentioning it directly...) and we all got geekily enthused about science. Well those of us not talking about the pop culture references in the show anyway.
(Best quote of the night:
"I really liked how none of your pop culture references were less than 10 years old. Well except Paris Hilton."
"Well she's about 10 isn't she?"
"God I hope not, that'd make most of the stuff she's done illegal. And kind of perverted."
"I meant mentally...")
Afterwards we all headed across the road for tea and to see Timbec's photos of the Grand Canyon.
I like catching up with people.
Thursday I took my second day of annual leave for the year and drove down the Great Ocean Rd with a friend from school who now lives in New York and his wife. Who were visiting Melbourne for a grand total of two weeks (!) and managed in that time to catch up with most people.
It was beautiful. I haven't been down there since 97, when Danny & Nicole were out here, and you do forget how lovely the limestone coast is. We didn't quite make the entire road (turned off at Peterborough to head back to Melbourne via the inland route) probably because we started later than anticipated (beautiful coffee, ta Rod) and then stopped longer than anticipated in Lorne (again, great coffee - and food!), Apollo Bay (cold drinks and playing on the beach - and beautiful wooden sculptures on the foreshore), and also because I really don't go faster than 60kph on the windy bits so I had to pull over a couple of times to let impatient drivers pass.
There were a lot of bits we decided to leave for next time: the Cape Otway lighthouse, the Otway fly (it looks like fun), Warrnambool, surfing (bit cold) but we did manage to see the 12 Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge, and the Bay of Islands as well as the views.
The new facilities at the 12 Apostles are quite good, they've built a kind of visitor centre on the inland side of the road, with an underground walkway to different viewing perspectives of the Apostles. All wheelchair accessible too. We reached the Apostles in the late afternoon, not the greatest light for photos although apparently some turned out great (haven't seen them yet). The sheerness of the cliffs always amazes me though: it's amazing that anyone survived any shipwrecks along that coast.
Loch Ard is as amazing as ever - the national parks has done wonders with trail markings there too. I don't think I ever realised that there were 4 trails to choose from as well as the path down into the gorge. We only went into the gorge and to the blowhole, due (again) to time constraints. Next time.
Port Campbell has really exploded from the last time I was there - I think in 95 there was a milkbar, a servo and a dodgy motel. Now the town centre has all been revitalised, there's accomodation everywhere including a backpackers and best of all they have a Timboon icecream shop. :-) So we watched the tide come into the port while munching.
I should mention here that I love surf. I really, really love beaches with surf. I want to go swimming and body surfing and I haven't been for ages. And so Dean's been informed that we're going away for a weekend to Port Campbell so I can watch surf and maybe swim or something. ;-) Oh and eat Timboon icecrea.
The trip back was less scenic but still relaxing, although I had the same truck sitting the same distance behind me from Camperdown to Geelong, which was interesting. Fortunately the distance was a reasonable one, it was just that I kept expecting someone to overtake the truck and be in the middle but it didn't happen. So we travelled in a convoy of the blue car in front, myself and the truck all the way back. Bizarre. The only minor scare was just before Camperdown when a light shower turned the dust on my windscreen into mud, reducing visibility to extremely low and requiring a stop at the nearest servo to clean everything. I hadn't realised up until that point that we'd picked up quite so much dust!
When we finally made it back we had tea on Lygon St with Dean as well and caught up on the stuff we hadn't managed to talk about during the day. Now we've got to visit them in New York. It could happen... :-)
Last night was catching up with a different group of friends, while also managing to see
barrington's show. Most of these are friends who I used to play soccer with, but who have either moved or are writing up theses and therefore have no time anymore. The show was fun, although I think we stacked the audience a bit in terms of higher degrees. We certainly had a high number of people claiming to have read and understood "A brief history of Time". I wasn't one of them, incidentally. I don't think I've even opened a copy.Afterwards we caught up with
barrington and two of his other friends that had gone to the show in the bar downstairs. I swear I've seen the woman before - did she go to a Multiverse or something? BundyChris corrected one of the points of the show (my fault, he did say he didn't think he should and then I made him by mentioning it directly...) and we all got geekily enthused about science. Well those of us not talking about the pop culture references in the show anyway.(Best quote of the night:
"I really liked how none of your pop culture references were less than 10 years old. Well except Paris Hilton."
"Well she's about 10 isn't she?"
"God I hope not, that'd make most of the stuff she's done illegal. And kind of perverted."
"I meant mentally...")
Afterwards we all headed across the road for tea and to see Timbec's photos of the Grand Canyon.
I like catching up with people.
