Sydney and the Great Ocean Road

April 08, 2018

This week was very exciting because my parents flew in from the states to visit me! We met in Sydney for the first leg of the trip. I got in pretty late, but we went to get dinner anyways. It was hard to find a place that was open, but we eventually stumbled upon a great Korean restaurant. We had some fabulous deep fried chicken covered in a spicy orange sauce with peppers, peas, and baby corn. My dad and I also had an excellent Korean blueberry wine, my first legal drink with the rents!
The next day we went to the Sea Life aquarium where we saw a ton of cool animals. They had 2 dugongs, one male and one female. This was really exciting because there are only 5 dugongs under human care in the entire world! I chatted with the trainers there for a bit, discussing how to train animals without being able to use positive reinforcement. (This is because dugongs are herbivores and are fed every 10-15 minutes.) The aquarium also housed a number of large sharks and had big glass tunnels through which to see them. Next we headed down to Sydney harbor to see the opera house. We FaceTimed Sarah while we were there and gave her the full tour.
We spent the first half of our last day in Sydney exploring the parks and shops . In the afternoon we went on a boat tour of Sydney Harbor. It was incredible. It gave us a whole new view of the city and was well worth it. That night we went to dinner at Catalina’s, a beautiful restaurant sitting on stilts in the water. My parents had their first experience with Uber and were very concerned that I hasn’t secured a ride half an hour before we were to leave. It was a beautiful dinner with top-notch service. We were seated in a perfect location to watch the sun set over the harbor. There could not have been a better way to end our trip.
We flew back to Melbourne the next morning. My parent spent the next few days exploring the city while I caught up with my schoolwork.
On Friday my mom’s friend from high school, Barb, (who has lived in Melb for the last 12 years) took us on a tour of the Great Ocean Road! The first stop we made was to see some kangaroos. We went to a golf course that was riddled with them. You could even get pretty close to them because they were so habituated to people. After that we visited a lighthouse and a cute beach in the town of Lorne. The next stop was to see some koalas. We drove through a eucalypt forest, scanning the tree tops for small grey bumps. It was tricky at first, but once we got the hang of it we realized they were everywhere! After the koalas we stopped in Apollo Bay for lunch, where we tried traditional Australian meat pies, (or in moms case, spinach ricotta pies). We left Apollo Bay after lunch and jogged inland a bit to see a part of the rainforest. The vegetation was insane. It was so vibrant and green. There were trees growing out of other trees, and ferns bigger than cars. There were also a few large gum trees that we estimated were at least 400 years old.
Our final stop on the Great Ocean Road was probably the most well-known. It was the twelve apostles. The site was pretty crowded, but the views were breathtaking. Below the sea-stacks I could see the water was churning and cloudy, a sure sign of a very productive community. I imagined how amazing it would be to dive there (without the rough seas, of course). The waters must be so diverse; a great place to do some research. We walked down to the coast to dip our feet in the southern ocean one last time, and then began our long journey back to Melbourne.