The Great Ocean Road

I love the sea so the idea of traveling down the great Ocean road has been one I've wanted to do for years.

I decided to hire a car so I could take it in my own time. I Started off at Torquay which true to the Devon form was out of season dull so after a quick stop I headed on down to Bells beach which was beautiful, after christening the car with sand I headed on to Anglesea which turned out to be a very sleepy town, with a beautiful beach. However rain was still in the air, so I headed on to Aireys Inlet and a lighthouse which turned out to be the one used in round the twist, the 80's kids tv show. It was really raining now so I decided to take to tour and head up to the top, which had amazing views.

Between Aireys Inlet and Lorne you pass under an arch which denotes the original section of the Great Ocean Road which was carved out of the cliffs by the solders who returned from the great war. This section hugs the coast line until Lorne where I decided to stay for the night. Lorne is pretty but with only 1000 people living there it is quite quiet, however in this changes in the summer when over 20,000 people will descend over a week.

The second day was beautiful so I headed out of Lorne to Kennet River in search of Wild Koala's. Who as it turns out seam to live in back-gardens! Then it was on to Apollo Bay which again has an amazing beach. The road then heads inland towards Lavers Hill where I headed off to the 'Otway Fly' a tree-top canopy walkway which as it turn out sways rather a lot in the wind. It was at this point I decided that I'm glad I'm not a tree or a Koala in a tree.



Next stop was gibson steps, a massive descent down the cliff to the beach just around the comer from the 12 Apostles. The land scape is amazing but as words can't describe it I shall let the photographs. Only 1k up the road is the 12 Apostles themselves, the area was crazy busy with goodness knows how many buss loads of tourists. The sky had turned moody and the Apostles seam to soak up the mood.

I headed with a couple more stops to admire the view but as the rain started to come in heavy again I decided to head straight up to Warrnambool.

Melbourne

Eurika Tower
Originally uploaded by lucie.gray

I arrived in Melbourne on Sunday morning. It took an hour to get from the runway to my waiting brother with all the checks. This country is obsessed with not bringing food in and even have sniffer dogs who are trained to find bananas.

On Sunday Ade and Tash took me to Healesville Sanctury to see some very cute Australian animals. They also took me on an induction of deadly snakes, just incase...!

After a couple of days finding my way around Melbourne I'm heading off down the Great Ocean road in search of Koalas in the wild and some fish and chips by the sea.

Singapore

Thain Hock Keng Temple
Originally uploaded by lucie.gray

As I stepped out of Singapore airport my glasses steamed up and I knew I had arrived. It was a half an hour cab ride into town and I was staying in a district called Little India. Singapore is a city of contrasts, on one hand you have amazing colonial buildings rich in history among shiny skyscrapers and postmodern tower blocks but what unites them all is the shear colour of the city.

My first day was spent finding my way round both on foot and by bus. Little India is a mass of brightly coloured colonial buildings. Right at the heart of it there is Tikka Market, Downstairs is filled with a meat and fish market, chicken feet and all. It smells of a mix of fish and incense, upstairs is filled with birightly coloured Sari's all so delicatly detailed.

In the eveing I went up to the 'Night Safari' ( http://www.nightsafari.com.sg/ ) a zoo filled with nocternal animals. After a 45 minite ride on the tram which takes you through the animals you can walk through the grounds. The paths are all dark and although you know they are all in enclosed your imagination goes wild and you see every rock as a pouncing lion.

Friday I took a night tour which included a dinner, a boat trip on the river finishing at Raffles for a Singapore sling. I left the tour before the Long Bar to go and meet some friends who were staying at the hotel and snuck into the residence only bar. As I walked in the pianist said 'good eving miss, how lovely to see you' Of course I had a Sinagpore sling of which I had no idea what they put in it! The building itself is timeless and as you look up you can see the corridors and imagine ladies in big dresses swooshing their way back to the suites.

I was really surprised by Singapore it has such a strong sence of difference, although they are 80% Chinese they see themselves as very differnent from China and are proud to be seperate from Malyasia.

Hello and welcome

I decided a little while ago that I would like to keep a journal of my trip, thinking when I'm old I can reminisce. Sadly I have terrible handwriting so the idea of something typed seamed a good one. So here I am 'blogging'

On Tuesday I'm flying off to Singapore where I will be spending a few days before heading over to Melbourne and see my brother Adrian. I then have 11 weeks in Australia before flying to Tokyo. I will then be spending a little over two weeks in Japan where I will be traveling to Kyoto Via, Nikko and Hiroshima. I might even get a glimpse of Mt Fuji if she's not feeling shy.

Along the way I hope to learn to dive, stand up on a surfboard and learn enough Japanese to tell someone 'I'm lost'.

So grab a cup of tea and join me on my adventure while I pretend to be Michael Palin.

Lucie