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| Melbourne Cup, Great Ocean Road |
Flew down to Melbourne on Friday night and stayed in Geelong. Arrived fairly late so it was straight to bed. Driving through Geelong the following day it looked great. Nice spot and the second biggest City in Victoria to Melbourne. The people in Victoria it must be pointed out are a thousand times friendlier than the people in Sydney. In a related story I handed in my notice in work to finish at Christmas and was asked what I thought of the Sydney people and I said they were very rude and all the English people in recruitment company totally agreed. They were laughing at my honesty. Anyway Torquay was our first stop on the Great Ocean Road. Real surf town. Ripcurl and Quiksilver started in this town and Bells Beach just down the road is a stop on the Pro Surfing Championship. Went to the surfing museum here which was good. Loads of info. Alot of rain on this day and our progress was slow and we eventually made our way to Apollo Bay that night. Nice spot but the weather was terrible.
The next morning we headed to a coffee shop in Apollo Bay and met a Cork man who used to work in Carolines place in AIB. The times they worked there didn't overlap but it's a small world. We were dying to get going as the weather reports were bad and we didn't want to get stuck there and not see the 12 Apostles. We started driving west but only got 20k up the road to be met with floods. Alot of people were talking that you couldn't get out of Apollo bay as both east and west were blocked. It was looking so bad that we had actually booked Apollo bay that night which we were later able to cancel. Actually up the road from us the previous night we were told that a guy was killed when a tree fell on his tent. Alot of places were booked out as alot of campsites were closed as they were due to be flooded later that night. The good news is that we eventually did get out with a road that went north. A few small trees down but not too bad. It did involve a 200k detour but we eventually saw the 12 Apostles which are pretty good.
We stayed in Port Campbell that night. I'm happy to say the weather improved the following day which was Monday with the Melbourne Cup the following day so it was looking up. We took our time that morning just popping into little parks and little walks before we headed back for Melbourne in the afternoon.
We met up with Florrie on Monday night out in St Kilda along with friends of Carolines in MacQuarie bank. The following day was Melbourne Cup. Great day. Everyone dressed up like for a big wedding. Nothing but Irish at it from who we met. Only lost 80 between 3 of us so wasn't too bad.
The following day we were flying out and luckily we got a late checkout of 11.30 in the hostel. Very good place called the Oslo hostel. It was much needed as we were slow to start. Saw the Grand prix track in Albert Park, St Kilda marina and wasted our time going to Ramsay street. Very good weekend was had though.
John and Fiona Tobin arrived over to us last Thursday. We haven't done much with them bar visit the cultural drinking establishments with them. They're gone up to the Gold Coast today and we'll meet them in Brisbane on Saturday morning to head for Moreton Island. Aisling O Mahoney is also talking of joining us. That's about all from me. Slán.
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