Joe's Bday, Brighton Beach, and THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD (oh yeah school started too)

It's been a while since I've posted, so I have a lot of catching up to do. Last Tuesday officially marks three weeks since I've been here. Wow, time has gone fast.

Other than the usual going to Turf, our local bar conveniently located right next door to where I live, we celebrated our good buddy Joe's 21st birthday! It was filled with the normal debauchery of goon, a pub crawl, and of course ending up at a club to dance our asses off. Good times.

Before I continue, let me take a moment to define what goon is.

GOON (noun): the cheapest form of liquor in Australia; fruity boxed wine.

Mmmmmmm.....tasty. Nothing like having a few cups of goon before a night on the town.

 

And of course, a bromantic dancing pic. Because what 21st birthday is complete without one? That's Joe the birthday boy on the right.

But, after a while pow-wowing around Melbourne became a bit repetitive, so we decided to find new and fun adventures to go on! One of the days before orientation week (O-Week for short), we went to Brighton Beach! It's about a 30 minute train ride way from the center of the city. Unfortunately, the day we went, it was a little cloudy, but it was still a fun adventure.

There were all of these little shacks along the beach as well. Apparently they are used as changing rooms/hang out shacks and are pretty pricey pieces of reality. They have been know to stay in families for many generations, and it's almost impossible to buy one now. Here are a few pictures of the more interesting looking shacks.

That weekend we also went on a ROAD TRIP!!! It was so much fun. 10 people in 2 cars, so we got cozy. Here is a map of what we did:

We left Friday afternoon and got back on Sunday evening. Here are some pictures of us getting ready to leave and some of the ocean along the Great Ocean Road:

Our first stop for the night was Apollo Bay, but we stopped in a town called Lorne along the way for dinner, here are some pictures of Lorne, and the beach we sat and ate at that night:

Unfortunately, I don't have any good pictures of Apollo Bay. By the time we got there, it was dark, and we were set to leave early in the morning. Here is a picture of us at breakfast the next morning.

Everyone looks SO ATTRACTIVE! Joke. It's early in the morning, we were still groggy. Apollo Bay was still a good 40 minutes from the 12 Apostles, and along the way, we saw signs for 'scenic outlooks.' Yeah...those signs lied. We stopped at one and got a good view of sheep. Joe decided to become a shepard for a few minutes. 

We drove another 20 minutes or so and finally got to the 12 Apostles!!!!!!

The 12 Apostles is actually only a small part of the 12 Apostles National Park. We knew we wouldn't be able to explore the entire thing if we wanted to make it up north by night, but we went a few miles down the road to the next section of the park, Loch and Gorge, to explore around the coast.

Coolest hidden beach ever

Exploring the cave next to the beach

THUNDER CAVE!

Next stop along the way was a small beach town called Port Campbell for some lunch and beach lounging.

After a few hours on the beach, we started making our way up north to Grampians National Park in the mountains. We were on some pretty small roads going up there. They had these strange roads that were one lane with gravel on each side if you need to pass another car...good job Australia that's really safe.

See look you can see the mountains!

WE FINALLY ARRIVED IN THE GRAMPIANS! AND THERE WERE WILD KANGAROOS RIGHT BEHIND OUR HOSTEL!!!

The next day we went for a hike up the mountain.

We saw a cool waterfall along the way

Last stop on the way back was in a town called Ballarat for some pancakes.

And of course, more funny signs!

Also, this was my first week of classes, but I don't have much to report on them yet, it's just been intro stuff so far. Look for more about my classes in my next post!