The Great Ocean Road

another weekend full of the natural wonders of Victoria... this weekend was a less erm... nerve-wrecking kinda weekend. coz we decided to take a tour instead of drive down to the Great Ocean Road. that means we dun hafta navigate and worry about getting lost and all 4 of us can sit in a coach, enjoy the scenic drive, catch a nap before we reach different lookouts n stopovers, talk crap and munch on tidbits, etc.

we decided to do a tour this time coz we've seen pictures of this Great Ocean Road drive... long long windy roads which seem rather treacherous... coz it's on a cliff right next to the big blue ocean!! sekali fengyi gets tired n miss a bend, we're in for a nice swim in the deep waters... no thanks man!!

the tour was great!! pretty personalized... and rather flexible. liling has always been against tours coz they always give unrealistic time constraints and u can't seem to get enough of a nice place... but this time round, even she tot the tour was fantastic! n of course, it was cheap!! only 112 bucks per person... n we get a nice tour guide who bbqs really well (had bbq n salad for dinner! n gosh.. i ate enough calories to last me e rest of e trip i think!), comfortable 24-seater bus, clean and comfy dormitories for the nite and good run-down on the different attractions we were visiting!

on top of it, we had really good company! oh! i din mention last week 4 fresh graduates from hongkong uni came for elective! they're super funnnyyyy ppl... hahaha!!! since they wanted to go to great ocean rd too, all 8 of us booked the tour together! we spent a few hrs tokking crap in the dorm tt nite... and viola! liling found out that one of them, called frankie, has the same bday as her!! 30 may... haha!! and they were high-fiving, etc... then we started revealing our bdays one by one... and WAH!!! another guy, called joe, has the same bday as me!!! how coincidental can it get man?!?! we haf 2 pairs of ppl with similar bdays among 8 ppl!! haha!! then ken n daniel were born in nov but diff dates... haha!! we spent e whole nite saying "oh... jan ppl r smarter than u may ppl.." n e likes... such a crappy nite... and e tour guide came by and said we were e noisiest bunch of ppl he'd ever seen... oops... haha!! he said it in a nice way, so we continued shouting n laffing at the top of our voices... hahaha!

sightseeing was e highlight of e trip... the Great Ocean Road boasts of its beautiful beaches such as Bells Beach and natural rock formations such as The 12 Apostles, London Bridge and Loch Ard Gorge. the entire 500-km road was flanked on one side by the vast ocean and the sandy beaches... so during e drive, we only hafta look to one side n we'll enjoy the cooling sea breeze, smell the fresh air and basically have an eye feast on the beautiful waves, natural rocks everywhere, smooth sand and occasionally ppl fishing n boardriding!

the natural rock formations were impressive!!! we managed to catch the 12 Apostles at sunset and WOW! it's so manificent it emits this sorta magical feel... and i just felt like i was in paradise! adding on some fog and radiating sunrays, it just totally overwhelms me! we spent a lot of time taking photos n staring at it as the sun slowly descends and light slowly withdraws from the rocks... and as tt happens, the colour of the rocks slowly changes... from bright reddish, orangy colour finally becoming a greyish hue when dusk approaches. impressive...

London Bridge is another attraction which has an interesting story behind it. It is not a man-made bridge... it's actually a piece of cuboidal rock with an arch in the middle protruding out from the mainland into the water. haha... but if u saw london bridge 15 years ago, it would've been a continuous stretch of land protruding out... now, it has a huge gap in the middle... (hmm... show ya pics someday! then u'll get a better idea of wat i mean) it's coz in 1990, due to the forces of the waves, the rock slowly gets eroded and finally there's a huge hole in the middle (i dun mean e arch). and with time, it finally gave way and collapsed, leaving this gap between london bridge and the mainland. apparently, at tt time 2 ppl were actually trapped on the far side of the rock... and when the helicopters n media came, they kept covering their faces and refused to be interviewed... hahaha!!! u know why? coz they were having an extramarital affair there!!!

Loch Ard Gorge also has a nice story behind it... it's another series of rock formations which really took my breath away! and it was our last stop for the trip, so we were given plenty of time to walk around and enjoy the scenary! afraid i can't rem much abt e details abt e story, except tt it was a story between these 2 ppl who were trapped becoz of a shipwreck... tom n eve i think... think tom was like some hero saving eve, e damsel in distress...

As i was touring great ocean road, it just suddenly hit me tt the best sculptor on earth is truly nature itself... man-made structures can never hold a candle to these manificent rock formations produced by nature itself! When u're presented with such a picturesque sight... a masterpiece of nature... u just lose ur ability to think anymore... all u wanna do is FEEL and let nature sweep u away!