We've posted a lot about specific adventures around Melbourne, but we've also had some really nice down time that we've spent in Altona. Melbourne locals always act surprised when we say we're staying in Altona. Probably because it's further than other suburbs from the city center, there's no night life, and there are a lot of retirees. But, we've grown to love Altona with its quiet small town feel, sea smell, shoreline trails, bustling main street of cafes, conveniently located grocery store, easy access train station, our Airbnb home away from home, and a place just a couple doors down from home where Brandon got his hair cut.
Everyday life. Our everyday laundry.
As an added bonus, here's a video of our everyday surroundings. Caution: I am not an expert videographer and the shakiness may make you nauseous. Yes, it is that bouncy even after YouTube claimed to do its anti-shake corrections. Sigh. You've been warned.
A couple of weeks ago Katie took me on a blind date. She already wrote about it in this post. But needless to say it was quite fun. So the pressure was kind of on to come up with a quality blind date for her since she is always so good at coming up with good ones for me. I started thinking off and on about different ideas until finally I came across this really good option while browsing Groupon. So here is said blind date.
We set off around 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, October 20th after a bit of a delay due to my last minute planning and note taking. Turns out the location wasn't quite where I thought it was, so I had to do some last minute research. But I think it helped add to the mystery of the date. I also learned that what we'd be doing was actually outside, not inside like I originally thought. Luckily we had still had some warm weather, but it was turning cold that night. *Phew*
Katie experiencing the non-sights and sounds of public transit. She didn't have to wear the blindfold for long, as Katie talked about in her post, it is a bit too sketchy to lead someone around blindfolded in a busy city. Plus the stops are announced over the intercom, so there's no point.
After about an hour of travel on two trains and a tram, we arrived at our first destination: Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Center. At this point she was guessing that we were doing some kind of swimming, but there was still more to the surprise.
The surprise is revealed. We're surfing!.. well fake surfing. They call it flowriding.
Yup, that's right. I found a sweet groupon deal for this surfing machine. All day passes for two people for only $35. And that includes entry to the other aquatic center stuff like an indoor wave pool. It's something I've always wanted to try, but when I've seen them at other water parks they were always so busy and cost extra. So as we often do for blind dates, I found something I really wanted to do and dragged Katie along with me. I think it worked out. We both had a lot of fun.
You first start out on a bodyboard. And then from there you work your way up getting on your knees on the bodyboard.
Katie bodyboarding.
Me bodyboarding.
Katie picked it up quite quickly. Her second or third time she was already getting up on her knees.
I picked it up pretty easily as well.
Our instructor was awesome. He was really interactive, joked with us a lot, and was just overall a lot of fun. But as a result he pushed us pretty quickly into the real deal surfing. They do a really good job of easing you into it.
For our first few times we start out on the front of the "wave" and our instructor helps ease us into the flowing water.
We then get a chance to figure out how to balance and turn on the flowing water while holding onto a rope. It felt a lot like wakeboarding at this point
Once you get that down you're moved to the top and taught how to drop into the wave.
We then took about an hour break. The flowrider was reserved for an hour by a private party. We were a little bit bummed, but it worked in our favor to take a bit of a break. And as a perk we got to go into the water park area and enjoy the wave pool and eat a snack.
Chilling by the wave pool.
After our break we got right back out on the waves and practiced some more. It took a bit to warm up again. We both had some nasty falls. But eventually we managed to have some pretty good rides too. It helped that the lines were short and the other guys that were there were a lot of fun to be around. Everyone would cheer you on if you were having a good ride. If you fell down early a couple of the guys had some hilariously awesome phrases they'd yell at you to get you to take another turn (imagine all of these in a heavy Australian accent): "Have another go, mate! Have another go!" and "Come on now, step in time... step in time!" (Gotta love the Mary Poppins reference).
Katie tearing it up!
Hang Ten Mate!
https://youtu.be/wFStFJjRoRA
One of Katie's best rides. She even had a pretty graceful dismount at the end there.
https://youtu.be/lYY1FAlwik0 One of my best rides. Notice the stirring motion my arms are making to keep balance. The guys would yell out "And he's stirring the pot! That he is... stir that pot". It was quite funny at the time.
We ended up being there way longer then I thought we'd be. It helped that we both exceeded our own expectations of how good we would do. Katie didn't think she would even try the stand-up surfing. But as you can probably tell from the pictures and videos, she did awesome! Success! At this point we were pretty tired. I had looked up a few other things we could have done in the city, but given the time and our energy level we decided it best to head back home. But I had one more surprise. On our train ride home we stopped a few stops early in Yarraville. Katie was a bit confused at first, but then she quickly figured out what we were doing. I still tried my best to keep it a secret.
Even though she more or less knew where we were going, I still blindfolded her for good measure.
It's a Katie-moose. Seemed like a must take picture. I wish I had found a box for her to stand in.
Mad Moose is a pizza joint we found while exploring Yarraville a couple of weeks before. They looked like they had some really interesting and tasty options. So I stole the idea from our to-do list for this blind date. It was really tough to decide what to get because there were so many good options. But we ended up with this:
Our Pizza! We got a pizza with half Oasis and half Plucka.
Oasis: Garlic, napoli sauce, tasty cheese, Spanish onions, roasted red capsicum, green capsicum, diced tomato, falafel and a sprinkle of chilli. topped with tzatziki Plucka: Plum sauce, tasty cheese, peking duck breast, topped with cucumber, carrot and coriander.
Katie approves!
Both types of pizza were amazing. We ate it all in one sitting. So it was well worth the stop even with being exhausted from our earlier activities. It was a good way to end Katie's Australian blind date. And that was that. I hope you enjoyed my retelling of one of our last Australian adventures of the month. Cheers! p.s. We definitely paid for some of our falls the next day. Both of us had some pretty sore necks and shoulders. But due to lack of time and a previous commitment with another house mate, we still went rock climbing one last time. It wasn't our best performance, but at least we didn't make it too much worse.
We woke refreshed after our stay in Warrnambool and set off to explore more of the Great Ocean Road and surrounding areas. Our host had filled us in on a few more things to do in the area, and we decided to take her suggestion of visiting Middle Island in Warrnambool. Middle Island has a Little Penguin colony. The island is also accessible by land at low tide and foxes were reaching the penguins and killing them off. After many failed attempts to save the penguins, the town finally succeeded by training dogs to live on the island and protect against foxes. You can read more about the project here. There's also a movie called "Oddball" coming out about the story, and you're welcome to watch the trailer below as well as see our pictures.
We weren't able to get close, but those may be some penguins at the edge of the island
We didn't see any of the protective dogs in real life, just on this sign
We then drove about 30 minutes further west to the quaint fishing village of Port Fairy. There we wandered around the ocean side park and tried to get a better view of the lighthouse. It was very windy on the piers.
Port Fairy fishing boats
Wandering around rock sided pools near the piers
Bright and windy beach area with the lighthouse hidden between the trees
Me and Lisa getting nearly blown off the pier
We tried to zoom in the camera as much as we could to see the lighthouse
We didn't have a lot of time to spend in Port Fairy, because we needed to head back east along the Great Ocean Road to see some more sights and make it to Melbourne in the evening. On the way we stopped again at Bay of Islands to see how the islands looked in full daylight instead of setting sun.
Bay of Islands in the bright sun
We then stopped at Gibson Steps near the Twelve Apostles. There are 86 steps from the top of the cliff down to the beach. The steps were technically closed that day due to high water, but we could see some beach sand below and decided to risk it. We were glad we went, because the giant waves were fun to watch and the wet sand felt wonderful between our toes. We just stayed smart and safe and never turned our back to the ocean.
It looked like there was plenty of safe beach space, so we had to go down
The cliff edge flora was pretty
Heading down the steps with a view of one of the Twelve Apostles ahead
There were some surfers way down the beach
Loving the feel of the ocean and of kinda trespassing
Our punishment for jumping the barrier was to walk all 86 steps up
The next stretch of the Great Ocean Road required a lot of driving through winding, forested areas to the town of Apollo Bay.
Brandon loved driving the winding roads of course
The forested area was nice scenery to drive through
A view of the ocean from a turnout along the way
The water was cold, but it was a hot day, so a lot of people were swimming in Apollo Bay
Our next stop was Kafe Koala near Kennett River. Jacqui, our Altona host, had recommended the spot to see koalas and native Australian parrots. She insisted that we stop and gave us bird seed to feed the parrots. I was hesitant at first, but I think it turned out to be the most memorable and fun part of the day.
Holding seed in your hand causes you to become a parrot perch
It turned out to be a fun experience
Brandon just loved it and wished he had a pirate eye patch
There was a koala super close too!
A real, wild, live koala!
We continued along the coastline, stopping occasionally to admire and take pictures.
Moonrise Kingdom pose
Eventually we made our way to Lorne where we had some dinner. The pastor whose car we borrowed had recommended the fish and chips place there, and we all decided it was very good indeed.
Salty Dog Fish and Chippery
Before driving home we put our feet in the ocean and took in one last sunset at Torquay. It was the perfect way to end our Great Ocean Road journey.
