Driving the Great Ocean Road

A dear friend that lives in Seattle, Washington, USA asked me to make a point of looking at the night sky in Australia to tell her what it’s like to see entirely new stars.

So, last night after a day of flying into Victoria, vertical tastings of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Shiraz, an Australia-focused dinner of classic regional wines plus locally (as in backyard) harvested lamb leg and shoulder, I walked outside and looked up at the night sky. The first thing I saw was Orion.

Today my host was kind enough to drive me into Geelong and along part of the Great Ocean Road. We stopped and looked south into the Southern Ocean, the water here, a beautiful ultramarine.

Here are photos from two lookouts along the Road.

Eastern View Beach, looking West, Great Ocean Road

Eastern View Beach, looking West, Great Ocean Road

standing in front of the Southern Ocean in summer

the view from Devil’s Elbow, Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road often includes whale sightings as they swim through the Southern Ocean. We did not see any this visit.

After the drive we turned to the city of Geelong, the second largest to Melbourne in the region of Victoria, for dinner.

the Geelong Harbor

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The visit so far has included:

Whale Beach Dinner

(1) an intensive taxi ride from the Sydney airport to a wine party at Whale Beach. The Aussies took a collection to raise the money to get me to the party after my flight arrived in Sydney 12-hours late. The ride cost almost $200 but they decided they’d rather meet me there than have me stay in town. Cool.

Wines they were drinking at the party?

These people have damn good taste.

Rootstock

(2) Rootstock all day intensive Aussie hipster viewing session. Okay, it was actually a WINE TASTING event, and I did taste a ton of wine but just as significant was learning what the Sydney hipster scene looks like. (I’ll post on the stand-out wine from that event soon. Thank you to Mike Bennie for the invitation and his hard work on the event. Congratulations on its success!)

VIctoria

(3) A flight to Victoria. Geelong (and a few from Ballarat) region wine tasting. Tasting of some Australian wine classics from other regions.

I’ve got a lot of wine to write about, but I am also letting myself calibrate to this unique place first.

Tomorrow I head to the Grampions, then on to Yarra Valley.

Cheers!

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p.s. My internet access here is spotty so I’ll be posting as I’m able. I’d intended to get in a longer write up today but by the time I had internet access I had to admit I was tired. So, instead, these photos.

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Thank you to David Fesq, the Fesq family, Ray Nadeson, Maree Collis, Alex Byrne.

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