The Great Ocean Raod

sat, nov 20

-travel day
-got up this morning, packed up and headed to the airport for our fligt to melbourne
-kristen assured us we didn't need to be at the airport early, as it's very small and easy to get around
-our flight was at 11:30, kristen live 20 minutes from the airport, and she suggested we leave her house and 10:20 AND we had bags to check
-needless to say, i was a little nervous
-no worries, though - kristen was right (of course)
-HOWEVER, canberra has a new terminal, and the luggage conveyor belts were out of order, which literally put the entire airport out of order (didn't this happen when denver built their new airport years ago? although, this was on a much smaller scale)
-they never got it going, but pulled passengers out of line whose flights were leaving soon, tagged bags by hand, and carried them through and we made it to melburne on time
-HOWEVER, our luggage did not
-qantas assured us that our bags would be delivered to uor hotel as soon as they arrived in melbourne
-that would have been fabulous if i had known where we were staying, but i had no idea where we were staying, (kristen handled this part of our itinerary) to tell the airline where to bring our bags, so of course, i didn't have the required AUSTRALIAN phone number for the to contact (not to mention an address or hotel name!)
-i was a bit caught off guard and had to regroup a bit
-got a text from kristen that her flight (which was originally scheduled to arrive in melbourne and hour after ours) had been CANCELLED, and she was arriving after 6pm instead of 2pm
-so kristen texted me the hotel details and i was able to share them with qantas who assured us they would deliver our lost bags as soon as they arrived
-kristen finally got to the hotel, which turned out to be a fabulous room at the Crown Promenade
-we all settled in for the evening
-(still no bags at 9 pm)
-12 am: call from bell desk that our bags have arrived
-2 bags were brought up (out of 4), and we were leaving bright and early the next day

sun, nov 21

-HAPPY BIRTHDAY CADE IN AUSTRALIA!!!
-gave each cade and tucker they fell in love with when we visited the toranga zoo in sydney and they were very grateful
-9 am the final 2 bags arrived (hip hip hooray!!!)
-out on the road!
-GORGEOUS drive from melbourne to appollo bay where we stayed 2 nights along the great ocean road
-stopped in torqay (a cute-beach-surf-hawaiian-style little town) for a subway lunch
-continued onto appollo bay
-checked into our cottage
-cade, tuck, kristen & simon went off to enjoy the beach, while i (literally) kept the homefires burning - there was a beautiful wood-burning fireplace with lots of wood and we enjoyed fires both nights
-they all had a great time on the beach - tons of tidepools, jellyfish and cade met a little boy named christopher who was also enjoying his birthday!
-there were lots of kids at this resort and each cottage had a back door that opened out onto a beautiful grassy field where little boys could run wild!
-the couple who managed the resort were lovely and had young boys and, therefore, toys for young boys. our boys greatly enjoyed the golf set they brought over!
-we had take-out pizza for dinner
-and, oreo cookies, instead of cake, for cade's birthday

mon, nov 22

-HAPPY BIRHTDAY TO CADE IN THE US!!!
-got to talk to mom, dad, jan, finn & ashe and hear what was happening at home
-left cottage ~10 am to continue along the great ocean road
-~10 mins into our journey and wallaby just hopped across the road (much like a deer would in the states), stopped looked at us and continued hopping
-our first stop was at a lighthouse that we didn't go to, but along that road, we looked into the trees and saw KOALAS just lounging about in the trees above. this was SO cool!!! and we even saw one with a baby on its branch. so cool!
-next stop was the 12 apostles. absolutely breathtaking. amazing!
-we had a late lunch a little further down the road and headed back to our cottage
-battened down the hatches and retired for the night

tue, nov 23

-left cottage at 8 am to head back to melbourne for kristen to catch her 11:30 flight back to canberra
-i'm assuming she made it on time (but just barely) b/c we haven't heard from her
-the boys and i walked over to our lovely holiday inn (it's no holiday inn express like the one in eugene, but it's very comfortable)
-checked into the hotel, got online to discover our flight back to l.a. had been changed (due to the troubles qantas is having with the airbus 380), which meant a 13 HOUR LAYOVER IN SYDNEY on the 29th
-this meant, we wake at 3:30AM in cairns for a 5:45am flight, landing at 9am and get on an 11pm flight back to l.a.
-so, we walked back to the airport (it's just across the street), talked to a qantas agent
-we are now taking a later flight from cairns and have a shorter layover in sydney
-would have preferred to get to la a little sooner, but at least we're not up at 3am, and spending 13 hours in an airport
-that's it for now, we head up north to the great barrier reef tomorrow, so we're gonna take it easy this evening, have some dinner and go to bed

observations:

-NOT impressed with qantas, in all these years, i've never had this many issues combined, on the other hand, no big deal! just get us from here to there safely, and that's all that really matters
-kristen is an AMAZING tour guide, host and friend
-kristen's simon is just gorgeous and a great little traveller, if not a little cheeky at times ;-)
-i would NEVER have known about the great ocean road with kristen, and SO thankful to her for doing all the driving!!!
-australia is HUGE
-my camera broke - using tucker's and my iphone :-(
-cade & tucker said that kristen and i are "chatterboxes" when we're together (i'd have to agree)
-beaches here are AMAZING - cannot believe there weren't more people!
-just an incredible coastline
kind of reminded me of the drive to hana but less crowded, less curvy, wider roads and just generally, more open