Sunday 20 December 2015

APOLLO BAY

Just over a week ago, my friend Emma and I left Melbourne for a five day trip to Apollo Bay.
I slept over at Emma's house the night before we left and it was the first time I'd seen her in over 10 months. We departed her house at about 10am the next morning and I just have to mention that while we were waiting for our train we ate the best dumplings I've probably ever had.

After roughly eight hours of travelling, we had arrived in Apollo Bay and were checking into our hostel. We stayed at the YHA Eco Hostel, chosen both for the price and the good reviews, and in no way were we disappointed. Neither Emma nor I had ever stayed in a hostel before so we were pretty much expecting the worst - especially after hearing hostel horror stories from family members and pieces online - but this hostel was as clean as any hotel, the people were super friendly (yet not too friendly), happy to help and I didn't feel like my belongings were in any way unsafe, although of course that didnt stop me from taking all the precautions!

While we were eating dinner the first night (massive bowls of pasta), we were sitting on a deck just outside the kitchen and a guy a few years older than us came outside and spoke to us. It turned out he was also vegan and was pretty chuffed about the fact that at that moment in time and space, 100% of the people sitting/standing on that deck were vegan. I guess it was pretty cool.

Day 2 of our trip was cool and cloudy, so we decided to rug up and go for a walk through Marengo to Shelly beach.
Of course I managed to completely forget about sunscreen until we were back in Apollo Bay and my usually-very-pale-face was well on it's way to becoming Belthazor (aka Cole's red-faced demon form from 'Charmed').


Beach - what more can I say

The trail from Marengo to Shelly beach
The rocks here were amazing! Very slippery too
The lighting isn't great here but I felt like I had to show at least one photo of myself hahaha
The thing I love most about Apollo Bay is that you have the beach one way and these beautiful hills the other, unique compared to other beach towns along the Great Ocean Road
As we were eating dinner that night - do all interesting things happen during food time or do we just eat 24/7? - we were swarmed by seagulls and for a moment there I was genuinely scared. Probably more than a moment considering birds are very near the top of my 'things to be scared of' list. Luckily, Emma had no problem channeling her inner demon and protecting our chips from being bird-napped.

After chips we went for a walk along the beach and the water was soo beautiful




Day 3 was a very chill day. I didn't feel too great due to the suburn on my face and the fact that I had been consistently layering my face with any sort of moisturiser I could find. It left me feeling sluggish, although I suppose that momentary relief was worth it at the time. I did naht want a peely face.
We stayed in our room pretty much all day, aside from being temporarily locked out, until we decided to go for a 'walk' up to Mariner's Lookout. I put the word 'walk' in quotation marks because that isn't exactly how we got there...
According the the receptionist at our hostel, it was about an hours walk each way, up and down a steep hill, but we had to do something that day. Maybe two minutes into the walk, a taxi drove past and all it took was one look at eachother and we were on our way, cruising up the hill in a yellow taxi - at a slightly alarming speed, might I add.
The view from the lookout was really nice, we could see all of Apollo Bay + more, and once returning from our walk (yep, we actually managed to walk back) we had a quick look at the view from the top of our hostel before retiring to our room to play Animal Crossing, like the adults we are.


The view from Mariner's Lookout
A sheep we saw on the way back from the lookout! I snapped probably like twenty photos of it's bum and like four of it's face - this is the money shot


The last two days were relatively similar, there wasn't heaps to do without a car or a bike, so on our last night we both got an icypole (the sorbet place was closed, unfortunately) and had a bit of a laugh while *attempting* to exercise, and pretty much all of the next day was spent travelling. It also included me not feeling so great on the bus ride back, losing my wallet (which held I sterling silver toe ring I bought) and some interesting characters on the train - one of whom legitimately sounded like a pimp.
Three things I have taken away from this trip are:

  1. Do not forget to be sun safe, even/especially when it's cloudy!! (This is one I already knew, but clearly it needed reinforcement)
  2. Wheely bags/backpacks will greatly improve your quality of life. My brother of course took my suitcase the day before I needed it, so I was stuck with lugging around a heavy suitcase in my hand - painful and impractical, don't do it.
  3. Sweet chilli sauce has a lot of sugar - we went temporarily mad.
Sorry if this was super long, I had so much to write about. I also have heaps more photos to share so I may or may not do a second post mainly with photos and not much writing (I always find that those sort of posts keep my attention longer too)
-Gracie

ME (Belthazor)












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