Rollin on the River

Wow, this weekend was AWESOME!  Stathi picked up me and 2 other friends around 5 yesterday, and we hit the road to his holiday house.  The radio in the car was sort of broken, which actually turned out to be pretty nice since we just chit-chatted the entire way to his house.  We stopped off at the beach in Geelong to grab a bite to eat, where I encountered "flake"....

When ordering flake & chips, I was thinking it was, in essence, fish & chips, which was correct, until I found out that flake is....shark.  I'm accumulating the worst karma on earth right now by eating so many different animals.  

So we kept driving and finally made it to Stathi's holiday house in St. Leonard's.  Now, keep in mind, Stathi is Greek, and his family is VERY Greek, so much to our amusement, his house was the only one on the block that had been painting blue and white.  *giggle*  It was actually an incredibly nice house with about 4 bedrooms, pool table, upstairs kitchen area w/a tv.  For us it was incredible to have more room than a 3x5 foot cube....

We headed over to the beach after it got dark to just sit by the bay, where we ended up chatting for a while, and then Stathi decided he wanted to go in the water.  He said it was warm, and somehow convinced us all that we should go in the water too.....clothed....oops.  So we marched into the bay, nearly broke our necks trying to climb over the rocky part to get out to the sandbar, and finally regained sensation in our feet.  It was probably one of the coolest moments of my life, standing in the water outside Melbourne, staring up at the moon.

Later that night, Stathi crashed, but Camille and Tyler and I stayed up talking until about 4:30 in the morning, despite having a massive day planned out for the next day.  Needless to say.....nobody woke up until 11, so our day started a bit late....

We ran a few errands before we got rolling, grabbed a pizza, and hit the road.  We had originally planned to head over to this waterfall nearby and go hiking....that was before we checked our gas level.  We were literally in the middle of the woods, with our gas light on.  Oh crap.  We decided we didn't have enough gas to turn back and get more, so we may as well keep going.  Keep in mind, we're driving a massive gas-guzzling 4WD....

So once we arrived at the turnoff for the waterfall, we decided to just leave the car at the top, and climb down to where it was ourselves.  As we started walking down there, however, me and Stathi got seized by a fit of energy, and decided we should all JOG!  So we took off running down the hill, prompting everybody else to unwillingly follow us....tee hee

When we got to the bottom, we started hiking down the trail to the waterfall, only to discover at the bottom that due to the droughts recently, the waterfall was more of a.....trickle.....*aw*  We opted to hike a little further downstream to check out another one, which turned out to be even worse, and was just a slightly damp rock face....

As it started getting later, we realized we needed to get back to the car if we wanted to make it to the Great Ocean Road to see the 12 Apostles (huge rock pillars out in the ocean), but realized that we had about a 1.5 mile walk UP the mountain.....so we opted to hitch a ride back to the top with this other couple that was leaving, which was AWESOME.

We piled back into the car, and, after filling up the car, headed out to see the 12 apostles.  Our timing was actually amazing when we got there, as the sun was starting to set directly behind them, so it was a gorgeous view.  Apparently they form when the ocean eats away at the headlands, and narrows out sections of rock away from the mainland, which results in these giant limestone pillars.  It was super-cool, though Camille and I were desperate to see wild kangaroos/echidnas, but they were hiding :(

After we left the 12 Apostles to head back home, we realized that we had kind of a long drive ahead of us, but didn't really have any other option, and hit the road for the next 4 hours >.<  It was not pleasant, but we did finally manage to get the radio semi-working?....it helped.

We spent the next 4 hours rocking out to some surprisingly good music, then met Stathi's very Greek mother, who said at least 10 times that she wants to have us over so she can cook for us.....um....SURE :D

Now I'm home, feel completely disgusting due to lack of shower, tired from extensive sun/driving, and not prepared for class tomorrow and the approach of spring break....

Happiness is driving on the Great Ocean Road, listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival :D