Ima buy you a drank (for Rachy-roo)

The Great Ocean Road was amazing. We rented a Hyundai Getz, possible the world's smallest car. Our last night before we left we hung out with these 2 guys in CoffeePalace, they had just come back from GOR and gave us some tips on what to do. We went to Cone Heads for chips and gravy, sooo good. Unfortunately there was a mouse in our room and it was running around all night with something that was rolling around (a malteser i think) and it kept running into walls. it was fairly disconcerting and i was paranoid that it was going to eat through my bag or chew the wires of my electronics. So needless to say i didnt sleep well. Got pancakes for free for brekky again though, which made me really happy. the car rental place was a 10 min walk from our hostel, which we found quickly. Can't believe we wlaked for 3 hrs the day before trying to find it...
Anyway we got lost as we were leaving the city, obviously, but managed to get on track quick enough. The coast was gorgeous! We drove to 12 apostles straight away. soo amazing! The weather was a bit crap, but no fog. We also saw the Gibson steps, Loch Arch, London Bridge and heaps of amazing look-outs. You could honestly stop every 5 minutes and see something amazing. We lived off of PB and J on bread the whole time. I'm almost sick of it. but not quite. we stopped at port campbell to get coffees and shop a bit. I had the best chai latte of my life. It was made with the tea bag, not syrup. loved it. we also got scones with cream and jam. fresh out of the oven. It was nice to feel like a real person again and not just a backpacker. We drove all the way to Karrambool the first day (about 6 hr drive with all the twisting and turning of the coastal road). There was no where good to park in Karrambool, so we drove back to the Bay of Islands and just parked at a random lookout that was surrounded by trees. We were both a bit scared because its obviously illegal to just park and sleep in the car, and there could be crazy murderers in the trees...so neither of us slept very well. but we woke up to an amazing view! we head out around 9am and stopped for pictures at a fair few lookouts. Got some amazing shots. My favorite by far was the grotto. We actually saw it the night before and it was about 7pm, so the sun was starting to go down and no one was about. It had stairs down to the water and you could get really close to the rocks and the waves were just crashing around everywhere, it was amazing to see how powerful the ocean is and yet be so close to it.
We stopped again in port cambell, this time at a cute little bakery to use the toilets and get coffees, I got my flat white that I have come to accustomed to (why don't we have it in Canada, its basically a latte with no foam...glorious).
Then we drove on to Apollo bay, we stopped at a random beach where there were about 1000 surfers to ogle for a bit. We realized the car had an aux cord in the glove compartment so we listened to Rocko's iPod, which was nice because the radio was really unreliable in the more hilly areas. We stopped for lunch in Apollo bay and bought some chocolate bars too. Just for variety...haha
At 3pm we were so tired we stopped at a beach in Lorne and slept for 2 hours. It was awesome. We were just so exhausted from all the driving and lack of sleep. we drove all the way to Lara, which is about 50km from Melbourne. We had no idea where to park, no where seemed appropriate. We drove about an hour out of the way to try and find a random spot and then settled at a train station in Lara that advertised 350 parking spots from the highway. woot. we had some PB and J and then fell asleep in a shaded corner and hoped we wouldnt get in trouble. i woke up about 1000 times in the night, even though our seats reclined all the way back it just wasn't very comfy and i had no sleeping bag and it goes down to about 12 degrees at night which is just freezing. left around 7am (no drama!) and caught the rush hour traffic into melbourne. we returned the car on time and went to our fave bakery in st kilda, called 'the bakery' and got a chocolate croissant and latte. awesome. we went to peter pan's to sort our lives out and find a hostel. There was one called Jackson's around the corner and there was space. Its so dodgy! But i liek it. the old man who owned it was such a legend. he chucked pillows up the stairs to us since we couldnt find any in our rooms. it was glorious to shower finally. the showers were all singles which was nice. but, our room stinks really badly of sweat and crap. there was a couple sharing a double bed and the guy was full-on naked. i will never get used to mixed dorms! can be so awkard.
went down to the beach with a pizza bun for lunch. had a swim and then went to do some kiteboarding. i learned to set up the kite, then flew teh kite for about 2 seconds before it crashed to the ground and i fell with the force and twisted my ankle. i am so annoyed with myself. it really hurts. The wind died after that, so i will ice my foot tonight and hopefully finish my lesson tomorrow. im hoping it will be an awesome wind tomorrow.
last 2 nights in Aus, so sad!
Love!