Geelong is a sort of jumping off point for one of Victoria state's major tourist attractions, being the Great Ocean Road - oh yes, for those of you unfamiliar with Australia's political makeup - it consists of five states and two territories - the territories being Western Australia and the Northern Territory. This trip was confined to two states, Victoria and New South Wales, which in fact is a decent area to cover considering that (like Canada again) the political jurisdictions of Australia are quite large chunks of land.

It actually took us a few wrong turns to find the onramp to the Great Ocean Road - and it's a long road at that. It major attraction is a good six hours down the road - the Twelve Apostles. We stopped at several beaches (this continent has so many beautiful stretches of beach it would make Hawaii jealous), a few parks, and in the late afternoon decided to turn around - after all, our ultimate destination was the other way; the Great Ocean Road goes west from Melbourne, while Sydney as I'm sure you know is in the opposite direction.
























Inland you could be forgiven for thinking Victoria is nothing but a massive cattle farm, because it is. Large tracts of fertile farmland for hundreds of kilometres in either direction of Melbourne, filled with rural life that one does not usually associate with Australia - the stereotypes of the 'outback' are not in sync with what's happening in the state of Victoria, Australia's most developed state. It was interesting to see this contrast, to see how the dense Australian jungle has been pastoralized.

Back the other way, though - as we headed out onto the Prince's Highway east, to the lower right corner of Australia. There are two highways to Sydney; the longer more scenic route heads along the coast, while the other cuts through the mountains, skirting the Australian capital of Canberra and heading to Sydney. Looking for scenery we chose the scenic route; we spent the night in the town of Sale, at a Best Western Hotel of all places. Straight out of North America. We were lucky to get even that, as the place closes early, around 11pm, and our arrival at 11:30pm wasn't exactly a prime time to see the town. Although, unforunately, there wasn't much to see in this place.

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