Down the Great Ocean Road

Dated: 15 march 2005

Hi everyone,

Last weekend was my first in Australia and a long one at that too! Monday was a holiday for Labour Day. What would I do then? Go out of course!

I found out from local people here about the Great Ocean Road. If the name definitely caught my attention, in retrospect I am glad I chose this location because what I saw simply blew my breath away! The Shipwreck Coast is aptly named indeed.This beautiful stretch of road lies south-west of Melbourne and hugs one of the most rugged natural coastlines in the world all along its length.

A complete dossier on the Great Ocean Road is available on their website: www.greatoceanroad.org and I urge to you visit this well built and very informative site. You would read about the history and all the stories relating to this part of natural beautiful Australia in this site. I have uploaded some beautiful pictures I shot myself on this trip on imagestation and have sent some of you the link.

I went on the trip with a few colleagues and since I did not have a car then, we went on the guided tour bus. Apart from the awesome beauty of the place itself, I enjoyed thoroughly the continuous running commentary of our bus driver cum guide. The highlight of the day was the Typcal Aussie breakfast that our guide had prepared himself and this included lovely Australian herbal tea and some crackers with vegemite (a jam of sorts made from vegetables, but with the look of tar) and succulent home-made honey cakes. We returned after an exhilarating experience at night stopping by in the quaint old village of Colac for some evening refreshments.

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and am certain I would be making a trip again down this lovely route soon, only next time by car and including an overnight stay somewhere in the beautiful and quiet Otways.

A must go trip for anyone visiting the southern parts of Australia, the Great Ocean Road. Until the next post, Das Vidaniya and may the Lord be with you. :-)

Kangaroo Jack from Melbourne

Hello everyone!

I had a long but quite comfortable flight to Melbourne. There was a long stop-over in Singapore and in my Singapore-Melbourne flight, I mostly slept. It so happened that someone I knew from IBM was on the same Bangalore-Singapore flight. So we passed the time together in Singapore airport. Singapore airport is a fascinating place. It is so beautifully designed and comfortable.

I converted some Aussie dollars for Singapore dollars and had a cup of hot cocoa for S$4.00! One S$ = Rs. 28/-. Well, I felt quite full in my stomach after that drink!

My flight SQ217 landed at the Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne. I caught a cab from the airport and the taxi driver, after a little bit of searching found the address and I met Sathish Ganesh there. He leads the onsite team and is a nice guy. Already met couple of other veggie guys too.

It is overcast and temperature hovers around 16-20 degrees. Quite comfortable actually.

My apartment (a temp 2 bedroom one) is lavishly furnished. It is like the designer apartments that we see on TV interior design shows. A state of the art futuristic apartment. I will send pics later. In a week I will move into another apartment (a 1 Bedroom one) and that will be my place for a long time come.

I plan to get and stock provisions this evening. I am told all Indian items are available here from a SriLankan store nearby.

I have to open my bank account here in a day or two.

I came to office here just in time for a photo shoot of the whole team. I got a PMI T-Shirt and a place in the team photo.

Will keep you posted from down under regularly.

Hakuna Matata! No Worries!