Good morning fair maidens and kind sirs! Well, I am ashamed to say that it has been a week since my last proper post. eep! But i have been super busy so I'm off the hook. It's my hook anyway so I decide who is on or off it, and I am soooo off it. Yep.
As you know Josh and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary last Thursday (25th March) so we went away to Paradise! I'm not figuratively speaking here, it's an actual place! It's in the mountains behind Apollo Bay on the Oleeeee 'Great Ocean Road". Starting with a map of its location, here are a billion photos for your enjoyment:
Behind the beach town of Apollo Bay lies the majestic mountainous region which is part of the Otways National Park. Think farm meets fern rainforest. Amazing. this is the sign just before our accommodation...
This is out cottage called "Twisted Willow cottage" which is part of the "Paradise Gardens Cottages B&B"...
we had already run around and jumped on the bed which is why it is crinkly hehe
best. shower. ever.
our neighbours in the double story cottage
the complimentary music selection- in hindsight we should have listened haha
this was our dinner on Wednesday. Good old Josh whipped it up while i napped on the couch after our looooong drive. lovelove! He made a nice salad, some little fried potato cubes cooked with white wine and pepper - really good, and some marinated lamb cooked on the bbq outside :) a tasty meal!!
we just chilled out on Wednesday night after our yummy dinner, we went for a walk up the windy road heading up-hill. It was almost pitch black and we didn't have a torch and then of course my imagination ran away from me and i said to Josh "What would you do if some crazy mountain man came running from out behind those bushes screaming?" and then we both got scared cos we couldn't see much and there was a creepy corrugated iron crack shed that we had passed and it made me think of wolf creek. So we went back and watched a movie and drank lots of wine :)
The next day was our anniversary but we couldn't decide what to do. Eventually we got our shit together and drove back down to apollo bay to visit the beach...
after that we went...excuse me i'm in josh's room and some crazy music came on shuffle and i'm scared..... ok crisis averted. i was listening to the mars volta and the cd finished and the next one was converged. it scared me. now i have some nice weet bix and banana breakfast and jeff buckley is serenading me as i type. much better! where was i... oh yes. after that we went for a drive to cape otway to check out the lighthouse view. it took about another 30 mins or so from Apollo Bay and when we got there we found out it was $17 entry... and i didnt drive all that way to just turn around!! i felt sorry for all the poor backpackers who also drove there and just hung out in the carpark because they couldnt justify paying that much money! oh wells...
it was pretty cool man. pretty cool. on the way back to apollo bay we passed this girl hitch-hiking but it was JUST as i turned a corner and didnt see her til it was too late. i felt really bad cos if it takes 30 mins to drive back to apollo bay i dont want to imagine how long it would take to walk... yuck.
Ok so then we just chilled out at the cottage until dinner. We went to a pricey seafood restaurant called "The Vista" on the main drag and it was delicious. the owner was dining at the table next to me so i didn't want to whip out my camera and take photos haha! Josh got a Morroccan Chicken breast with cous cous and i got a seafood linguine. Best Seafood Pasta EVERRRRR! it was so fresh and delicious. i want more, but alas my weetbix will have to sustain me. For dessert Josh got a whiskey on the rocks and I got a creme brulee with ice cream and berry compote. It was so efffing delicious! I had recently watched amelie so i got extra pleasure out of cracking the top of the creme brulee with the back of my spoon :) then after that i drove back to the cottage and could finally have a drink, so i got stuck into the Bella (twilight!!) champagne with strawberries and we watched heaps of that 70's show. it was great, took me back to like..year 7 or whenever it was on TV.
On Friday morning we had to check out, and we were planing to get up early and go for a hike, but that didn't happen! We just took forever getting ready and packing up the car, and checked out just before check-out time. Then we drive up the mountain to the walking trail and it was a crazy CRAZY experience. The last time we came here for a walk back in January or something this dog walked with us almost the whole way. When we got out of our car this time, another dog approached us...
and started to walk the trail ahead of us. I was bewildered, 2 visits, 2 different dogs...
We established that she was a girl as she kept squatting everywhere. She led us the whole way to the waterfall, and each time Josh and I stopped to look at something or to take a photo, she would stop and wait, then when we resumed walking so would she. Crazy! i gave her the incredibly clever name of "Puppy" even though she was clearly old.
When we finally got to the end of the trail she started acting very strange. She was no lnger content silently leading us around and waiting, she dropped the whole "forest spirit" vibe and started backing away from me like she was scared. Josh thought i was being menacing but then i realised she wanted to play!! Josh picked up a stick and she went BONKERS!
i took some video of the puppy shenanigans too, but i haven't loaded video to the blog before soooo, fingers crossed these work:
omg on the second one you can hear my high-pitched child-like voice. yipes!! i swear it's only that high cos i'm baby-talking a dog hehe
oh yeah and here are a million mushrooms...
i didn't want to test if they were edible or not. if bear grylls was there, i can assure you i could tell you if they were or not. oh here's a cute shot of "puppy" wanting me to play.
the sheep were a little frightened of 'puppy'. they kept running as a herd in the opposite direction. When we got back to the car, puppy sadly hung her head and walked back to wherever she came from - my guess is the farm next door to the walking trail carpark.
After that we went and had some lunch in Apollo Bay before hitting the road. The weather was overcast and a little drizzly, so I thought my car would stay nice and cool for the drive back. Oh how wrong I was. EBI was driving terribly and was getting very overheated, so around Waurn Ponds we saw a winery coming up on the right and thought it was a pretty good place to let her cool down for a while. The only problem was that i locked my keys in the car. fuuuckkk!!!! i was so pissed off man!! We asked for help but nobodys keys could open my car (for a change) and Josh couldnt successfully break in:
eventually we had to call the RACV but my phone was flat so luckily josh had his phone on him. They told me that apparently i hadnt paid my renewal fee and i was technically a non-member so if i wanted to get rescued from Waurn Ponds i would have to pay $291 over the phone with my mastercard debit. i didnt know what money was in my account but it worked and 1.5 hours later, after josh had wine tasted the whole range, the racv guy showed up and within 1 minute i was on the road. Problem was, even after 2 hours rest, EBI started to shit herself again. We had to stop under a bridge for half an hour and re-fill the water just in case. Then when we were almost home she was getting dangerously hot, but we made it to the highway petrol station and hung out there for about 15 mins. Eventually we made it home but the house was empty, so i went with Josh in his car to his new house in Flemington. SECOND SLEEP OVER! T'was good. I have some more pics to show you, but they will belong in another post! Ok Josh is back from work now, so soon i'll be heading back to my place to chill out before work tomorrow :(
cry cry!!
HA! So I have decided to just make sausage rolls tonight. Should go down a treat. Last year one guy brought along an esky full of VB cans and a pie oven full of meat pies. It was the best! Unfortunately I cannot be bothered with grand stunts this time so i am copping out and going for the sanga rolls.
Yes, I can see the resemblance. That's comedian Andy Zaltzman, Josh says we have the same sense of humour: stupid and exaggerated, wild rambling tangents, incredible imagination and love of hypotheticals... well that about sums me up :D
