The Great Victoria Road Trip

4 hours in the air — 7 days — 1,700 km in the car — 4 hotel rooms — 1 near broken nose – 0 puke

Victoria, Australia is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. After driving around the state for 5 days with a 5 year old and a 2 year old, one would think that we would be sick of the car, but thanks to the amazing scenery, comfy trackies, a fantastic chauffeur, and a couple cat naps, the time flew by. Here is a recap of our latest adventure.

Flight.

The flight to Melbourne went surprisingly well with the 2 munchkins. Ty started off in the window seat, me in the aisle, and Lily in the middle. Someone in an office with no kids that works for the airlines has made the decision that a 2 year old is safest in her own seat. That person needs to be fired. Or at least spend some time on a flight with a 2 year old and see how well they sit there and not try to unclick the super child proof (not) seat belt locks, and not try to stand up 50 times while taxiing. So yeah, takeoff was a little stressful. Once we got in the air, Ty decided he wanted to sit in dad’s seat (the aisle), which worked out way better. Lily moved to the window and I was in the middle – easy access to both. We hired an iPad for Ty, so he got to watch some different shows. Lily watched Tangled. Well, she set of watched it. She watched it for a few minutes, then she switched to Grover, then pictures, then puzzle app, then Tangled. Over and over and over again. As we began our descent into Melbourne, Lily decided she needed to get the wiggles out before falling asleep. I told (not asked) the flight attendant to bring me an infant seat belt strap. She questioned how old she was, to which I replied “she turned two on Saturday and will not sit in that seat safely so bring me the strap now please.” Good lord people. Once I got the strap on her she snuggled up and fell asleep almost instantly. Smooth landing. Woohoo!

Hibachi.

Jay met us at the airport and after a short drive to the hotel, we met up with Joy and Lee and walked to China town for dinner. We ate at a yummy hibachi restaurant. The kids loved it! Ty did an awesome job at the bowl catching game – better than I did! He also got to try to catch as many eggs as possible in his mouth from the machine gun-style egg chopping chef. He belly laughed his way through that little game. So cute. Em successfully ate an entire meal without using a fork – only chopsticks.

Aquarium.

Jay and I had to go to work on Wednesday (lame) so Em was flying solo with the kids – in a city she has never been to before. She did mention something to me about how this next blog needs to be entirely about her. She deserves it. Seriously. She walked the kids to the aquarium, ate lunch at a restaurant with them, and got them safely back to the hotel. By herself. This is the girl that hates cities, and gets lost going to the Iowa State Fairgrounds (even though she has literally been there 1,000 times). Sorry to the others out there, but she wins the award for Aunt of the Year. The Sealife Aquarium was awesome (so I hear). They had a really mean looking shark and fish that Ty said he has never seen before! “The yellow seahorse is beautiful!”

Markets.

Aunt of the Year. Especially since we ended up getting stuck at the office and had to work later than planned. She was in a good mood when we got home, and the kids were happy. She had ordered room service (Ty’s favorite thing about vacation) so they had full bellies. We quickly changed clothes and walked down to the Queen Vic markets with Joy and Lee. Holy wow. The winter markets are apparently not as big as the summer markets, and while there were not many craft stalls, there were oodles of fun food choices. We started off with some gluhwein (hot spicy wine). Ty got a sweet new Spider-Man hat. We danced to the coolest sounding band – the Scrimshaw Four. Em and I ate amazing potato soup out of a bread bowl. And then we danced some more. Awesome night.

Zoo.

Thursday Jay and I had to go to work again (lame). And Aunt of the Year took the kids to the zoo. She took my two rugrats in a TAXI by herself to the zoo. And they had the best time. Jay asked me if I would take them to the aquarium and the zoo by myself. I quickly responded “hell no.” Aunt of the Year. Em has never been to a zoo (other than the Des Moines one that while nice, is not jaw dropping). Helpful hint to future suitors: she said that she “just wants to find a man who will take her on a date to the Omaha zoo.” Ty loved being the man in charge of directions. He followed the map the whole way through the zoo. It’s a good thing he was there or Emily would still be at the entrance trying to figure out which way to go. She was amazed at how much the gorillas were like humans. I think that was her favorite part of the whole vacation. Or maybe her favorite part was having lunch with 2 children and 500 birds that tried to eat the bread off of Ty’s sausage roll that he spent 30 minutes peeling off – which he then dropped on the ground. And then the birds ate the sausage and Lily was screaming in fear of being the birds’ lunch. Oh wait, that wasn’t her favorite part, that was her least favorite part. But it makes for a funny story. Ty loved the orangutans. So much so that he left his super awesome less than 24 hours old Spider-Man hat by the orangutan display. *sigh*. By the time they realized it they were too far past the orangutans and would have been pretty difficult to get back to. Ty was devastated. Lesson learned. After wiping off the tears, they finished up at the zoo and went out front to catch a cab back to the hotel. Um. No cabs. Crap. She texted me for help (and I was counting an endless supply of ladders so I missed her text). Instead of panicking, she used that little internet device in her pocket and called for a cab. So proud of her! Apparently the cab ride home was interesting. Ty was making machine gun noises the whole way back. I’m sure the driver couldn’t wait to drop off the crazy kid. Lily fell out of the cab (no worries – she shook it off). Aunt of the Year. Successful outing to the zoo – the only casualty was the Spider-Man hat. Woohoo!!!

Shop.

Em and the kids got back to the hotel only a short while before we finished up for the day, and neither kid had had a nap, so they were all wiped when they got home. Jay decided to stay in the room with the kids, so Em and I went out shopping with Lee and Joy. After seeing the price tags at Tiffany, I was worried that I would leave the best shopping city in Australia with only a tube of nappy cream, but thankfully I had some luck at the Mac makeup store. And then we found a leather shop that had b.e.a.utiful bags. And it is the end of the financial year here so shops are trying to clear their inventory before the annual stock takes. Score for me. I got a gorgeous new leather backpack purse that is perfect for traveling. Love.

Max.

The shops were closing and we were all pretty wiped out (I am pretty sure I walked the length of the warehouse 1,000 times that day), so we needed to find a place to eat ASAP. Lee came to the rescue. We thought we were walking away from the action, but he kept saying “it’s just up here.” And then we turned left onto an adorable little alley that was full of cute little restaurants, music, and happy people. We stopped at one called Max and Lee was immediately swarmed with shouts of recognition, hugs, high fives. I felt like we were with a celebrity. Apparently he has been going to this restaurant since they first opened – every time he is in Melbourne. He has hung out with the owner and staff a few times after hours. They sat us right away at a table in the sidewalk and brought out an amazing bread and dip platter and a bottle of wine. We listened to Emily give us her hilarious version of the day’s adventures with the kids. We were all crying we were laughing so hard. Emily couldn’t resist the temptation to order the kangaroo dinner. They cooked it perfectly. She loved it. I am pretty sure she would have kicked her plate clean if she had had one more glass of wine in her. For dessert, the waiter brought us out a complimentary dessert pizza that was topped with ice cream, strawberries, and Nutella. Oh. My. Yum. The food and entertainment for the evening was just perfect. Highly recommend Max.

Great Ocean Road.

Let the vacation begin! As we were waiting for our car at the hotel, we watched a police officer haul a baddy out to the cop car in handcuffs and throw him in the back of the paddy wagon. It was awesome entertainment to start the day. We loaded up the car and headed up the Great Ocean Road. Wow. Thankfully we had all taken our Travelcalm and nobody puked. Because if we hadn’t, we certainly would have all been making good use of those Jetstar bags we grabbed on the flight in. Curve. Curve. Oh look, another curve. Roll down the window, look at the ocean. Curve. The most beautiful drive, for sure. Lily cuddled with her baby doll that she named Addie the whole way. We stopped at a little cafe on the way for lunch, walked around a few shops to stretch out legs and let lunch settle, and then we were off again. Ty and Lily ate more snacks than one can imagine. As Ty says, “snacks are the whole point” of a road trip. Forget the journey or the destination. Only the snacks matter.

We drove right in past our hotel in Apollo Bay so that we could go another hour on more curves roads to see the 12 Apostles. Whoa. It was worth the puke risk. And the freezing cold. Unbelievable. Truly one of the worlds most beautiful tourist attractions. I would also like to take a moment to point out that despite the name, there were only ever 9 Apostles. One collapsed in 2012, leaving 8. Not 12. Ever. Silly Australians.

Apollo Bay.

Back down the curvey road again to make our way back to our hotel in Apollo Bay – Seafarers. We arrived after dark and climbed a steep hill. We parked the car and unloaded the car in the dark – but could hear the roar of the ocean in the distance. The little cabin that we stayed in was adorable. It had a separate bedroom with 2 twin beds, a king bed off the living area with a slider door, and 2 little love seats that pushed together to make the perfect bed for Ty. We dropped our things off and headed to the Great Ocean Road Brewery in town for dinner. For the first time in 2 years, I felt like I was at home. There were so many happy looking families eating dinner in town, all rugged up in their winter clothes. I was in my traveling trackies (sweatpants) and nobody even gave me a strange look. There were a couple dudes that got off of work and showed up in work boots, super short shorts (typical length here), a sweatshirt, and a puffy down winter coat. Perfect. The kids had a little play area with a TV and comfy couches off in the corner and were totally content to sit in there and play while we waited for our dinner. I had a bowl of soup and we drank some yummy beer. I didn’t want to leave, but we had a cute little cabin to hang out in. The cabin was not exactly well insulated – lots of windows to take full advantage of the amazing views. We turned on the stove heater as soon as Lily went to bed to take the edge off the chill. I actually slept in the trackies that I wore all day – with my hood up and my socks on. Ty snuggled up in his “sofa bed”, Lily slept with daddy in the big bed, and Em and I had a slumber party in the twin bedroom. When the sun came up the next morning, we were awestruck by the views. We were up so high, looking down at the ocean. Awesome. I could have stayed there forever, but we had more of Victoria to see. So we packed up the car (again) and headed back down the Great Ocean Road.

Eagles Nest.

We didn’t take it all the way down the road because we had to venture inland to head to the mountains. While we ideally would have loved to go to the Snowy Mountains, they were just a bit too far to make it to this trip – it would have meant another 4 hours in the car (one way on puke roads). See, it’s kind of close…in the general vicinity…

Forgive us for referring to them as the Snowy Mountains, but as longtime fans of the best movie of all time, we are going to pretend like we were in the Snowy Mountains. But wow, the Alpine Mountains are amazing. We drove and drove and drove. Curves. Spelling games. Number games. Shape games. Curves. No puke!! 7 hours later, we pulled into Mount Beauty. We stayed at The Eagles Nest, which is a very unique holiday home up on a hill overlooking the snow covered mountains, green pastures (filled with kangaroos), and the town of Mount Beauty. The Eagles Nest was built in the 1970s, and has been kept up really well. We walked inside and I instantly felt comfortable. It smelled like grandma and grandpa Geisler’s house. I half expected to see all of my Geisler cousins there. The house is for sale if anyone is in the market for a gorgeous Australian mountain retreat. We started on laundry and got a fire burning to try to warm the place up. We went into town to get some groceries and dinner. We ate pizza at an adorable little place called Flour + Water. They had a bonfire in a bathtub burning out front – a perfect place to wait for our dinner. They even brought out marshmallows to roast. The pizza was yummy. When we got back to the house, the kids ran about 100 laps around the living room while the adults enjoyed the comfy couches by the fireplace. Perfect. I ended up falling asleep on the couch, Em was next, then Lily, then the boys. It’s funny – the house has 4 beds, but we only used 1. Em slept on the couch by the fire, Lily slept on a futon in the living room, and Ty snuggled in between Jay and I. Emily had a lovely little campout with a perfect view of a sky completely full of stars.

Joy.

Joy had been exploring Melbourne with us and was particularly fond of Ty’s Spider-Man hat. She stayed in Melbourne for the weekend and when she heard that Ty lost his hat, she went back to the markets on Saturday morning to buy him a replacement. Sweetest girl ever. Thank you!!!!!

Snow!

We woke up the next morning to a beautiful sunrise over the mountains, and kangaroos eating breakfast in our front and back yards. Em and Jay cooked a yummy brekky for us so that we had lots of energy for the day ahead. We were jamming out to a completely random radio station that was pumping out some fantastic mountain music. We stopped in town to hire sleds, winter boots, and buy mittens. Yes, folks, we really rented cold weather clothing. For $200. And chains for the car because it is a $300 fine if you get caught without chains in your car. We drove up the mountain to Falls Creek ski resort. As it was only 30 kilometers away, we didn’t bother with taking our Travelcalm. Big mistake. Nobody puked, but 3 of us were close. Ugh. There were no guard rails. And the roads were narrow. And curvey. But we made it. As we climbed higher,we saw more and more snow. And then we arrived at Falls Creek, where some cars had several inches of snow on them. Yes, there really is snow in Australia. We realized that we didn’t have enough warm clothes for Lily so we rented (for $40) a snowsuit for her – much better! We got all bundled up and caught a ride to a sledding hill. We should have rented ice skates instead of sleds. It was a really fast hill. That didn’t have a good spot to slow down. So the first time Ty went, he ended up going up the steep snow bank at the end and pretty much back flipped. Thankfully he hopped up and smiled. He went again, and then one more time. The third time ended in disaster, as Ty bailed off of his sled to avoid hitting a girl. He smashed his face onto the ice. He is sometimes overly dramatic, so I stood there a second waiting for him to settle down. But he didn’t, and another mom was helping him, so I ran down the hill. Oh boy. The mom had given him a Kleenex and it was full of blood. He quickly filled a second Kleenex, so he and I went up to get him cleaned up and checked out. Ski patrol probably thought I was crazy, but Ty wanted to see a nurse. Ian was really nice, he asked Ty to explain what happened, made sure his neck wasn’t injured, and said that his nose likely wasn’t broken – but even if it was there was nothing they could do. Ty fought the mountain and the mountain won.

So yeah, we were done sledding, but Ty wanted to throw a few more snowballs. Lily quickly joined in the fun. Nothing like some good clean cool mountain air to rejuvenate my soul. We had a late lunch and then headed back down to the house. This time we took our meds (thank god) and the kids slept the whole way down. Jay cooked tacos for dinner, I wrote my blog, and we sipped on some wine by the fire. A lovely last night in the mountains.

Penguins!!

Monday morning we ate a quick brekky, fed the giant birds our scraps out the window, cleaned up the house, and were on the road again. We made a half stop at McDonalds so the kids could get some nuggets, but didn’t all get out of the car. We made it all the way to Melbourne before having to make a real stop. Road warriors. The kids (and Auntie En) climbed on the play place for a bit, and then we buckled back in for the last hour and a half of driving. I found a new favorite way to pass the time – spinning a minion. Might be a bit looney at this point in the trip, but it was quite relaxing. Enter cuckoo sounds. We arrived at Phillip Island and checked in at The Waves apartments (was just OK, nothing like our other accommodations), and went for a quick walk up the Esplanade. Then we drove to the Penguin Parade. We wandered around the visitor center for a little bit before they opened the doors to find our seat for the “show”. It was a beautiful evening – pink sunset, chill in the air, sitting on bleachers on a blanket. If I wasn’t staring at the ocean waves rolling in, I would have thought I was at a high school football game. When the sun went down, we kept a close eye on the water and then all of a sudden, wow!!!! There were penguins!!!! They came out of the water in groups – safety in numbers. They all quickly waddled their way to the rocks where they caught their breath, huddled together, gathered their courage, and then “ran” as fast as they could across the beach to their grassy burrows. We watched maybe 6 or 7 groups come out of the water and then headed up to the boardwalk to see them up close. I mean really close. We were literally just a few feet from wild little penguins. Their scientific name actually translates to “little penguin”. They are only about a foot tall, and soooo cute! I want to take one home with me. The kids of course had to pick out a toy penguin from the gift shop. Ty named his Jack. Since Lily’s baby doll was named Addie, we figured we better name Lily’s puppet penguin Charlie. (I think they miss the Coen’s). The pictures below of the penguins are courtesy of the Phillip Island Penguin Parade website.

Rude.

I am going to go off on a little rant, one that I have been keeping to myself for quite a while, but since I nearly snapped at one of nature’s most beautiful shows, I have to mention it. The world needs all sorts, and I truly believe that there is a need for many different cultures, backgrounds, and ideas. I love that we are living and visiting places that have a variety of different types of people. I think it is wonderful that my children know that there are many more types of people in the world than what is typically seen in Midwest USA. However, I do not have any patience for anyone that disrespects and completely ignores the requests of a place they are visiting. It is a privilege, certainly not a right, that we are able to get close enough to enjoy the penguin parade. We are fortunate that the wild Penguins feel somewhat comfortable enough around humans to walk right past hundreds of people to make their way to their homes. One of the reasons the penguins feel comfortable is because the researchers and scientists and rangers that work with the penguins have identified a few things that humans do that frighten the penguins. One is to stand up. One is to make noise. And another is taking photos. Of course to a one foot tall creature, a human standing up is a scary sight. And there is a reason they wait for the sun to go down before crossing the beach – they don’t want the light of day to make them visible to predators. So your camera lights make them nervous. I completely understand. And I respect the 3 simple requests made at the start of the evening. However, literally hundreds of other visitors completely ignored the requests. Emily and I became penguin patrol and had to tell idiots several times to sit down and put their cameras away. Seriously. Your selfie stick is not going to take a better photo than the free picture you can get online, so put it away. And you running over to the seat 20 feet closer to the beach isn’t really going to give you a better view, so sit your arse down. Rant over.

RSL.

We ate a late dinner at the Phillip Island RSL (Returned and Service League) thanks to a suggestion by the lady that checked us in at our apartment. It is like an American Legion. The food was great. The kids were excellent. They colored and did activity books and were content to sit with us and behave. It was a very enjoyable dinner. As we were just about ready to leave, the staff dimmed the lights and announced that every evening at 9:00 they have a moment of silence for the fallen soldiers. It was a special moment. Ty had a few questions afterward, and it gave us an opportunity to teach him a little bit about the country’s heroes.

Karts.

Tuesday morning we woke up, and got ready to head home. Jay took the kids to the park while Em and I packed everything in our suitcases. We had just enough time to squeeze in a 10 minute go kart ride at the most beautiful track on the planet. Ty loved it! He got to steer most of the time – Jay was in charge of the pedals. Lily was a cheerleader. Em was a photographer.