Great Ocean Road.

The Great Ocean Road is an Australian National Heritage listed 243-kilometre stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Warrnambool. We had read about it before we went to Australia and decided we wanted to drive through this beautiful scenic route. So we left Melbourne and Phillip Island behind and rented a car (via Herz) and headed to Torquay in the morning.

This map was very handy when planning where to drive next etc. It had driving distances and other helpful information in it. We got it from the Melbourne visitor centre which is one of the best visitor centres I've been to - very helpful staff and a large amount of information available.

Our route day 1: Torquay - Bells Beach - Lorne - 12 apostoles - Apollo Bay 

Our route day 2: Apollo bay - Kennet river - Lorne - Anglesea - Torquay

We made many many many stops along the way. Day one from Lorne to 12 apostoles was quite a long drive almost in one go - especially because we drove the same night back to Apollo bay from the 12 apostoles, but otherwise we drove shorter times and had stops more frequently.

Great Ocean road is all about the charming little towns...

...the breathtaking panoramic views...

 ...long lunch & snack breaks...

...and beautiful beaches. 

In the picture left is Bells Beach. It is a world famous beach which holds the venue for the Rip Curl Pro, one of the most sought after titles on the World Championship Tour.

 If you're into surf gear, wear and overall surf atmosphere Torquay is the place to go. It is the birthplace to brands such as Quicksilver and Rip Curl. It is Victoria's surfing capital where the beach-based culture is at its strongest. There is a huge retail outlet area called Surf City Plaza with brands such as of Rip Curl, Quiksilver, Strapper, Gash and Rojo selling their latest ranges & everything connected with the sport. And around the corner you can bag yourself a bargain from the Baines Court surf seconds outlets. My hubby went a bit mad here as he had trouble choosing the best swimming shorts from the hundreds and hundreds shorts available just in the outlets ;)

There are a lot (A LOT) of different kinds of viewing points along the way. I suggest you stop in many of them and enjoy the views. We stopped almost all the time and it was amazing. If you just drive through the road in one go you're not going to have time to take it all in properly. My tip would be to dare to go along little paths and follow view point signs and you'll discover some amazing places. 

There are a lot of beaches along the way and if you're not there in the most popular of times you'll easily find beaches where there is no one else. We had a dip in a deserted beach when the sun was going down and it was (a bit chilly) but very exhilarating.

We didn't drive up to Warrambool, we drove just up to the 12 apostoles which is a rugged splendour of 

 magnificent rock stacks that rise up majestically from the Southern Ocean on Victoria's dramatic coastline. The rocks were created by constant erosion of the limestone cliffs of the mainland beginning 10-20 million years ago. The stormy Southern Ocean and blasting winds gradually eroded the softer limestone, forming caves in the cliffs. The caves eventually became arches and when they collapsed rock stacks up to 45 metres high were left isolated from the shore. We got there just in time for sunset and they looked magnificent. If we'd had more time, we would have liked to go walking along the beach, but as we were a bit short on time, we just viewed the rocks from the viewing platforms. 

These signs were all over the place along the roads. 

Tales from our trip to Tokyo, Australia, New-Zealand & Singapore

Tokyo - city of lights and color
Tokyo - <3 SUMO
Tokyo - old & new
Tokyo - Tsukiji fish market
Melbourne & Australian Open
Phillip Island
Great Ocean Road

We loved the route and everything on the way and could have easily spent more than those 2 days that we spent there. I would recommend to book 3 days if you go there with your own car. Then it's not so hard for the person driving as you can have more and longer breaks. It was fine with 2 days but we did have to choose where to go and what to see as we did not have time to do all. The Otway national park is something we decided to skip when we where there so we would have more time to take breaks when driving back (we returned the car back to Melbourne and headed to Sydney with a night train). But I'm sure it would have been worth visiting too. We did drive through it though and almost drove over a kangaroo! It was horrible! It was pitch black in the night and the kangaroo just bounced in front of us. We were able to break just in time (like 20 cm before) and the kangaroo bounced back to the bushes. We drove the rest of they through the rainforest veeeryyy sloowlyy and carefully as we got so scared we'll drive over one. That was scary - but luckily nothing bad happened! Here is a lot of useful information when planning your GOR trip. 

Cauliflower salad love.

Saatiin ystävältä Safkaa -kirja, jota on kehuttu siellä sun täällä. Ja pakko kehua sitä hieman lisää.  Ollaan nimittäin testattu siitä muutamia reseptejä ja kaikki ovat olleet aivan loistavia! Ykköslemppariksi tähän mennessä on noussut kukkakaalisalaatti. Päätin juuri, että tällä viikolla se pitää ujuttaa johonkin illalliseen taasen kun viime kerrasta on jo aikaa ihan liikaa. Tsekkaa myös Hannan kaunis ruokablogi täällä.

Viime viikolla tuli syötyä paljon nestemäisiä ruokia kun vatsatauti pääsi yllättämään. Tuli kaapista löytyneet sosekeiton jämät tarpeeseen ja Jaffa oli toivetuliainen kaupasta. Pääsi nuo rucolatkin siinä kipuillessa lösähtämään ja roskiinhan ne meni. Buuu. Nyt taas vähän arjessa kiinni ja innolla uutta viikkoa kohti! Mahtavaa viikon alkua kaikille!

We got this lovely Safkaa -book from our friend and we have loved it. Our fave recipe so far has been the cauliflower salad. Love it! I've been ill last week but now again back to normal(ish). Have a great new week everyone!

Phillip Island

 (image from Visit Phillip Island)

 (image from Visit Phillip Island)

Tales from our trip to Tokyo, Australia, New-Zealand & Singapore

Tokyo - city of lights and color
Tokyo - <3 SUMO
Tokyo - old & new
Tokyo - Tsukiji fish market
Melbourne & Australian Open
Phillip Island

Phillip Island is an island 140 km from Melbourne. It is often visited by people staying in Melbourne. The main reason that people go there is the wildlife & nature and most importantly the little penguins. There are a large number of companies that offer trips there. It is quite hard to get there via public transport if you want to see the penguins as they come out after dark - the only reasonable way is to take a whole day trip or go there with your own car. We took a one day trip and were quite pleased as we got a good guide who told us all kinds of fun little info. We saw beautiful beaches and coastlines, kengurus, koalas, wallabies in the wild and the day ended with the much anticipated Penguin parade. In the penguin parade you go to a specially built auditorium and wait for about an hour in the silence for the dark to arrive because when the dark comes, the little penguins come to the shore in groups and wander to their homes after being at the sea to get food. The little penguins are so cute! It's amazing that they come to that same place everyday and there's only one other place where these little penguins live - a small number of them live in the south of Australia. Completely fell in love with them. You can't take pictures at the penguin parade so I borrowed a few pics to give you a feel how they look like. If you want to know more about Phillip Island - go to visitphillipisland.com. Oh, and here's a video which helps to understand the Penguin parade experience a little better. 

Melbourne & Australian Open

Melbourne was hot. Like +40 degrees when we went there. But it was also cold. It got really cold at night time. We were freezing in our shorts a few nights we stayed out until late. We met with my parents who were also there and stayed with them in their apartment which they had rented for their stay in Melbourne during the Australian Open. 

Australian Open was a great event. A really relaxed and fun sportsy event (with weirdly non-sportsy food selection ;). We got to see great matches and great tennis. Loved the experience.  

We also got to see Serena and Venus Williams doubles game. It was so cool to see them live! And we got good seats too. If you look carefully enough, you can find their mum in the audience picture on the left ;)

It was +40 when Jarkko Nieminen played one of his matches (he lost that one - boo). We tried to stay in the shades to even survive just sitting and watching - must have been quite hard to play in that heat!

We spent a few evenings in the Federation square downtown and watched games from the big screen they had put up for the tournament. The tournatment had taken over the whole city basically ;)

St Kilda and South Yarra were my favorite areas of Melbourne. They were full of old pretty houses like this. 

We used the trams to move about - their Myki card system was so messed up that we never really got it. Please let me know if you figure it out! We topped our cards for lets say for a day and they advised us to touch it on the screens when you enter the tram and touch it off when you leave. We did so and after a few rides the card was empty even though we had bought a whole day card. When we asked how it could be so - we had to top up again like 50 cents to get it work again and noboby could tell us why. Still gets my fumes going when I think about it! ;)

In St Kilda Beach there was a fun atmosphere...

... and a lot of beachgoers even though it was windy. 

St Kilda and South Yarra were also full of nice little restaurants and bars and cafés. But my favorite drink turned out to be strawberry milk from the closest grocery store. 

Oh, and in Australia they call Mc Donald's Macca's and for Australia day Mc Donald's had a campaign where they had changed the name of some restaurants to Macca's - "There's only place in the world where you can get maccas!" And for that reason only we had to go and get one burger - a macca - from there ;). And they had lovely frozen drinks in their menu too - I loved the frozen Fanta.  

Tales from our trip to Tokyo, Australia, New-Zealand & Singapore

Tokyo - city of lights and color
Tokyo - <3 SUMO
Tokyo - old & new
Tokyo - Tsukiji fish market
Melbourne & Australian Open

After Tokyo we flew to Australia - and first to Melbourne to watch the Australian Open Tennis tournament. Our experiences are summed up in the pictures and picture texts above. 

Tokyo - Tsukiji fish market

Tales from our trip to Tokyo, Australia, New-Zealand & Singapore

Tokyo - city of lights and color
Tokyo - <3 SUMO
Tokyo - old & new
Tokyo - Tsukiji fish market

Tsukiji Market - the world's largest and busiest fish market - is a must see if you go to Tokyo! I wasn't expecting much but loved the experience so much that it was one of my favorite things in Tokyo. To get there take the Oedo Subway Line to Tsukiji Shijo Station. There are signs at the station which way to go to find the fish market. There is no particular grand entrance and you feel like you shouldn't even walk there or you'll be on someones way but just keep going and watch where you're going and you'll be fine. 

There isn't anything special, but just to see the various kinds of fresh fish and other seafood and the busy atmosphere of scooters, trucks, sellers and buyers hurrying around, make the experience worth while. The local fishermen looked so interesting and the way they handled the fish was amazing. Never seen so many fish in my life! There is also an opportunity to go and see they daily tuna auctions at 5 am. We weren't able to see it because it was closed for visitors when we where there. Apparently there have been so many tourists going to the fish market in the recent years that it has become a problem to the course of business as the place has not been designed to be a tourist spot. And therefore they are limiting the areas and times when visitors can go there. Be sure to check current restrictions before you go. 

New stuff.

Jei, vihdoin löydettiin kiva tv-taso! Se on ollut metsästyksessä ainakin vuoden. Huuto.net tuli hätiin ja tehtiin hyvät kaupat ja ollaan kovin tyytyväisiä. Jatkojohdot ja kaikki roikkuu vielä miten sattuu, mutta ollaan vaan niin iloisia uudesta lipastosta ettei sekään haittaa yhtikäs mitään. TV on nyt melko korkealla, mutta se ei ole haitannut katselua - tosin ei olla kauheasti keritty telkkuria reissun jälkeen katsomaankaan mikä on ihan positiivista. Ollaan käytetty enemmän aikaa ruoan laittamiseen arki-iltaisin. Se on luksusta kun ennen reissua ajauduttiin siihen tapaan, että haettiin vaan jotain puolivalmista kaupasta ja aina jotain einestä ja yökkimys-ei-oikeeta-ruokaa. Kyllä mä mieluummin syön itse tehtyä kasvissosekeittoa tai makaronilaatikkoa.

Lipaston viereisellä tuolilla odottelee työhuoneen uudet tapetit. En malta odottaa että keritään lykkimään ne seiniin!

Reissussa käteen tarttui joitain kortteja ja esitteitä ja lippulappusia mitä olisi kiva laittaa esille. Nekin ajallaan - nyt ne odottavat pinossa jota siirrellään paikasta toiseen paremman paikan toivossa.

Keittiön string -hyllyn sisältö on vahingossa muodostunut tuollaiseksi viher-turkoosi-minttu painotteiseksi. Vielä jaksaa tuo värimaailma miellyttää - vaikkakin perusinervä ja keltainen ovat nousseet myös tän hetken lemppariväreiksi.

Tokyo - old & new

Tales from our trip to Tokyo, Australia, New-Zealand & Singapore

Tokyo - city of lights and color
Tokyo - <3 SUMO
Tokyo - old & new

In Tokyo the old and the new live side by side. A good example is that next to Tokyo's buzziest area Shibya is Yoyogi Park where Tokyo's oldest temple, Sensoji, is situated. It's handy to combine these places in see them during the same day as they are so close to each other. Sensoji. (浅草寺, Sensōji, also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple) is a Buddhist temple and is one of Tokyo's most colorful and popular temples. There time stands still and everything is calm. Meanwhile back in the heart of Shibya it is busy and quite hectic with all the traffic and lights and shops and people. Next to Shibya station there is a famous crossing of streets called 

Shibuya Crossing.

It would be a shame to go to Tokyo and not take a walk across the famous intersection outside Shibuya Station. When the lights turn 

red at this busy junction, they all turn red at the same time in every direction which means that cars and other traffic stop completely and pedestrians surge into the intersection from all directions, like marbles spilling out of a box. Other than that Shibya is packed with stores and restaurants, and boutiques. 

When we went to Shibya and Sensoji and Asakusa it was the day after the snow fall. It was hilarious to watch how they handled the situation after that much snow. In front of banks and such local Sararīman ("Salarymen") shuffled snow away from their doorsteps with their black suits and shiny shoes on. In the temple area they used funny old wood carriages and made big snow piles and placed them in the sun. Everyone took care of their own area. There seemed to be no public service for cleaning out the snow. 

We also saw the area of Asakusa which is where an atmosphere of the old Tokyo survives. Asakusa's main attraction is Sensoji, a very popular Buddhist temple, built in the 7th century. We mainly tried not to fall as it was so slippery after the snowfall and were in awe of all the people going there and doing their religious routines.