JayMoTaddElle: Kevin Rice and the St. Jacques Come to Melbourne (Part 2)

The Great Ocean Road is a two-lane "highway" (one lane in each direction) running southwest of Melbourne. It's very reminiscent of California's Highway 1-- windy road that hugs the coastline, often above cliffs and pristine beaches, and traverses through temperate rainforest areas. With the St. Jacques and Kevin in tow, we head out for our second week of "adventuring." (I don't think this is a real word, but Little Foot the Dinosaur, the kids and I love it.)

Kevin actually headed out the day before in a rented camper van and, being the lead person, gave us the best tip. Koalas were in the eucalyptus trees by his campsite! We had yet to see one in the wild, so.......first stop-- Kevin's campsite along the Kennett River!

Success!!!!!

Mo's "Magic Moment"

So Ridiculously Cute

J expressing his joy.....

But wait, there's more......

They are surprisingly fast...and awkward looking....on their feet. :)

After a lovely drive, we reach our beach house in Apollo Bay.

Our "million dollar" beach house view

In the morning, we wake to King Parrots on our balcony rail and gorgeous views.

King Parrot

Our little beach

J decides to do a little whale watching.... :)

Then we head off to the beach.....

There are so many beach pictures, but everyone just looks fabulous, so I couldn't resist including a bunch....

Our first penguin sighting :(

I love both boys in this picture.

The Mermaid

The Shark

Ari was a bit upset over the distinction between his and Tadd's body sand sculptures.

Lovely lovely beach.....

A drive through Great Otway National Park and a cattle in-holding.

Pregnant mamas.

Since the Cape Otway Lighthouse would have cost $50 for a family to visit, we opted for the hike toward Rainbow Falls.

We didn't quite make it to the waterfall, but Kevin did. I guess the "falls" exaggerated the feature a bit, but his walk along the beach to get there was absolutely gorgeous. Maybe you "fall" in love with it because you just had an awesome beach walk.@#?

Then the most amazing thing happened on our way out of the park...... Not one, not two, not even three...dozens and dozens....of KOALAS!!!! They were everywhere!!!! How we missed them in the trees on the way into the park is puzzling. We were spotting them in nearly every eucalyptus tree! Of course, we had to pull over and have more "magic moments."

We were watching this one for sooooo long, when.....check out the pouch!

A little leg flung out of the pouch! This mama was carrying a koala joey!

Mama with a full pouch

The next day, we headed to the Twelve Apostles, a distinguishing feature along the Great Ocean Road. Like Rainbow Falls, you never know when such features are truly amazing or a little bit hyped, so our expectations were low. I can't even express how breathtakingly beautiful these oceanic rock features are.

Bri, J, Alex, Elle, Tadd, Ari, & Kevin

Our only group shot

They were so inspiring, we couldn't stop taking pictures.....

Somehow this looks like a painted backdrop

OK, not all of us were impressed with the Twelve Apostles.

Tadd & Ari: "We're here to see a bunch of rocks?????"

Heading on to Princetown and making sand castles....

The next morning, we slowly drive back home to Melbourne.....stopping to hike to Carlison Falls.

Carlison Falls

And checking out Bells Beach, home of the annual Rip Curl Surf Competition and supposed site where Patrick Swayze meets his final wave in Point Break.

We all got a little surfing inspired.....

And then running-from-waves-inspired....

A scorpion- on the beach? This is Australia....

Seaweed wrap

For the last St. Jacques day in Melbourne, we head back downtown for a stroll in the Royal Botanical Gardens and an unexpected stop at the Shrine of Remembrance, a memorial to commemorate Australian veterans of war. Ironically, this ended up being a perfect place to end our touring of Melbourne. After reading and seeing the museum displays and learning a bit of history about the various wars from a different perspective, we headed toward the upstairs balcony, where we were met by an older gentleman. He was 80+ years old, but looked 50, with such kind eyes and manner. He worked at the museum and offered to walk with us to the balcony. He then proceeded to tell us many things-- about various wars, about his own life and his childhood memory of watching the Shrine's opening day, about the various symbolism represented in the Shrine's architectural and botanical features...... He then led us back inside again and led us to this room.

If you look closely on the lower right-hand side of the ceiling, you will notice a hole. Every year on November 11 (Remembrance Day), the sun crosses the sky and casts light through this hole onto a stone in the center of the floor below. (I unfortunately did not get a picture.) On the stone is inscribed, "Greater love hath no man." The entire biblical reference is: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). At 11am, the sunbeams start to shine on the words. The timing is precise-- for at 11am on November 11, 1918, the first World War was declared over. At 11:11am on all November 11th's since the Shrine's dedication in 1934, the sunbeam illuminates the word "love."

As he told us his stories, about being a young boy at the dedication and growing up in a nearby neighborhood, we all enjoyed the views of the beautiful city Melbourne has become.

Royal Botanical Garden with the city skyline in the background

J sometimes works out of the National Herbarium of Victoria

Our amazing luck...."double rainbow" casts its glow on the last Melbourne evening for the St. Jacques. Could I have planned that better? :)

Shrine of Remembrance

And then an amazing sunset for our stroll to the train station.

As the St. Jacques headed home on the plane, Kevin came back from the Great Ocean Road to share a couple mores days with us. It didn't take him long to have a record-breaking wrestle match with the kids. (It was about an hour long. He has amazing endurance!)

The Take-Down

As a thank-you, Kevin treated us to an outing, a place that the kids have been dreaming of going ever since arriving here. In fact, Tadd sometimes likes to draw out ideas of things to do for the day. He often has a stick figure fishing, a stick figure feeding birds, and fish in a tank. The day arrived. Kevin was going to take us to see the fish in the tank-- The Melbourne Aquarium.