Just recently I went on my first roadtrip here in Australia. Since the area around Melbourne offers so much variety the plan was to get an overview and to really explore the outstanding spots later in detail. I found a girl with the name Ajka in a facebook group who also had the idea to do a tour and already rented a car.
After getting our stuff together, buying some food and drinks we started with a hike at the Fern Gully Track and continued to the Steavenson Falls all located one to two hours outside of Melbourne.
The next was Wilsons Promontory. A national park with so much to see. A first glimpse of Australias fine beaches for me. Basically we explored the riverside first which looked like marshes with some crocs in but actually without crocs ;) ..a fishermans paradise though. Trails led to the white and natural beaches. Massive rocks everywhere! Definitely a place to return - haven't really had the opportunity to catch the full beauty since we didn't stay overnight.
We continued our journey with some trails in the Tarra Bulga National Park.
The high trees and the plants in general reminded of rainforests. The small streets leading through the woods are not only beautiful and built to harm nature to a minimum but are also quite dangerous as you really have to watch out for kangaroos.
The Great Alpine Road was a massive thing as well. We wanted to climb Mount Cobler but miscalculated a bit with our time so we thought about exploring the area around Mount Buffalo instead. Starting the drive very very early in the morning we were gifted with beautiful views of rising morning mists over the vast fields in the high country.
It was now one of those blazing hot days with almost no clouds and an UV index of 11 out of 10 when we were ready to get up Mount Buffalo. To my surprise some climbers were at the rocks and added some action to my shots.
One of the places you should not miss in Victoria are the Macedon Ranges and the Hanging Rock which are very close together. They are located north from Melbourne and you could find rich fields of lavender and some wineries next to accurately planted treelines along beautiful winding roads.
We arrived later that day and although the park to go up to the Hanging Rock was closed we managed to get in backdoors next morning at 0530. Sneaking past a few kangaroos we had a beautiful red glowing Hanging Rock for ourselves... until the park rangers arrived.
The Great Ocean Road was the thing that stood out most when I thought about this trip in the first way. I really imagined the famous coastline a lot in my head and was so excited to be there soon. The rock formations are one of a kind and my rough plan was to stay at the Bay of Islands overnight and do some nightshots with a tent and some close ups for sunrise with my new ND filters.
Unfortunately not only the weather was really really bad (no clouds, 40°C, mosquitos and flies) but I also managed to step into a piece of metal which must have been part of a former roadsign. This 2inch long piece went through my shoe into the muscle of my middle-foot. yummy. So the only thing I tried after 7pm was to stop it from bleeding and cleaning the wound. Still I would say that the afternoon had one of the best views and vibes of the whole trip since we met some fellow travellers who joined for the sunset.
One of the last highlights have been the Otways also located at the Great Ocean Road next to Apollo Bay - a small chilled surfer town with the best burger I had so far. We went into the woods for Beauchamp Falls which were a real stunner and also checked out Hopetoun Falls.
The first was certainly drawing most of my attention because of its simplicity and jungle- or lagune-like feeling.
The days have usually been packed with a lot of driving and hiking so there wasn't a lot of room to shoot all the beautiful things we saw. But I definitely fell in love with the beauty of Victoria. A very good place to be.
Here are just a few more images from the trip in a non-sorted order.
Oh and I planned a short hop on New Zealand territory next week. Fingers crossed.