Tiki Touring

I'm off on another adventure! 

A few days ago, I set off from New Zealand -

And landed at Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne, Australia.

Kiwikid Sue picked me up after a bus trip to Geelong. This was the first leg of our trip together up to our quilting retreat, Scrub Stitching, in New South Wales.

First of all, a little sight seeing around Geelong. Sue regularly shares photos of the decorated Bollards there and I was excited to see some of them. They are very clever, lots of personality!

Sue and friend - 

This couch was made out of limestone - very cool!

I also saw bats for the first time - there is an area of trees which they live in. I was quite amazed!

(Yes, what I thought were a whole lot of seed pods were actually 100s of bats hanging out!)

We then set off onto the Great Ocean Road, described as one of the world's most scenic coastal drives, along the southwest coast of Victoria. It was built by WW1 veterans, mostly by hand, and opened in 1932. It is considered a memorial to these men, who carved it out of the rock. This is at the start of the Great Ocean Road - 

(However, we started at the oppsite end so didn't see this till the end of our journey! We wish we'd seen and understood this first.)

We spent two days enjoying this coastline. 

The Twelve Apostles. Being made of limestone, there is a lot of erosion on the rock and cliffs. Some of the Apostles have collapsed-

At the Gibson Steps there was a steep climb down the 70m high cliff to the beach below- 

Those 86 steps are shown about halfway along the cliff-

A lighthouse from afar. There were many shipwrecks along this rugged coast-

These cuties were at Lorne-

After our adventuring along The Great Ocean Road, we went back to Sue's at St Leonards for a couple of nights. I was excited to see Pelicans for the first time (after admiring them in her photos in the past).

And saw these lovelies in her garden-

Since then, we've started the trek up to Scrub Stitching. We did some Adventure Labs along the way. These are where you stop at a place, walk around finding the answers to the questions posed....it's a great way to explore a new place and learn something of its history or stories. At Jerilderie we folllowed the story of the infamous criminal Ned Kelly on his raid through the town.

(Made from bread baking tins.)

A lovely sunset at Narrandera after doing an interesting Adventure lab at the cemetery-

Last year we visited the painted grain silos on our travels; this time we found a painted water tower at Narrandera- 

We also visited Elvis at Parkes today - 

(Oh yes, and may have done a wee bit of shopping at 'Sew Fab' in Narrandera!)

Tomorrow we will arrive at Baradine ready for Scrub Stitching. It's been fun reading the travelogues of the other travellers as we all converge :-)

Apologies for the photo overload,

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn