Lost in the Woods
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: Yesterday we arrived in Tokyo and got settled into the apartment we’ve rented for the next four weeks; this morning, rainy season started. Today we’ll be searching out underground/indoor strolling destinations, because rainy season is wet. (I wrote this essay a few weeks ago, while we were in Australia.)
Lost in the Woods
We rented a car while we were in Melbourne, so that we could go for a drive on the Great Ocean Road. It’s meant to be one of the world’s best, most beautiful drives.
Lee had been once before, on a tour, which he said took nine hours. So I downloaded an offline map, just in case the signal got bad, made a very detailed schedule for how our day was going to go, and hauled my not-a-morning-person self out of bed so we could get on the road early-ish—even in a civilized country like Australia, driving after dark is daunting.
The first stop, of course, was for coffee. Then we stopped to take in the views at several scenic viewpoints. Then we had lunch. The whole time we were driving, I was scouting for kangaroos. I’d heard they just run around wild in Australia, and that was a sight I wanted to see. Where I come from, we have deer and squirrels and geese, but the only marsupial is the opossum, which is different from the Australian possum, and is definitely not adorable.
After lunch, we turned back in the general direction of Melbourne, intending to make our way meanderingly toward a spot where I’d read there might be koalas. I figured we’d get there in the late afternoon, when they’d (hopefully) be waking up, then we’d hop on the highway and zip back into the city. We still hadn’t seen any kangaroos, though, so I wasn’t optimistic about any wildlife at all.
After lunch, we stopped for a walk on the beach, which was lovely. They really do have fantastic beaches in Australia, and if you’ve ever seen pictures of the sea stacks called the 12 Apostles, well, they’re even more spectacular in real life.
After the beach walk, I put our destination (Kennett River) into the map, and Lee pointed the car in that direction. We looked for kangaroos and chatted and listened to Australian radio and drove for a long while. Eventually, the road became gravel, but Google said we were going in the right direction, so we kept going.
Our gravel road through the woods was only wide enough for one car, which was a bit stressful, but when half an hour went by and we hadn’t actually seen any other cars, Lee finally stopped freaking out. We kept driving. The trees were tall and straight and beautiful—so tall we couldn’t see the tops. Now that Lee was starting to relax, I was starting to fret—this definitely didn’t seem like the route I’d planned so carefully. I checked the map, and learned two things: a) we had no signal, and b) Google maps was taking us rapidly toward a dead-end.
And then—we saw a kangaroo, standing at the edge of the woods, watching us. Then another. And another.
While Lee drove, I did some careful comparison with my back-up map, and concluded that if we kept going, we might eventually get to a real road, but I wasn’t positive, and there was no telling how long that might take, and it was rapidly getting dark in the woods. The alternative was to turn around and go back, and we knew the nearest road in that direction was an hour away. We weren’t lost, exactly—we just didn’t know for sure how to get to a real road.
I’ve read that when you go out into rural parts of Australia you should have plenty of supplies, because if you have a problem, there might not be any way to get help for a long while. Like, days. Our problem, at that point, was that it was going to get dark, and we were going to be bumbling along on a narrow, twisty gravel road in the middle of nowhere.
Things might’ve gotten tense (I felt terribly responsible, since I was both the planner and navigator). Except—there were so many kangaroos. We both kept laughing and pointing. They bounce like bunnies, except these were huge and a dark, smoky color, almost black. They sproinged along the road and in the woods, boing-boing.
After 90 minutes on that gravel road, during which we did not see a single other vehicle (or, luckily, hit any kangaroos), we arrived at the blessed relief of a paved road, just as the sun set. There was indeed ONE koala up a tree in Kennett River; we stood on the grass, watching him wake up and immediately start nibbling on eucalyptus leaves. It was kind of fascinating: he opened his eyes, and reached out a little claw to grab a leaf and stuff it in his mouth. I wish my morning tea was that available and immediate.
Then we drove another thirty or so minutes on an incredibly dark, incredibly twisty stretch of The Great Ocean Road—but at least it was paved—until we could finally get on the highway back to Melbourne.
The whole day, which Lee had predicted might take as long as 9 hours, took 11 hours and 50 minutes.
Yes, we got lost in the woods. But you know what? It was totally worth it—that’s where the kangaroos are.
Take care,
Lisa
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