Kindness of Strangers

Friday, October 24, 2008

We’ve driven hundreds of kilometers through Australia in the last week and a half, which I feel qualifies me to comment on its highways and byways. Most notably, there seems to be a major campaign aimed at halting tired drivers from taking to the roads; the modus operandi is to scare you silly. Australians tend to be straight-shooters, and their sobering signs are no exception. “Drowsy Drivers Die,” is my personal favorite, not only for its alliteration but for its cut-to-the-chase message. “Survive this Drive” is nice for its poetry, but “For Safety’s Sake, Take a Break,” is a little clunky. Rather than crowding the roadway with statistics relating to road-related injuries, the Australians employ a straightforward pictograph system. Red coffins mounted on white sticks mean an injury occurred at that very site; black coffins stand for, well, I think you can guess…Perhaps a life-saving campaign should be undertaken for the kangaroos, whose carcasses litter the sides of the roadway. (I have yet to see a living kangaroo in the wild, but I’ve seen plenty of dead ones.)

I’m happy to say that Australia boasts the cleanest public restrooms that I have ever had the pleasure of using, which makes driving with a full bladder a true delight. But the bathrooms don’t make up for some of the worst radio stations known to man. No matter what city we’re in, the morning radio program always includes a five-minute segment from a really bad stand-up comic. What was undoubtedly bad is person is really bad over the airwaves. When not listening to strange R&B songs I’ve never heard (do you know I’m in Chains? – me neither), we can tune into The Queen of Clean, who spends an entire hour taking calls from distressed listeners who have sullied some article or another, miraculously offering sure-fire tips for quick and effective removal.

But what Australia really excels at is naming its roadways. There is no shortage of regal-sounding thoroughfares: Princes Highway, Great Northern Highway, Kings Highway, Great Southern Highway. We decided to traverse the grandest of them all, the Great Ocean Road. Stretching from Torquay to Warrnambool, the strip of asphalt hugs the ocean, offering incomparable views of Australia’s stunning southern coastline. Or so we were told. I’ve grown leery of recommendations of scenic drives. I am often assured it’s worth the extra hours that are inevitably involved, and I’m usually disappointed. I figured we’d see a few beaches and that would be that.

After flying from Perth to Melbourne, we spent the night in Geelong, sounding like a Chinese tea, and begun our journey bright and early the next day. By the time we reached Anglesea, not 30 minutes into the drive, I was already gasping – literally gasping – at the views. While I’m not much of a nature person, I am a sucker for water. Great arcs of brilliant turquoise lapped against pristine white beaches. We watched schoolchildren paddling furiously in the sparkling waves, learning to surf at 10 am on a Thursday morning. In Aireys Inlet we saw Split Point Lighthouse, the most perfect specimen you can imagine. A whitewashed tower with little niched windows, it wore a red woolen cap with a weather vane perched atop, exactly what a lighthouse should be.

Further down the coast, the road jutted upward, offering stunning views of the coastline below. Alternating between harsh waves crashing against black rock and cool water caressing soft sand, both were equally impressive. At times wiry forests of gum trees, looking like something out of Dr. Seuss, stretched to the beach, with furry koala bears perched precariously in the limbs, munching on sweet leaves. Sometimes soft green hills tumbled into the surf, as spring lambs meandered in the blades of grass.

We lunched in charming Lorne, one of many buffed-up beach towns that dot the Great Ocean Road. Despite the diminutive size of these hamlets, the food is typically inventive and high-quality: it’s as if the hippest restaurants were plucked from major metropolitan areas in the US and randomly sprinkled throughout Australia. In tiny Port Fairy you are just as likely to see an upmarket bakery serving artisan bread as a rough and tumble cafe. After lunch, the road turned inland, taking us through winding forests, seaside vistas, sun-dappled vineyards, and mossy perches teeming with lambs. Scarlet and amethyst birds dodged through the canopy overhead.

As dusk fell, we reached the Twelve Apostles, a grouping of rock formations just off the Southern Ocean coastline which, after years of erosion, now number only six. It was the number one site that was recommended to us on the Great Ocean Road, and as we rounded the bend just after Princetown, it was clear why. I gasped as I saw the first rock, glowing wheat-colored in the late afternoon sun. We parked at the Visitors’ Center and beelined to the coast, where the other Apostles sat proudly. White waves crashed at their feet as a fine veil of mist floated between the great masses of rock. Those water views get me every time.

As we drove out of Port Campbell National Park, I noticed a sign for Blow Hole Thunder Cave. While it would make an excellent name for quite a number of different things (I’ll let your imagination run wild with that for a moment), I could only guess that it was the name for some sort of crevasse in the rock where water spouts up. Of all the names – crazy and sane, grand and small – that I encountered driving through Australia, this was by far my favorite, and we drove into the waning day giggling like schoolgirls.

The Great Ocean Road ends unceremoniously just before Warnambool, joining forces with the Princes Highway, and it was over as quickly as it had begun. We continued the 550 kilometers to Adelaide early the next day, our port of call for the next week. We passed hoards of “utes,” a classier version of an El Camino that is inexplicably popular here, on a rather uneventful stretch of road that curved inland. Then we reached a turnoff for the town of Lamaroo. Now that’s a great road.