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I cannot believe that I’m already at the halfway point of the vacation. Tomorrow morning, I leave for Hobart. Today, I took a guided tour of the Great Ocean Road stretching west from Melbourne. The tour covered about 500 kilometers of driving. The bus (seats 21 in 1-2 seating, very convenient for a solo traveller like me) picked me up at the hotel at 7:15am; by the time all the tourists were picked up it was 8am. The tour was basically broken into the following sections:

• Getting out of the city and to Torquay, where the Ocean Road starts;
• Various photo stops in the first few small towns, including Bell’s Beach, Anglesea, Lorne, and Apollo Bay;
• A half hour forest walk through Myrtle Beach and eucalyptus trees near Cape Otway;
• A quick lunch;
• The “Twelve Apostles” oceanside rock formations - the highlight of the day; and
• The long boring, this is why you own an ipod, ride back to the city.

The weather was great, a litle cloudy and a little cool, but comfortable. And windy. Very windy. I actually slept a fair amount on the bus, because there were stretches of 25-30 minutes betweeen cities where we were just getting between places. I saw a new ocean for me (the Southern) and at one point the next piece of land in front of me would have been Antarctica.

I got back to the hotel just before eight pm, and took the recommendation of the hotel clerk and went to the Crown Casino complex for dinner. I decided to splurge and went to one of the seafood restaurants. I had a terrific appetizer: scallops topped with a tiny dot of sausage, with a very thin carmel syrup underneath and some jicama. The main course was chili prawns with cream sauce and rice. Then I wandered around the casino for a while - it is long and thin and confusing to get around. They have an excellent poker room, but tomorrow starts the main event of the “Aussie Millions” championship, so it was a bit of a zoo down there. They did have open seating for 1-2 No Limit holdem, but I don’t like playing No Limit. On the way back, I’ve stopped in at an internet cafe about a block away from the hotel, since I only needed a half hour of time tonight.

I need to get back and pack and get a few hours of sleep - my flight is at 6:45am and I do not have a seat assignment. Then I get to see about driving on the wrong side of the road.

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