Gippsland

WARNING

EXTREMELY LONG POST AHEAD

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Disclaimer(?): The person in the first part of this post will not be named as he/she told me not to blog bout this (only after my previous post). Too bad for him/her I’m still gonna do so but I’ll be kind as to not post his/her name. To make things easier and more amusing I shall use the alias Muhammad Ali for this part of the post. It does not carry any relations to this person, nor does it relate to the boxer. Here we go.

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Copy paste from the previous post:

By the time I got back, went online, and finally to bed, it was already 2.30am. Think bout it, 4-5 hours of sleep, not too bad la right? That’s what I thought too. NO ONE could’ve possibly predict what was about to happen..

An hour after I dozed off, my phone rang. For some reason, I bothered picking it up, instead of silencing or rejecting the call. The voice on the other end of the line was worried, frantic, panicky, and all those other adjectives that go under the same category. Muhammad Ali was claiming that he had dislocated his arm. As serious as it may have sounded, I was reluctant to even sit up. Bloody hell, it was 3.30 in the freaking morning!

I tried to get him to chill, with minimal results. After asking a couple of questions, I found out that Muhammad Ali had woken up from his sleep, with his arm out of place. == I told him all that boxing would come around and bite him in the neck one day.. but he never listened.

Turned out that he didn’t have sufficient credit to phone others who stayed in the same student apartment as him, so he called me as we were both on the same service provider, Optus. His first request was for me to go over to his place (a 15 minute walk away) immediately. Hell no. Therefore, I managed to talk some sense into him by allowing me to attempt to call those staying in the same building as him.

Alas, after a few rings here and there, even I ran out of credit. == So all I could to was text Muhammad Ali, but he was able to call me. And he did. Then I tried texting, but not enough credit also. So in the end, I finally agreed to get out of bed. Got dressed, and headed down the street towards Ali’s place.

Once there, went up to his place, then tried knocking on a friend’s door. No response. Tried the floor senior’s room. No response. A friend replied my text, borrowed her phone to call the floor senior, still no response. Screw it. Went down to the reception at the other building, returned to Muhammad Ali’s room with him. Decided to take a cab to a nearby hospital.

20-30 minutes later, Muhammad Ali was in the Emergency Ward of the St Vincent’s Hospital, inhaling laughing gas. DAMN COOL. Purpose was to get him high so that the doctors could treat him. Not. It just made him feel a little dizzy, that’s all. The doctor and nurse were joking with him and each other almost the entire time. Carlo (the doctor), was wearing three-quarter pants and snickers. As Muhammad Ali said, it was as if we were in an episode of Scrubs. xD

I watched all this while sitting on the bench outside the room. At the same time, was able to watch a drunk woman in the next room tossing and turning about restlessly, and another younger drunk woman being carted in from an ambulance, who was then cursing all the way.

ANYWAYS, I wanna get to the good bit of this post. Erm, Muhammad Ali got a couple of X-rays done to make sure everything was alright again. Then we waited for the doctor to let him know he could go home. That took rather long. By the time we were back at our respective homes (retarded cab driver dunno how to use GPS, took us all the way down to the city ==), it was already around 7am.

Took a shower, had a quick breakfast, and got ready just in time for the road trip to Gippsland, which is East of Melbourne. Headed down and hopped into Kee Keng’s car with Marco already in it. Headed to Arrow but Deviana and Naomy weren’t ready yet, so we went to a nearby petrol station to fill the tank and grab some snacks/drinks. Back to Arrow, picked them up, and our long journey to Gippsland began at approximately 8.30am!!

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That was definitely alot to read. Congratulations if you have done so. You’ve earned yourself a break. Go grab a Kit Kat, get back, and continue reading. Loads of pictures coming up! You’re gonna need a whole lotta stamina for this. Also, please keep in mind that I was dozing off repeatedly during the drive to Gippsland, so the details might be a little blurry, but they’re probly not. xD

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Gippsland

It was 3-4 hours later when we arrived at the Gippsland Tourist Information Centre. We had a little chat with the guy there. Naomy teased him and said Deviana and herself were Cambodian, Kee Keng and Marco were from Hong Kong, and that I’m Vietnamese. Cause we asked him to guess our nationalities. He damn sad, tell us bout his family but kena from us lidat. Of course, we told him the truth before we left. Deviana & Naomy - Indonesia, Marco - Hong Kong, Kee Keng & I - Malaysia. Then, we made our decision to head straight to Port Albert to grab some Fish n Chips for lunch.

 
So we hit the road and followed Kee Keng’s phone’s GPS towards our destination. After 15-20 minutes, we reached Bassy Creek Road, where we went round and round looking for the right road. We even went onto this farm road (right picture) twice thanks to the GPS. Went all the way in where there was literally farmland on both sides of the road. Eventually came back out to the same road == THEN we found the right way to continue our journey.

 
But with two photographers camera enthusiasts in the car, how could we not stop when we were blinded by a golden field on the right hand side of the road. So yeah, Kee Keng parked the car by the side of the road and we got off and walked towards the field of.. yellow flowers. xD

 
It was really windy outside, but nice. So we snapped away and got our breaths taken away over and over again by the sheer yellowness of the place.

 
Once we were satisfied with the shots we got, we headed back to the car and off we went!

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Port Albert

 
At 1.40pm, we stepped out of the car and were officially in Port Albert, the place that claimed to have the BEST Fish n Chips in the state of Victoria. Must try la of course! We placed our orders at the left end of that building there, and spend our time wisely while waiting for the food to be prepared fresh.

This has gotta be one of my most favourite shots taken during this trip. Credits to none other than Kee Keng. If you didn’t know, that’s Marco and well, me. Also, it’s cause of this photo that I decided to make the photos in this section of the post black&white. Just for that old school feeling. It was such a small and quiet town. Or village :/

 
Like I said, we spent our time real wisely by taking lotsa photos. But of course, I’m not gonna be posting everyone of em here, that’d be insane. I guess I’ll just mengambil kesempatan ini to say that a handful of the photos in this post were taken by Kee Keng, not me. The obvious ones would be the ones with me in em. DUH.

Right on time, our food was out. We ordered fish bites & chips instead of fish & chips. xD They were 80 cents each, and that’s $6 worth of chips. Deviana and Naomy did order the actual set, which had the same fish I guess, just not bite-sized like ours. And I have no idea how much we spent on those little ketchup and tartar sauce packets. No doubt the fish was fresh and oily, but I can’t say that it’s the best I’ve had. BUT it was good.

While eating, we had a discussion whether or not to stay over in Gippsland for the night. Not so much of a discussion, it was more like a persuasion which failed miserably. Anyways, we left the port (which was actually just a pit stop), and made our 40 minutes way towards Agnes Falls.

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Agnes Falls

 
Yes, that’s what Kee Keng was staring at once we got off the car. All the poor insects that were flattened against the car number plate. xD

Not knowing what to expect, we just starting walking on the trail towards the water fall.

Not long after that, we heard the sound of rushing water and there we were by the railing, looking down on Agnes Falls.

 
Chilled there for a while. Damn, Marco wasn’t willing to put his hand into that burrow to find out what animal it belonged to.

Behold, the almighty Agnes Falls. Too bad we couldn’t go up close to the water. Ah well.

 
There was a wind turbine farm off in the distance! First time seeing actual ones, not in videos during E&D tutorials/lectures. HAHA. Everyone, meet Kee Keng. I have absolutely no clue what he was doing.

 
First shot failed so we had to half-squat so the water falls could be seen. People on the right are Marco, Kee Keng, Deviana, and Naomy.

As we headed back towards the car, Kee Keng decided to STEP UP for a few quick shots.

Take #1: Normal(?).   Take #2: Look towards the sky everyone!!

Another group shot with our ride before hitting the road once again.

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Cows Go “Moo!!”

 
It was literally 10 minutes later when we stopped by the road side once more to take more photos! That’s Kee Keng setting his tripod up for the next couple of jump shots.

 
Which were a success in a way I suppose. These are just two of the many, many attempts.

 
Black and white cows are cool, don’t you think so? You barely see em in Malaysia. Well, I barely see em, don’t know bout everyone else. Cause they’re usually brown :/

 
The initial plan was to head back after that - didn’t think we had time to go anywhere else. BUT lucky us, it was only 4.20pm by the time we were done with.. the cows. == So we hopped back into the car and flew all the way to the bottom of Victoria towards the Wilson Promontory National Park.

Our mission: To get there before sunset.

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Wilsons Prom

 
Expected the sun to set at 5.30pm, that was roughly the time we arrived at the entrance of the National Park. It was bout a half-hour drive from there up towards the Normal Lookout where we got off to snap a couple of pictures. It was sometime in that period when a kangaroo hopped across the road right in front of our eyes. xD

 
You can see the sun that was gonna set real soon. Marco, Naomy, Deviana, and myself.

 
So we rushed back to the car and headed down this road which led us to the sand trail which then led us towards the Picnic Beach..

 
Which honestly, seemed rather eerie. The trail I mean. Just look at it! All sandy, BLACK trees with no leaves?? You can probly shoot a scene for some horror film here at night man!

 
Credits to Kee Keng once again. The place was creepy and cool at the same time I guess.

 
Marco, Deviana, and Naomy. After Kee Keng got down from the tree, his palms were black. The tree bark was like charcoal. Were those trees burnt or something?? 0.0

Yes, it was quite a long walk down to the beach via that windy trail. And as you can see, it was getting dark. Or maybe it’s cause of those leafless trees? HAHA.

 
Finally, the trail opened up to the sandy sandy beach! Which was of course, deserted.

And yup, we were just in time for the sunset at 6.20pm. Unfortunately, it was really cloudy.

And since it was getting dark (duh no sun of course right ==), we decided to head back.

Another 15-20 minute walk back up the trail.

 
LOOK at the freaking place! All the black branches rising from the sand, threatening to swallow you up whole! RIGHT.

 
By that time, Kee Keng’s phone was almost out of battery, so had to look at the map real closely to find the right way back. And yes, obviously it was dark already. When he drove up the hill to get to where we were, he was already speeding like mad to make it in time for the sunset. There was still sunlight then, and it was scary. At 6.40pm, it was dark, and to worsen the situation, it even started to drizzle. PLUS, there wasn’t much fuel left. Good job.

So the drive down the hill was intense, especially for those of us sitting at the back, barely being able to see the road ahead. There were a couple of times I dozed off, and woke up cause of screams or exclamations that were a result of some animal on the road or crossing it. Later that night, Kee Keng himself admitted that he couldn’t really see the road ahead as well. He just guessed whether it was gonna be a right or left turn next. ==

LUCK WAS ON OUR SIDE.

So yup, it was a really long drive back to Melbourne where we dropped the girls off. Headed to the city, parked the car, only to realise the place we wanted to go for dinner was closed. Went to Chinatown but couldn’t find parking. Parked the car back at Kee Keng’s place, then walked towards Swanston, ended up having a foot long Subway sandwich each a little after 10pm. Headed back home after that, exhausted.

If you were to do the calculations, we spent roughly 10 hours in the car and only 2 hours eating / sight-seeing / taking photos. All in all, it was definitely a good day out with em! And that was the 20th of September.

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Now I shall go to sleep wait for Teck Jenn to finish her Lembing: Day 2 post on MMF, which according to her, is gonna be super long as well. We’ll see bout that. xD

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