Day 73 (18 August): Lots of Scenery

Today, I did a lot more scenic driving. I headed further down the Great Ocean Road through some rainforests and then along some Sandstone cliffs and to the '12 Apostles National Park' where there are some cool sandstone pillars sitting out in the middle of the ocean. I then headed inland and back towards Melbourne, taking a Ferry across the bottom portion of the Bay that Melbourne is on the Northern edge of and driving up through the Mornington Peninsula (which is sort of like a Cape Cod type area for Melbourne.) There were also a number of wineries and vineyards along the route. I stopped at St. Kilda (a Santa Monica like suburb) before heading into Melbourne itself where I stayed in the urban-hip Fitzroy District which is full of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, etc.

Observations:
1) Australia is a really big place. The towns in the country are really spread out.
2) Hungry Jack's. I passed a lot of these along the drive today. They are almost exactly the same as Burger King with an quivalent logo only it says Hungry Jack's on the inside of the Burger on the sign. Apparently, Burger King messed up its licensing contract and the local chain gets a lot of leeway and keeps a larger portion of the profits than anywhere else in the world.
3) Racisim in Australia. I had a conversation with an older lady on the ferry to the Mornington Peninsula about it. She seemed to think that Australia needs to get over its problems and be more accepting of outsiders and particularly Asian immigrants if it is going to compete going forward. She thought that Austarlians on average tended to be a little racist because historical the Whites there had dominated the Aborigines and then had very little interaction with non-white people otherwise.