The Pinnacle of Grief and Acceptance.

Day 28: Tuesday, July 14th
Steps taken: 12,888

When I woke up I checked some things on the Internet instead of going to breakfast.  I touched base with my family who were in the midst of my uncle's wake.  I had my last two granola bars on the bus as we headed towards to the Pinnacles.

The hike at the Pinnacles started all together, and then after the first lookout we all followed the yellow arrow path to the top at our own pace.  The walk was 2.1 km each way.  I pulled ahead, and was on my own for most of the way up.  Once or twice I saw some of the others from a higher elevation while they were walking through the woods so I shouted " Helloooooooo!" at them.  The hike was fairly rocky, but not too bad.  I even misjudged a puddle and my whole right boot was submerged, but my new boots are waterproof and awesome so nothing seeped through.

I reached the top a few minutes before everyone else so I yelled out "Thank you, Uncle Bill!" The view from the top was spectacular.  We must have been 800m up.  The surrounding mountains, lakes, and forests were thankfully not covered in mist, so the view was clear.  I walked down again at my own pace, which was a little bit ahead of everyone else.  I feel like if this was Trekking in Transylvania that Rasvan would still be telling me to hurry up.  When we reached Giles I asked everyone "Who is climbing Kilimanjaro with me?" I was only half kidding.  I think I would hike Kili if I get the chance.  Definitely not Everest though mostly for ethical reasons.

For lunch we stopped at a shopping center.  Not much was open on one side of the strip so our options were Hungry Jack's (Burger King) or whatever was in the Cole's building.  I wandered about the Cole's center before reaching the little food court.  There was only two food options: a bakery, and a Chinese fast food place.  I chose the bakery and ordered a chicken schnitzel burger.  It was pretty good.  I've made schnitzel on par with this.  Best schnitzel I've had is still the Nagel Restaurant in Hamburg, Germany.

After lunch, we headed towards the Great Ocean Road.  It started to rain as we were coming back to the bus.  We made a few stops along the way to the hostel.  The first was to Tower Hill.  We walked around looking at wild emus, and koalas in the trees.  We took a short hike up the hill, which had a stupendous view.  Then we went into the gift shop area.  I bought some pins for my Pathfinder group, and talked to a nice artist named Tinika Clifford.  She has a facebook page called Tinika's True Talent.  Check out her Aboriginal art.

Then we went to the Bay of Islands, which was pretty cool, and then the Bay of Martyrs, which smelled heavily of sulfur.  These areas were some of the standard spots of the Great Ocean Road.

We arrived at the Port Campbell Hostel at 3:55.  We waited an excruciating five minutes for them to open up.  Worst hostel ever!...Just kidding.  It was really nice.  The owners were friendly, and the rooms and space were clean, and comfortable.  The walls were lined with art on the first floor, and inspirational pictures on the second.  Everybody was hanging out quietly in the lounge on their computers and phones until we left for dinner.  We joked about the Einstein quote: "When technology exceeds human interaction then the world will have created a generation of idiots."  So funny...so relevant.

Idiots have to eat sometimes so we walked to a restaurant called Karoa, which was a nice place.  After less interaction in the lounge, we played some 'get to know you better' games since the establishment had a card game on the top where people had to answer questions such as "What is your favorite dessert", and "What cartoon character would you be?"  On the wall, there was an awesome print of the world but written out in different font sizes and the the names of the countries were shaped like them.  They left out a few like Antarctica though.  Why the hell do some maps leave out Antarctica...bastards! Later I touched the name of each country (and NZ) I had been to.  For dinner I had pulled pork & cole slaw on tortillas with sweet potato fries.  It was good except for the cole slaw.  Not a fan of it to begin with, but this slaw was pretty strong with the cabbage and vinegar taste.  It would have been better if it was on the side rather than thrown into the tortilla with the pork.

While we ate in the restaurant, there was a torrential downpour.  Thankfully it stopped when we were ready to leave.  I headed back to the hostel, and spent some time on the Internet because I'm an idiot.  While I was dreaming and wishing I was in two places at once, my family was putting my uncle to rest.