Our first Autumn Easter

Easter weekend we went back out to apollo bay.  This is the same place that we stayed at the coolest eco-hostel ever, the same place that kara and jen worked at while on the great ocean road, and the same place our friend jen went back to work for a couple months after leaving Melbourne.

This time around, we had nine people and we rented a vacation house down by the beach.  The visit, of course, started with a visit to Costco, where we purchased copious amounts of food and alcohol.  Unpacking the supplies at the cabin, our British friends were quick to poke fun at our “American sized” tub of salsa.  There wasn’t much more to add when the bottle was consumed within the first two days.

One of the redeeming qualities of Australia is their approach to vacation days.  Easter is a national four day weekend and offices typically close between Christmas and New Years.  Get this, the standard minimum annual leave starts at four weeks.  Because of the generous public holidays, however, I have found myself so far only having to take one day off (American Thanksgiving) leaving myself three weeks to make the 20hour one way trek back home in June.

Being in the Southern hemisphere really messes with your mind.  Although not quite on the scale of a 95 degree Christmas, it felt a bit funny to celebrate Easter as days were getting shorter.  Daylight savings occurred the same week where we gained an hour instead of losing an hour only to find the skies dark at 6.  Heading out to the coast added to the affect as the first couple days were quite chilly.  We had to fire up the wood stove and spent many hours playing monopoly and working on a 1000 piece puzzle of a Scandinavian harbor scene.  Luckily our schizophrenic weather patterns down here provided us with plenty of warm sunshine on our last day when we were finally able to head down with our beers to the beach.

From Apollo bay we made a quick run out to the 9? of 12 remaining Apostles only to enjoy it in marginally less windy, rainy and cold weather than our last visit.  We did however get much closer to the Koalas living in the Eucalyptus trees along the road this time: