Just a few days after our camp at Wilson's Promotory, we hitted the road again - the Great Ocean one, all the way to Adelaide for the annual OCF convention. It was a planned 3 day drive from Melbourne, leaving on the morning of the 27th November 2008.
Two cars left Clayton on the 27th, one joining us the next day and another car will be rented from Adelaide itself. My car was the only one not rented. I was up for a good long road trip to Adelaide and back.
My idea was to cover every single brown sign board we could find.. that's the tourist spots. Did I? Let's find out.
Our first stop was Werribee, 45 minute away from Clayton. We used the Princes Highway to avoid the toll. The point of interest in Werribee was the really old and gigantic mansion and a really big rose garden. Too bad the flowers were all whittering when we came, I recalled the gardens were quite something. The flies didn't make it pleasant, as usual.
Moving on, we by passed Geelong and proceeded to Torquay. Sue Ann, Marc, Lynette, Yasmeen and I fancied some surfing which we did for an hour. Jon's car proceeded on. So the five of us were stuck for the rest of the day. Yasmeen's bag was left in Jon's car.. so she didn't manage to change until we checked in at Apollo Bay. Well, we stopped at a couple of places. Lorne was the main attraction. Unfortunately, the pie's in Lorne which I craved for was closed when we got there. My original plan was to put up a night in Torquay and have a slow drive towards the 12 Apostles. One of them wanted to rush, hence a bitter and ugly compromise on my part. Hence, no pies and a split group. Still, we covered quite a few scenic spots in Lorne - the pier and the lookout. Unfortunately we didn't have time to cover the waterfalls. Perhaps next time. The backpackers at Apollo Bay was just barely qualified as decent for the amount of money we paid. At least we had a pillow to lay our heads on.
The next day our next spot was Ottaway National Park. There was a lighthouse there, one of the few beacons guiding ships to Geelong and Melbourne before the invention of GPS and radar. Along the way we spot a few cars by the road - for koalas. There were so many of them! Some eating, some sleeping and some burping shamelessly.
The lighthouse itself was nothing much. More a historical sight than anything else.
We proceeded north to.. urgh.. I can't remember the place.. but basically a canopy walk area. Unlike the stringish types you find back in Malaysia, this one was a huge metallic structure overlooking the forest floor. Apparently, that area was covered with dinosours millions of years ago.. hence the few puppet dinosours we found all around the park. One was even raped by Joel.
Argh!!! It got me!!!
We moved on to the most famous landmark of the whole trip, the Twelve Apostles. Too bad for most of us, we've already been here. Some have been here more than 3-4 times. And for a bunch of rock. Yawn. Too bad the weather wasn't too great either. The sun was kidnapped by the clouds. So much for our romantic sunset.
Due to some miscommunication, the group got split up again. My guess is our dear Clayton ex-president was missing the current one, hence rushing on to our next spot at Mount Gambier. I decided to take it slow, I haven't visited anything after Twelve Apostles. The sights were beautiful. Too bad we had to rush to catch up with the other car. Eventually we managed to meet up in a town called Warmambool. We had dinner at this amazing Thai restaurant the other group found by accident. I tried this Thai beer called Singha.. it was AWESOME! Oddly, the other group didn't wait for us again and drove on to our next spot. I was starting to wonder why some of them even bothered proposing to do this together. Anyway, after dinner our next stop was our backpackers.. in South Australia.
At Mount Gambier we stayed at this converted jail turned backpackers with a befitting name - The Jail. Quite an odd place. Four beds to a room was fine. But a toilet seat in the room? My gosh. As if anyone would wanna take a crap in the same room people are sleeping.
It had a spooky feel to it as well. The ghost stories made the girls go insane for awhile, begging us to stop telling. During the day, the place looked more pleasant. Going through the exit, you feel the sensation of joy - the same as each prisoner who leave the place.. regaining freedom again. For me, I was glad to start the day.
There were several places of interest in Mount Gambier but we could only afford to stop at one or two as we were rushing into Adelaide. We went to Blue Lake, an extinct volcano. The water's extra blue cause of some acidic reaction. The second place we covered was this huge ass sink hole, which turned from hotel to a mere garden.
We drove straight on to Adelaide from Mt. Gambier, making a couple of stops along the way. It was a 2 hour drive which didn't seem to take that long. I went to a German town nearby Adelaide called Handorf for some German sausages and food. The place itself held a very touristy Deutch feel. Too bad we didn't stay too long.. hence wasn't able to cover very much.
We pumped up at a nearby petrol station before proceeding into the city to a porsh area called Glenegl. We also met up with Robin and Eugene. It was about that time I realised that I left my fuel cap at the station near Handorf.. which really ruined my day. Wasn't in the mood to do anything knowing my car may erupt into flame at any minute. I managed to get a plastic replacement fuel cap temporarily.. but it still made me worry. While the others were having a fun time at the beach, I went searching for this replacement. After that we proceeded for some fresh oysters. For dinner we had something called an "abortion", which was basically ham and meats mashed up into one disgusting looking pile of carbs. Tasty though.
At night all of us had to split as we stayed with our South Australia host located all around the city. Marc and I bunked in with a couple of chaps called Nesta and Peter. Tony and Janice's boyfriend was there too. The house reminded me of Joshua's old place with a massive plasma screen and PS3.
The following morning we headed into Chinatown and met up with Charlene and Ben. It was the first time I've really been into Adelaide's CBD, which was far quieter compared to the CBD in Melbourne. It is inconceivable to see a jam here. Their Chinatown was also much more pleasant than Little Bourke Street in Melbourne. Food and drinks were way cheaper as well. We grabbed some bubble tea at one of the shops at the beginning of Chinatown. It only cost us $2.90 compared to Melbourne's $4.00 and was so much tastier. We moved on to the Barossa Valley to visit the Jacob's Creek winery, apparently the best winery in Australia. After that we dropped by this whispering wall nearby, which was basically a damn designed to be a resovoir. This designed accidentally had a hidden surprise where one could whisper from one end of the wall and another person could hear from the other end. It was probably a 150 meter long way mind you. I also saw this boze drinking bird.. which I thought was pretty funny.
For dinner, we met up with Esther and Wei Jin at some Vietnamese restaurant. We had to make our own springrolls which I thought was quite a cool activity. Apparently the SA OCFers like coming to this restaurant.
The next day was to be the first day of convention! We meet up where the girl's were staying, only to find Hwei Sing, Lynette and Sue Ann down with some massive food poisoning. Hwei Sing went home the next day.
Convention was pretty much what I expected it to be. Getting to know OCFers from around the country, learning more about how their center's own unique culture and so on. Apart from the technicalities, convention was a typical Christian camp with worship, sermons, bible studies, games and food. It doesn't change very much as the main objective of these events, that is to encourage fellowship with other members nationwide as well as to refresh ourself with our organisational purpose, that is to "reach out, build up, send back".
For me it was a good time to meet new people as well as learn. I guess I didn't really expect very much from this convention, cause it was quite predictable being the type of camp it was.. quite unlike the others who probably thought God is gonna come down from heaven and give them a nice electrifying experience. It's strange when people say they were dissapointed because their expectations weren't met - which was for God to do something. Isn't He doing something all the time? Regardless of whether we are conscious about it? Who are we kidding when we expect to "be changed" from this events? It's amazing how self-centered we can be and miss the whole picture when God is infact doing something great in our lives every day, all the time. Emotional hype can cut off our true relationship with Him because it does make us very shallow and limits our perspective of who God is. So who's really "putting God in the box" now? Yes, I was dissapointed at somethings some people said in this convention.. but perhaps that too was a God moment - for me to realise and to learn something.
Ahh! Bitterness aside, I had lot's of fun with all the OCFers - particularly the South Australians. They were fantastic host! Food was great (yea, most of it was catered. But still). I found out my angel (from the angel-mortal game) was the chief chef because I began to wonder why I was always one of the first to receive my food and didn't need to endure the long ques.
Left: My boss Esther was our EXCO member looking after Berwick and HueyChi who's gonna take over. Right: Crap, can't remember the name. Sgt. Ivan Khoo from 1st PJ Co.?
Left: K, no need to explain Marc's gayness. Person on the right is KaFaii, Parkville outgoing chair. Right: Lilian and I, EXCO member. She's a former GB girl!
BRIGADE SHOT: This is probably the coolest shot of the AGM
From left: Robin Mulyadi (27th Singapore BB), me (3rd Kuala Lumpur BB), Lilian (3rd Kuching GB), Jerica Chai (1st Brunei GB), James Wei (5th? Signapore BB), erm forgot the name (1st Sibu GB), Jezamine (2nd KL GB)
There was of course Ivan Khoo from 1st Petaling Jaya BB who I think was washing dishes when we took this shot, Bernard Tee was from 2nd Kuching BB, Stephanie from Macqurie OCF was from 1st Kuching GB. Quite amazed how many Brigadiers they were. After all the years, there's this close connection with the Brigade which is so difficult to discard. Not that difficult to understand why I move BB so much =)
Convention went on for 4-5 days, while AGM overlapped with another 3 days. Not all of us stayed and hung out in the city while a few of us representing Clayton and Berwick stayed on to endure the reports and to second movements. It is from these AGM's where I learnt quite alot of good ideas from other centers. Though it can be boring and tiring at times, it was important and highly informative.
The roadtrip wasn't over after AGM. Marc, Sue Ann, Joel and I decided to take the more happening and cost effective mode of transport home, going through a more direct route back to Melboure rather than the Great Ocean Road, taking off more than an hours worth from the initial journey. We put up the night in a town called Stawell, somewhere after the Grampians. Our biggest delight was the motel we stayed in - Hi-way Eight. For $27 dollars per person we were treated to 4 star quality accomadation, just a mere $4 extra from the two backpackers we stayed in on the way to Adelaide. There was another surprise in Stawell as well. It was a pleasant town, much bigger than we previously expected. We had breakfast at this bakery which apparently had Australia's best Vanila Slice and award winner pies. So yes, God is fair - I did get to eat my award winning pies! This reminds me that if I want something good, I gotta do it myself cause other's really can mess things up for you. Needless to say, the roadtrip back from Adelaide was beginning to appear much more enjoyable than the trip there. But yes, not do things by our own might and let God =)
We made another stop in Ballarat, one of the biggest towns in Victoria after Melbourne and Geelong. We visited Sovereign Hill where they had a replica Gold Mining Town. It was quite interesting to see the processes of how they mined gold and how it is processed. Australians really know how to promote their heritage. Most of the relics were well preserved. As though that wasn't enough, even the customs and culture was intact. They had people dressing up in the fashion of that era (1900 by the way) and had presentations, singing, dancing.. even shooting a gun. The significance of Ballarat to Australia is important as it was towns like these who brought in increased migratation worldwide. Ballarat was also the site where a rebellion took place as miners were overtaxed and suppressed. This rebellion was seen as the birth of the "real Australia". True enough after the rebellion, the British Empire changed their foreign policy on it's government with it's colonies - giving the first forms of autonomous administration. And it all begun here. Pretty cool.
After a really long trip spanning more than 10 days I was ready to just laze out the entire summer. Looking forward to more crazy road trips to come.
Last weekend the 17th of January 2009 I've conquered the tallest mountain in Australia, Mount Kosciuszko together with Melvin, James and Isabella. The idea came from Melvin and James who are just hungry to do as much as they can in their short 1 year exchange in Australia. Initially, I wanted to do Ayers Rock in Alice Springs, but that drive would've taken me 27 hours ONE WAY, even needing me to drive through Adelaide (as though just driving to Adelaide wasn't crazy enough). Kosciuszko was no easy feat as well. It's situated 6-7 hours away from Melbourne and in a different state - NSW, but just by a few dozen kilometers. 
