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From Ithaki Greece to Victoria Australia - An ithacagreece.com trip
 
November and December 2006
 

Athens

Up and Away

Ithaca Society

IPS Lunch

City Central

The Shop Drop

Landscapes

Coastline

Beaches

Country Victoria

Suburbs

Upside

Downside

   
 
Coastline
Coastlines, pounded upon by unrelenting seas, make for spectacular views down south. From Portsea to Portland, Mornington Peninsula to the Great Ocean Road, the ocean has shaped the coastline of Victoria into awe-inspiring forms. Each rush of a wave deepens a crevice etched so many centuries ago, by wind, salt and sea. It's living sculpture. The wind blows so strong and hard it makes your inner ears ache and the skin on your cheekbones flap like paper napkins. Bass Strait roars and crashes onto every rock, crushing every grain of sand against continuously eroding cliff sides. The ocean is wild, it's furious, it's thunderous and absolutely fabulous! Past the shoreline, beyond the rocks, there are sharks, rifts and whirlpools, all dangerous and foreboding, yet the ocean south, lures and tempts individuals to stare into its jet blue depths, below the giant and tide- tangled seaweed, with longing and amazement.
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Cape Shank Lighthouse

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Below - The Great Ocean Road just outside of Warnambool

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Ocean beaches are wild and rough. Even when the wind is blowing a gale and the chill pierces through the good old Aussie windcheater, they have a lure that you just can't overlook. When the forces are too great outside, you just wind up your window and watch the waves crash up against the shore from the inside of the car. The roar is thunderous, the force immeasurable It's easy to be intimidated by its' power and unrelenting force, but at the same time be enthralled by its' beauty and its' mass. Ocean beaches are where you swim inbetween the flags and catch the 'unbelievable' wave. Ocean beaches are shark waters and deadly rip-tides. The danger is palatable, but this rugged coastline has an attraction that tempts even the water-shy and the waterlogged to lose themselves within the amazing motion of a tumbling tide.
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Below - The Hastings Pelicans aren't shy about coming forward. It seems they've had camera training. As the tide begins to go out at Hastings, they line up for the morsels remaining in the brown sand once the water recedes.
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Inverloch, Venus Bay, Phillip Island, Eagles Nest, Cape Patterson
Left - Eagles Nest, between Inverloch and Cape Patterson. The wayward sea crashes into itself as the incoming tide moves onto the bay. A quiet cove facing the fury of a strengthening wind. The seaside scrub wrestles in the sand while the waves crash up on the rocks.
   

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Sand dunes, a fierce sea and the unreachable horizon.
 
The ocean coastline with jagged rocks piercing through the sea bed, has been shaped by the ages and a pounding ocean. Could such an ocean be survived? It's hard to believe it could be, when you stand alone at the edge of it. It appears so much bigger than anything you could muster up to fight against it. Australias coastline is renowned for its ragged beauty and dangerous depths, but until you see it up close, it's just a picture in a magazine. You can't fathom just how awe-inspiring this terrain is, how wild and elemental, how beautiful and how frightening, how magical and how dangerous.
 
   
 
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