An emu looks for food at a picnic site.

After dusk we headed to our hostel at the nearby town of Port Campbell.

To cheer us up, our driver and guide, Bernie, began to sing Jingle Bells and made the bus swerve rhythmically. He then circled a traffic island three times before turning in the right direction. Screaming with laughter, we arrived at our hostel.

The tour group I was in was designed for people like me who wanted to see more and spend less. The two-day, one-night trip promised one dinner and now it was time to enjoy it - a barbecue buffet.

Koalas usually spend their days sleeping in trees.

Bernie was our cook, but we all helped out. I chopped some carrots and made a salad with two other Chinese in the group, a young couple from Beijing on their honeymoon.

There were also two travelers from Taiwan, three from Japan, and the rest of the 20-person group came from Europe. Some travelers had working holiday visas. A German girl said she worked in Australia at a car wash to save enough money to travel, and when she had spent the money she would find another short-term job.

We stayed in simple dormitory rooms, each of which had six beds. Because of the traveling and jet lag, I went to sleep early, but some of my more energetic roommates went to a pub and returned late.

Many companies organize day trips to the Great Ocean Road from Melbourne, but that means driving 600 km in a day and allows only a short stay at Twelve Apostles. The advantage of our tour was that we could relax and see the Twelve Apostles twice, the second time the next morning.

This time I decided to do something different - a helicopter ride which would allow me to see the Apostles from above.

An English woman traveler was my companion. We were told not to get too excited and jump around when walking under the propeller.

Like a gentleman, I gave up the front seat to the English woman and sat at the back. Before the flight we tested our microphones and earphones through which we could communicate with the pilot.

"Is this your first time in a helicopter?" asked the pilot.

"Yes," we both answered.

"Me too," the pilot said.

He was joking, I hoped. The helicopter took off. We flew over the Apostles and watched them from the other side.

In the daylight the scenery looked less desolate and brighter. The Twelve Apostles are not exactly 12 in number. There are more or less, depending on which ones you count. From the viewing platform I could clearly see seven, but now I saw more along the coastline.

The pilot told us that this part of the coastline had seen a lot of ship wreckages, the most famous of which happened in 1878 when the iron-hulled dipper Loch Ard foundered on the final night of its long voyage from England.

Of the 56 people onboard, only two survived, one of whom was a non-swimmer who clung to the wreckage and was washed into what is now called Loch Ard Gorge, just beside the Twelve Apostles.

Before I had time to imagine how the survivors climbed up the cliff we had to return to base and land. But I felt I had experienced a lot in those eight minutes.