Gorgeous Great Ocean Road

Now South Australia is a complete surprise. This place doesn't look at all like it belongs in this 'Barren' and sunburnt country. South Australia thus far has been a trip full of sights of green pastures rainforests and a battered coast sporting the 12 apostles. Though there aren't really 12 there anymore.

We have gone through 3 different Australian states in the past week and it has been alot of driving. It has been worth it. After the night in Mallacotta we headed towards Melbourne, not planning to spend much time there. It is a very busy city like Sydney. We parked the car and hopped onto the Free tram that does tours of Melbourne city. The city part seems bigger than Sydney city. Part of Melbourne is very new with lots of modern looking buildings, pretty cool actually. The other half is the old, historic part of Melbourne. If we had time it would have been nice to stop there a little bit longer. We enjoyed the afternoon there and then headed off to the start of the Great Ocean Road. We stopped in a little town called Torquay. This is the gateway to the Great Ocean Road. It is world renown for its waves for surfing and brands like Quiksilver, Roxy, Billabong and Rip Curl all originated here...We watched some sweet kite-surfing and sailing and headed back onto the road to our final destination of the day, Lorne. The scenery between Torquay and Lorne is magnificent. I would have liked to stop at every place possible and take photos, I know that my photos could not have done justice. We stayed in a nice hotel in Lorne that overlooked the sea.

The next day was Day 2 of the Great Ocean Road for us. It was beautiful and sunny (for the morning) with again breathtaking scenery. Our first stop was a place called Maits Rest. It was a little walk in part of the Rainforest with massive trees called Mountain Ash and Ferns. The Great Ocean Road scenery is pretty much beauitful cliff side to vast expanse of ocean to windy roads through hills to rainforest. We headed on past Apollo Bay to a road that led to a Lightstation. This place is known for the koalas so we spent the whole time driving about 10 kms an hour trying to find one. After about 20 minutes there was sightings and more and more. They were all hidden in the trees fast asleep with a few eating and pooing. It was awesome!! After this leg of the journey it started to get rainy. We reached the 12 Apostles and almost got blown into the sea it was sooo windy! It was definitely worth the stop. You see photos all the time but they do not compare to seeing it in person. We stopped at a few more places after that. Which were just as amazing as the 12 Apostles. Bay of Islands - gorgeous. It was sad to see the end of the Great Ocean Road. What a great drive it was. We ended up in a small town called Portland for the night. Funny side note: When looking for accommodation David and his dad actually walked into a man’s lounge of his house and started asking him about accommodation, they thought it was a motel. Haha.

Yesterday was a long drive, we drove for six hours straight of basically Saskatchewan land, flat with fields and livestock. The guys still enjoyed it though. It is also funny to see their fascination with the big semi’s. Guess they do not have them over in the UK. To keep ourselves entertained we played a game; let’s see who can stand the heat for the longest. So we closed the windows, turned off the air con and while we were not looking, Andy turned up the heat on full blast. The first person to roll down the window lost. May I also add that it was above 30 degrees outside. It was HOT! We managed to last an hour. We then pulled over on the side of the road for some fresh air and sea breeze! We drove through a massive area of Wineries until we reached an area, just a bit away from Adelaide, called Murray River.

Today, we reached the last day of the first part of our trip - Adelaide. But first we stopped off at Warrawong Wildlife Sanctuary. We had close encounters with Wallabies and kangaroos, letting us pet them and coming up to our hands looking for food. We also heard a very scary growl in the bushes. We still don’t know what it was. When we arrived in Adelaide we dropped off the car and walked a few blocks with all our luggage…ughhh, I really need to learn to pack lighter. Tomorrow, we will spend the day sightseeing in Adelaide and then we will be catching the train again to Perth, yay!

I believe that is all!

Holly, David & Andy.