Adelaide to Melbourne... Featuring The Great Ocean Road!!!

What a couple of weeks it has been... We have driven more then a quarter of the way round the coast of Australia, seen some amazing sights, experienced weather from 47 degree sun to 15 degree driving rain.

The last stretch was the drive from Adelaide to Melbourne which, though it is not so long in distance, more then makes up for it with the sheer density of things to see and beautiful sights...

The first day after leaving Adelaide we drove down the coast to Robe, where we stayed in the Little Dip Natural Park... Robe was very nice and felt very peaceful.

Leaving Robe behind us on day two we travelled to Mount Gambier. This was a very interesting place, being built on an extinct volcano, and having lots of sinkholes, craters and lakes... one of them a striking shade of sapphire!

The next day we crossed the border into Victoria. We went for a walk in Portland, all in the cause of seeing seals... we saw them, but they were very far away. It was a nice walk regardless... We finished the day in Port Fairy... Not a name I'd imagine the sailors liked very much, though it is one of the oldest ports in Australia!

Day four saw us arrive onto the great ocean road. It was going to be hard for this road to live up to the hype... but it somehow delivered... in spite of the intermittent rain. I also managed to get sunburned in site of the intermittent rain!

On the great ocean road we saw the Bay of Islands, the Bay of Martyrs, The Grotto, London Bridge, The Arch, Loch Ard Gorge (featuring the Blowholes, Thunder Cave and Razorback Ridge) and finally the Twelve Apostles...

We stopped the night at Lavers Hill and set off for the rest of the great ocean road... There were many amazing views on this day... though they didn't have names like the ones the previous day... We continued driving after the great ocean road, through Melbourne city, and all the way to Phillip Island... Phillip Island is mostly famous for Penguins...

Fairy penguins to be precise. They are the smallest penguins in the world, being mostly less then 25cm tall, but they still walk in a very amusing fashion. We saw the penguin parade and then headed to San Remo for the night.

The final day of our great drive we re-visited Phillip island to see the Nobbys... worth visiting for their funny name if nothing else. They also had a boardwalk over the cliffs with many interesting sights to see... including some seagull chicks!

After this we headed for Melbourne to our place of rest for the next few days...

And that is the tale of our trip from Adelaide to Melbourne... I hope you liked it...

Trev.







Epilogue...

I feel that it would be wrong to leave you without telling you about our day trip to Melbourne.. We set of early in the morning, in spite of Nams protests as I dragged her out of bed!

We took the bus, and then the train, into the center of the city, getting off at Flinders Street Station. We wandered around the city almost at random for a while, stopping off to check the internet and find things that caught our interest...

We ended up in the North of the city, near the Victoria Market.. so we decided to pay it a visit.

Victoria Market is a wonderful place. The non food section was ok. Just what you would expect from a market, but the food section of the market was a like a dream for me, with a vast array of food, from all over the world, all freshly prepared and smelling amazing. The only problem was that I was visiting it with literally zero cash to spare! If I had had any money, or if I lived in Melbourne, I could have spent a fortune in that place...

Leaving the market wistfully behind we resumed our wandering. Seeing one of the free tourist trams riding past we decided to take a ride round the circuit of the city. We saw many interesting sights around Melbourne on this before getting off pretty much where we got on...

We walked back south from here, down Swanston street. We visited Chinatown, which was less exciting then we thought it would be, and made our way to Federation Square, which was right next to where we set off...

Federation Square was filled with people watching the Australian Open tennis on a huge screen, and was backed by a huge striking building. This building turned out to be the Australian Museum of the Moving Image, so of course we decided to wander in and take a look...

This museum was lots of fun. Our only regret was that we hadn't spent the whole day there! We only had about an hour to wander around and play with all of the interactive displays (including some “classic” computer games!).

We left the Museum and headed back to the train station... satisfied with the day and thinking that we would definitely have to visit Melbourne city again some time... ()

After New Year... Perth to Adelaide

Hey Guys

I know... the last message was far too long... and I know... I'm still over two weeks behind on my posting! In this message I'll give you the bare essentials, and catch you up on a weeks travelling... with any luck I'll be able to give you another weeks worth in a couple of days and we'll be bang up to date!

So... when I left you last we had just finished New Years eve in Perth... The next week or so was dedicated to getting to Adelaide as quickly as possible, while still seeing a few sights along the way...

The first day we visited Rockingham, had lunch in Mandurah (and viewed a $1M apartment) and stopped the night in Bunbury.

The next day we headed inland. We visited Gnomeville, climbed a massive tree near Manjimup, visited Denmark (not the country) and stopped in a little caravan park between Denmark and Albany...

On the third day the first stop was Albany, which was very nice, then we headed inland again in a massive 300km detour to see the wave rock. I was a bit grumpy at all this extra driving, but it was worth it in the end...

Day four saw us head back to the coast and we finished the day in Esperance. Esperance is well worth a visit if you're in the area, and it has some exquisite beaches. The next three days were as if we were back on the outback. We headed north to Norseman (not much here, we went to the swimming pool), then set off along the Nullarbor Highway. This is notable partly for having the longest stretch of perfectly straight road in Australia... It ia also notable for a 200 km stretch of road, containing a few roadhouses, that has its own unique time-zone, completely separate from anywhere else in Australia!

After 3 days we finished this long stretch of outback and arrived in Ceduna. Ceduna was... nothing too exciting... The next day we headed down the coast. First of all we passed Smokey Bay... then Streaky Bay... All of this of course made me think of bacon! Streaky Bay was mostly notable for having a massive shark hung up in the petrol station...

We spent that night in Port Lincoln, and the night after that in Whyalla. Both of these places were notable for a lack of caravan parks, in spite of there being loads of tourists!

The next day, and only a few hours from Adelade now we decided to stop off in Crystal Brook and spend a night. It was a nice little town, and a nice little camp site.

Finally, after over a week on the road we arrived in Adelaide and settled ourselves down for a few days here...

That's it for now, look forward to the next instalment, Adelaide to Melbourne, The Great Ocean Road!

Bye folks

Trev