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Well, time for another update, it must have been about two weeks??So, the story goes.....Left Melbourne on a bright and chilly morning from Base backpackers after staying in that dodgy room with the drug dealer! Did I mention that guy in the last one? The one who slept all day, partied all night and who's phone rang every five minutes to arrange a little rendez vous with people....well anyway, didn't fancy being around him too long being that you leave your entire life in a room with strangers and pray and hope that they don't rob you!So, it was onwards to the Great Ocean Road. It was a fab trip along the coast, stopping at various points of interest, like seeing the 'Round the Twist' lighthouse - in the distance mind you, but how cool is that! Unfortunately, I was with a bus load of people who didn't quite share the appreciation of this fact, but is a highlight to me. I loved that show! Well, then it was straight to the Twelve Apostles which were absolutely stunning. They maybe just rocks, but they were defiantly cool rocks in the middle of the sea, quite far away from the land just standing there. We even got a chance to do the helicopter ride over it. That was really cool. Seeing the landscape from above was breathtaking, they were all jaggered and wobbly looking. Was so worth the 30quid I spent on it. So, after that we arrived at our hostel for the night, an old clock museum but was nice nevertheless. We watched 'Finding Nemo', I felt as if I was back on the barrier reef again, then an early start the following morning to head onto the Grampians. Some more big rocks - well I guess they are more like mountains. Part of the Great Dividing Range that stretches from the top of oz to the bottom. They were amazing too, in fact most things are pretty amazing now. I have high expectations when I go on a tour - abit of a travel snob waiting for my next delight. So it was another one of those, oh it's just around the corner down the hill, a near heart attack later and your there, only to realize that you have to walk back up! I don't think I'm lazy, I just think that these aussies have a habit of playing things down so not to scare people off, but have way through the little walk you kind of think that have you let yourself in for...... So we saw, the Grampians, the bush fired trees and went to another Aboriginal Cultural centre, learnt what complete idiots we brits were when we first took over oz and decided to kill the locals, and what a mess of things we made of things here and now, they are back peddling with 'Sorry' day and things like that.... and carried on to the strangest hostel...A night in Naracoorte was the plan but it was more like a home stay, with the kids running around and washing up dishes in the family kitchen after the hugest feast ever. All the other backpackers were working in the local potato fields or at the chicken farm, taking apart the meat and packaging it up. Sounded disgusting to me, thank goodness I don't have to do that was my thought when I was hearing the descriptions of what they have to do! Next day, Caving, Horse riding and a mammoth drive to Adelaide. So caving, was the first activity of the day. It was going just fine, until I started to think about what lives in caves, and funnily enough, all I could think of was those elve things in Lord of the Rings!!!! Then we went into total darkness, that was just about bearable but when we had to go down this tunnel, I was starting to think, what the hell am I doing crawling around on my knees in the dark in an ancient cave. It was abit hairy for a minute there, but luckily I lived to tell the tale. Ten mins after getting of all the gear, we were heading for the horse riding session. I had hardly adjusted my eyes to the bright light of day and then I was off trotting around the outback. But it was wonderful out there. You could hear the kookaburras and all these other birds twittering away, while trotting around the dusty plans. I even managed a canter - not of my own doing, but my horse, Mars, got a little keen and didn't want to be left behind...Mind you, Jess was well away, miles ahead of me, doing the cantering thing. When we finally got back, we washed the horses off and moaned about our sore thighs for the rest of the day. But it was definitely worth it. As we arrived into Adelaide through the Adelaide hills (originally named I thought) we drove past a dead Koala - which made me most sad, but quickly got over it when we found out that in the hostel we had checked into had bed bugs and they were in the bed opposite us! As you can imagine, we didn't get the best night's sleep ever, but were pleased to move out of that room shortly after.So we had arrived in Adelaide - but what to do we thought. We had heard that it was abit of a boring place. Well, not as happening as Sydney and Melbourne, just abit more on the ok side rather than say, it's a great place! So we had a challenge of making our stay worthwhile. The first thing we did was too chill out on Glenelg beach. It was the beginning of the heat wave by then a scorching 35 everyday for the past 10days. It would have made the Guinness Book of Records today for being over 35 for the first time in history in South Australia. What makes it so unusual is that it's autumn here now. So I guess that's climate change for you! In the end, it was too hot for me to sunbathe, so we amused ourselves with drinking......wine tasting in fact! We took a trip out to the Barossa valley on the day tour which took us to Wolf Blass and past the Jacob Creek vineyards. They seemed to own half of the Barossa Valley with they're ache's of land. Even labeling the grapes to tell you which wines they were to produce. So as you can probably imagine, we did rather like a tipple and by the end was feeling like we liked all the wines that they kept serving us. At one point I realized I must have been tipsy when the last vineyard we went to served me a mere mouthful - I had obviously been a little loud and so it was halve the portion for me! Opps. But that didn't stop us, we went straight out when we got back to Glenelg, carried on with the comments - ooh I think I can taste grape and grape in this one'......so then came the Jagerbombs until 2am when finally we dragged ourselves back to the dirty hostel with the horrid bed bugs and slept until 9am when yet once more we had to swap beds and change rooms. For what reason I do not know why we had to keep moving around, but I think they should sack the receptionist who doesn't have the ability to book people in one room for a week! With our hangovers, we didn't do an awful lot. Just went to the cinema - in fact, it got to a point when I had seen everything showing at the local cinema as it was the best place to be in the air conditioned room than outside or in our stuffy horrid bedroom! Finally the day came when I had to say goodbye to my travel buddy of 7 weeks. It wasn't the best way to say goodbye at 7am in the morning, half asleep but off she went to catch her plane to Sydney, so it was just me again. So, I thought id entertain myself by going to the village of Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills. It was ok as daytrips go, but as I said, I have high expectations now and being that I was with all the grannies on a big coach; I guess it passed the time. It was an old German settlement in the hills, where they sold lots of German things like sausages and HoffBrau beer and sold clocks. So it was OK, but that was it. Next day I checked into the Surf'n'sun tour off to Kangaroo Island. That was a pretty fun trip. Although it was the tour guides very first trip ever, so things didn't go as smoothly as you may like. We just made the mad dash to catch the bus to Kangaroo Island by a hairs whisker. I think we were all relieved to be on that boat. When we finally got to the Island there were a couple of stops to see the island, a steep walk up this hill to see the view, then off to see the Australian Seals. They were so amazing. They lived in the sea and came to sunbathe on the sand and were so huge. It was so strange to see them in their natural habitat rather than at the zoo. That night was a stay in a cabin and a campfire then an early start the next day to head off to the most remarkably remarkable rocks, which so happened to be called the Remarkable rocks ....another original name which I rather liked! They had been formed from molten rock and had eroded from the strong winds on the south of the island to form such unusual shapes. In the afternoon, it was another seal stop to see the New Zealand seals and a dash to the beach. It was so hot, so a dip in the sea was much appreciated. Then a dash to get the boat. But things weren't going our way with the new tour guide. She didn't really tell us much about anything as I think she was more worried about getting places on time and even then we nearly missed the boat again. So we finally made out way back to the hostel at 11pm. We kept ourselves awake by looking out for the death signs. They have poles on the side of the roads to indicate when people have had an accident there. Mainly next to trees on windy bends, red ones for injuries and black for death. Sadly, we were seeing them quite frequently and with our new tour guide not used to driving a 4wd in the dark at night, I did worry that that might be me. But luckily, I cheated death once more and made it back to Adelaide. This morning I hopped aboard one of the few trains that go around Oz, the Overlander from Adelaide to Melbourne. It was pretty fun, in fact it was more like going on a plane. You had to shoe ID and they weighed your bag and put it on a conveyer belt which I thought was funny as it just seemed to pop out the other side so didn't see much point in it...anyway. I sat and watched the world go by for ten and a half hours. Occasionally getting up to go to the buffet cabin and share a few stories with the oldies about their journeys then retired back to my Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen book. I'm finally back where I started, in the same hostel 10 days ago. What an adventure. Melbourne's hotting up with all the Grand Prix action going on and I can't wait to be a part of it. But that's another story. So until then, take care, Love Adele. xxx
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