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Just as we left you in Melbourne - guess what happened.... thats right it started to rain! Not only that but it started to get pretty cold too. Our bus for this tour was late by about an hour too so we got pretty wet waiting for him at Victoria arts centre, oh well it gave us a chance to meet a few of the guys who we would be travelling with.
The first day started with a short trip to Bells Beach where the film point break was filmed - this is a world famous surf spot and we stopped to watch a few of the locals having a good old fashioned surf on some of the waves. A little further on our way we hit the town of Lorne, which as you can see from the pics was absoloutely packed - a bit of a shock to the system seeing as we are pretty used to having completely isolated beaches! A few hours drive along the twisty-snaky leg of the great ocean road brought us to our overnight stop in the sleepy harbour town of Apollo Bay - renowned for its crayfish industry. Here we went out as a group for some dinner and had a few beers in the local pub. We headed back to our "hippy house" hostel for a good nights kip.
The following day we headed out of apollo bay in the pouring rain to the Otway ranges, we went on a boardwalk through the rainforest whilst the rain soaked us through, Dan happened to find shelter under a nearby fir tree seeing as he only brought t-shirts with him for the whole trip! Our journey continued onto the twelve apostles - which we would like to point out there are actually only 8 left as 4 have fallen over!! A shipwreck further on the "Shipwreck coast" brought us to Loch Ard gorge where we lost one member of our group, poor old Alan who was about 60 years old and a top bloke, after two head counts from our driver/guide Bill!! From here we ventured out to our picnic lunch at Port Cambell another small surfing village and Jesus they dont know how to cook potato scallops! After a pretty poor lunch, we headed to a few of the sights down the coast including London Bridge, the Grotto but Santa wasnt there, bay of martyrs and the bay of islands. Our final stop of the day took us to Tower Hill which was a dormant volcano and home to 5000 koalas, kangaroos and other auzzie wildlife. We witnessed a near fatal koala incident where a baby koala hung on for dear life as the mother ate all the branches surrounding him - women and food hey! Our overnight stay was at the time warped town of Port Fairy, we had a chicken satay meal and a few beers with the guys before heading back to the hostel for some more wine before some shut eye!
Bridgewater was our first stop on our third day, we were slightly disappointed as we were unable to go to the seal colony because the sea was too rough. We did however get to see a really chubby girl (who looked like a seal) try to squeeze into a wetsuit which was one of the funniest things I (Dan) have ever seen. We continued up to Mount Gambier for our lunch break and a good look at the beautiful blue lake, the towns water supply - so no swimming or urinating and guess what - the sun came out to play. After a short journey onward we arrived at the Peninsula for a cliff top walk around the coastline, it was really gorgeous and even the weather started to improve and it was now pretty warm. Another overnight stay was at Bridgewater in a gorgeous YHA hostel which had been transformed from an ex-stately home. Fish and Chips for tea and Dan ate shark!!
Our final day started with a trip to see Bills mate Larry (The lobster) and Kingston for a stroll on the beach to see the ancient rock formations - which the aboriginals believe were once humans. The coorong national park consisting of salt lakes and sand dunes was really pretty. We hiked to the top of the dunes to have a nice view over the lake and did a spot of sunbathing. Then we were off to our aboriginal bush walk where we sampled some real bush tucker - Shell didnt fancy any of the local delicasies unfortunately but I (Dan) sampled many, I must say that the bush fruits are really quite nice. We had a proper bush tucker meal for lunch too, consisting of shark meat, kangaroo balls, salad, pasta and damper (which is basically a bread, it kinda tastes like a scone) Following this we took a short ferry ride over the murray river and drove through the scottish village of Strathalban, we stopped here for a quick snap and then reboarded the bus to take the final segment of the journey to Adelaide.
After speaking to all the guys a few of us decided to meet up for a nice thai meal - where shell ordered the hottest thing on the menu!! After swapping with mine we both enjoyed it and had a drink with everyone before finally parting to our hostels. Cheers Bill, Craig, Kathryn and Jo for a nice night.
Cheers for the messages again guys, hope your all doing well and keeping warm! Bubble is this news about you leaving true? If so, let me know your new number and that when you leave cuz i have only got your Mitie mobile number - take it easy guys x x x Dan and Shell x x x Lee and Em I bet your excited now hey?
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