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Hi Guys!!
So our trip from Adelaide to Melbourne began.....
We stood outside our hostel at 6:30 in the morning waiting for our tour guide to collect us & who should turn up but Ally, our tour guide from our Barossa Valley tour. So here went Colin McRae all over again - but this time for 3 days - OH NO!!
We left Adelaide via the Adelaide hills and made our way to our 1st stop - a tiny town called Keith. We walked around the whole town in about 5 minutes, took a short time to look at the war memorial - there were 48 names on the World War 2 memorial - the entire male population of the town at this point. We then reboarded the bus and were back on the road. We had to cover many miles so there was an awful lot of driving on this 1st day. Our next stop was just a pit stop at a little pub near Bordertown to get our beer supply for that night.
We then crossed the border into Victoria, stopping to take a few photos, before our lunch stop in Edenhope, at Lake Wallace. This lake used to be renowned for its fly fishing and yatching, but not this year - due to the terrible SA drought all we saw was 180hecters of dry land!! Not a single drop of water in sight!!
From here we made our way through Horsham, the first settled town in Victoria, before getting to the Grampians and our stop at McKenzie Falls. We had a 1km decent down 280 steps to the bottom of this very picturesque waterfall. Here we had time to sit, take in the views and get some photos.
As we moved on we drove through the area that was hit by a massive bush fire in Jan 2006.
Our next stop was at a look out point, where we had another 1km trek to a view point called the Balconies, seeing a Wallaby and a Cookabura on the way. Here we stood along side 'The Jaws of Death' (a rock formation) and had amazing views across the Grampians National Park. Here we could see the true devastation the fire had caused.
We took another scenic drive, down the hills to Halls Gap, where we spent the night at Brambuk Backpackers - we were in a 12 share dorm! Funny though when you are sharing with Sweedish, Dutch, German, Finish and Irish!! We had a good night here, with time to relax and a few beers.
The next morning we were up bright and early and jumped on the bus for a bone shaking, windows rattling drive across dirt tracks in the National Park to the base of Mount Hollow. What had been decribed to us as a hike, turned out to be a mountain climb up Mount Hollow. Mount Hollow stands proud at 395m high. It took us about 45 minutes, starting with a gradual incline up steps which turned into a near vertical clamber up rocks to get to the top. We spent a while just sitting at the top looking at the amazing views of this vast and diverse land that we were travelling through, and trying to get our breath back.
When we finally returned to the bus, we made the awful return journey to Brambuk to visit the Aboriginal Culture centre, where we saw videos on Aboriginal beliefs of how this area was created. We also learnt that Brambuk is actually the Aboriginal word for Cockatoo.
We left the Grampians and made our way south towards the Great Ocean Road making a few pit stops for beer collection and had some more warm sandwiches for lunch curtosey of Ally.
Our first stop on the Great Ocean Road was the Bay of Islands, where we took a few photos before heading on to The Bay of Martyrs. It was here that in the early 1900's the white settlers marched Aboriginal familes off the cliffs as they believed them not to be human. Until about 1970 this was the belief of many Australian's. Australian's today are very ashamed of this, and we only found this out from our tour guide as it is not talked about by Australian's themselves.
From here we went to the Grotto, which is a rock formation like a massive sink, where the water collects 3m above sea level. We then moved onto London Bridge, which up until the morning of 15 Jan 1990 was connected to the main land, but on that faitfull evening the first portion fell down, leaving 2 people stranded on the end section of the bridge. After being rescued by helicopters the pair rushed off, away from the masses of press, not wanting to disclose their identity as they were later found out to have been having an affair - what a way to get caught.
From here we went to our night's accommodation, a pink beach house in Port Campbell. We managed to get into a 6 share room with ocean views. After Emma getting absolutely soaked having her picture taken on the beach, we had some dinner and headed off to the 12 Apostles to try and catch the sunset. As it turned out it is pretty much impossible to get a clear sunset here, and on our evening the sun was hidden behind the clouds - although it was nice being there from daylight into dark.
Monday morning began, cold, windy and raining, with an early morning viewing of Loch Ard Gorge. This Gorge was named after Clipper Loch Ard, a ship which was wrecked here in 1878. This ship was full of English who had been aboard for 6 weeks making their trip to Melbourne for a new life. There were only 2 survivors from this wreck - 18 year old Eva Carmichael and the ship's apprentice Tom Pearce, who later died in another ship wreck of which he was Captain. We then went for another viewing of the 12 Apostles, before heading to Gibsons Steps, where we climbed down to the beach for some more fantastic photo opportunities.
We then headed on the The Ottway Rainforest, where we stopped at Maits Rest for a half hour walk throught the rainforest, this was pretty amazing as this forest had existed since before the dinosaurs.
Our next stop was at Apollo Bay, where we went to a pizza restaurant for lunch - yee ha - some real food!!
We made a few stops at scenic lookouts as we continued along the Great Ocean Road. Before stopping to see our first wild koalas - and plenty of them. We continued along the road to the Great Ocean Road Memorial - This is so that we remember the World War 2 veterans who upon returning from the war were given the task of building the road by hand - it took 20 years. We made a pit stop at Anglesea and then headed to Bells Beach - this is the most famous surfing beach in Autralia, and is home to the world's surfing championship. We spent some time here watching the surfers before heading on to Torquay - the home of the surf brands Rip Curl, Quicksilver and many more.
From here we made our way into Melbourne. We had a great trip thanks to a great bunch of people.
Although we had prebooked a week in Hotel Bakpak - it turned out to be a hell hole and we quickly checked out and managed to get 2 nights in the main YHA - very nice TV & fridge - what luxury. But we will be moving on soon.
Keep you updated.
Love you loads,
Emma and Lee
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