From Alice Springs we were due to start another tour to Adelaide taking in the sights at Coober Pedy; a town where they mine for opals and, due to the heat, all the residents live underground. Followed by a visit to Flinders Range. Unfortunately the minibus broke down before the tour even started and so they cancelled the whole thing leaving us stranded in Alice Springs with no transport to Adelaide. We were completely gutted as it had worked out cheaper to do the tour and end in Adelaide than to take any other mode of transport and we would get to see some other cool sights too. There was nothing we could do about it though so we got our refund (we actually got more back as we'd booked the tour at an agency for a discounted rate and they refunded us the original cost of the trip) and also got the tour to pay for another nights accommodation as compensation. We ended up booking a flight from Alice Springs to Adelaide. It worked out a bit more expensive than getting the bus but a 3 hour flight versus another 24 hour bus ride was a no-brainer...

As soon as we arrived into Adelaide we much prefered it the other towns and cities we'd been to in Australia. It was much bigger for a start and there was so much going on with a vibrant University and tons of museums dotted around. The first day we spent sorting out camping gear and supplies for our epic road trip that we were about to embark on. In the afternoon for a bit of respite we headed to the Botanical Gardens for a picnic. The next day we picked up our hire car and hit the road... First stop the Grampians. The Grampians is a National Park area with lots of places to hike and also viewpoints that are accessible by car. We started off by driving to some of the car accessible spots, Reed Lookout offered views over the valley below as did Baroka Lookout. We drove to a fantastic waterfall called Mackenzie Falls and walked all the way to the base of the falls. There was a cheeky Kookaburra flying round the base of the waterfall obviously trying to protect his nest so we took some piccies and walked back up the steep steps to the carpark. The campsite we stayed in was eally cool with tons of kangaroos skipping about all over the place, unfortunately the night we stayed there it was so windy our tent nearly blew away and we ended up sleeping in the car. To make things worse the next day as we were packing up the car Heather was charged by a couple of hungry emus after our food. The final day that we were in the Grampians we decided to do a slightly longer walk to a lookout point called the Pinnacles. The walk took us through some amazing scenery like a cool canyon and finally ended up on top of the world with the wind almost blowing us off the viewing platfom. It was worth the hike up there though as the view was incredible... Following the hike we got back in the car to move on to Port Fairy and the start of the Great Ocean Road. Port Fairy unfortunately turned out to be a bit of a ghost town with a few retired old men fishing in the river when we got there so we carried on driving to Warnambool instead and got a tent pitch in a strange campsite in the middle of a residential estate. We got up nice and early to see all the major sights of the Great Ocean Road such as the 12 Apostles and Gibson Steps. Unfortunately the whole time was spent running to the viewpoints and then back to the safety of the car as it was tipping it down and blowing a gale. Undeterred we drove inland a bit to see Triplet Falls which were a spectacular trio of waterfalls that you could hike to. That evening we camped in a place called Marengo near to Apollo Bay and once again nearly froze in the night (camping at this time of year really wasn't the best idea to be honest but it did keep costs down so we struggled on with it). We back tracked a little the following day as we'd driven pt a road which apparently was rife with Koalas and it seemed stupid to miss it. We managed to find a few of the cute little things clinging lazily to the trees and one had come quite close to the road almst posing for pictures. At the end of the road was a lighthouse that we foolishly paid to get in and were thoroughly disappointed afterwards (the place was actually quite interesting with a history of being a lighthouse, army bunker and telegraph station. The problem was it was way over priced). Never getting tired of Koala spotting we drove to another place populated with Eucalyptus trees, the Koalas single dietary requirement, and had lunch before walking back along the road to find more of these little fur balls. We followed this up with a small walk to some more waterfalls and found a free campsite for the night, which even cae with a resident Koala win, win, win... We started the next day with a 3 hour walk past a few waterfalls and canyons and then headed to Split Point lighthouse which was used in the Australian TV series "Round The Twist", I know I used to love that show too. We didn't do the tour as it was way too expensive and the lighthouse was only ever used for external shots in Round the Twist the rest being filmed in a studio. So we too some pictures and then jumped back in the car for what would be quite a long drive to the wildlife filled Island called Philip Island...