Day 59-61 AdelaideWe have an amazing apartment overlooking the sea in Glenelg which is a seaside suburb of Adelaide.Lil thinks Glenelg looks like Paignton in Devon but with a surf club and an amazing beach.Admittedly the weather is more typical of Paignton than Australia although we have a great sunset view from the apartment.Andy and Zoe arrive from Sydney in the evening to meet up with us and we catch up on all their news of their first couple of months in Australia over dinner.On our second day in Adelaide the weather has turned even more unseasonal with showers and cold winds.After the outback it is a welcome change of climate (as long as it does not last too long).We catch the tram into Adelaide city centre and spend a few hours wandering around the main sights before heading out to the Penfolds vineyard which is on the edge of the city.After the tour of the vineyards we sample a few of the vintages before catching a bus across town to the coastal suburb of Henley for some sundowners where we huddle around a patio heater for warmth.It is great to catch up with Andy and Zoe - although we have met a lot of people on our trip it is good to spend time with friends from back home.We really only have a week left by ourselves now (when we go sailing next week) which will mark the 2/3 of the way though our trip.The time is flying but at the same time having 6 weeks left still seems like a good amount of time left to enjoy ourselves.On Sunday we spent the day pottering around Glenelg and although it was still windy, after an hour on the beach I managed to get a nice rose tinge (not sure they have fixed the hole in the ozone yet).We have to get on the road by 3pm to drive the 400km to Mt Gambier before sunset as it is highly recommended to avoid driving in the evening because of the roos.Our rental car is an Aussie legend - a Ford Falcon XR6 which has to be one of the ugliest cars ever made but very fast.The car suits our trailer trash image as we are staying in cabins on caravan sites along the Great Ocean Road over the next two nights (in fact most of the cabins seem to have a Ford Falcon parked outside).We are finding that the cabins and apartments are working out really well as we are saving money cooking our own food although it does mean that we are carrying are food supplies around with us.Day Great Ocean RoadWe always knew that we would not have a lot of time for this part of our trip so we are up early for a brisk walk around the blue lake in Mt Gambier which is a crater full of water up to 200m deep with an unexplained bright blue colour.Then we are on our way along what promises to be one of the most dramatic coastal drives in the world.We manage to get as far as Apollo Bay which is some 100km short of where we plan to be but there have been so many places to stop on the way for short walks to look-outs along the coast.It is pretty overcast and still really cold so we are well wrapped up in our fleeces, coats and hats but the weather makes the scenery all the more dramatic.It is very much like a bigger Jurassic coastline with the limestone being eroded into ever changing towers and arches, the most famous being "London Bridge" (where one of the arches has fallen down leaving some tourist stranded several years ago) and the Twelve Apostles of which we could only see six from the lookout.We also managed to see our first koalas down in Otway National Park!!!!In Apollo Bay we braved the elements to walk the 1.5km into town along the beach for a fish and chip dinner.We are on the road early the next day so that we can cover the 300km to central Victoria where we are meeting Helen and Roger. The 100km from Apollo Bay to Torquay really is a spectacular winding road along the cliff edge with lots of hair pins and dramatic views along the coast.Lil is excited to be in Torquay as it's her home town in the UK.We have arranged to meet Helen and Roger for lunch in Daylesford which is a trendy weekend retreat from Melbourne.As well as being a spa town it has a great chainsaw shop where Roger treats himself to a top of the range chainsaw.We then spend a few hours relaxing in the grounds of a Swiss Italian lavender farm with a glass of wine where their son Archie learns to pat the resident dog. Later on, as the sun sets and shadows start appearing across fields, we catch sight of our first roos where we see 20-30 hopping out from amongst the trees!The following day we have a look around historic Maldon which was a gold rush town in the 1850's and looks like a sleepy town in a western movie.In the afternoon we head out to a small local vineyard to sample some of their 16% reds.Day 65 - 66 MelbourneIt is only of a couple of hours drive into Melbourne from the Victoria countryside but we are soon frustrated by the one way system and the unique way you have to pull into the right hand lane to turn left so that the trams are not blocked (you have to see it to believe it).Eventually we make it to Hertz with about ten minutes to spare and say goodbye to the chav-wagon.Helen has left Roger and Archie for a few days playing with the new chainsaw to join us in the city.The first thing we do is take the historic circular tram so we can get our bearings.Melbourne is the first real city we have visited since Singapore so it is quite strange to see all the skyscrapers again, although Melbourne centre is pretty compact with lots of green spaces (including Captain Cook's parents house which has been moved from the UK somewhere and rebuilt in a park in Melbourne) which we spend the afternoon exploring ending up in Carlton and Fitzroy for a well earned drink.In the evening we head to one of the nearby suburbs to meet a friend of Lil and Helen (Carl) from their New York days, and a friend of mine (Dan) from when we used to work at Habitat together.We meet in a typical Aussie pub called the College Lawn Hotel in Prahran where we end up spending the evening and stopping for a great steak dinner.It is great to catch up with so many people while we are in Oz and it makes it really tempting to think what it would be like to live here.The next morning, after looking around the shops for new thongs (don't worry, thongs is Aussie for flip flops), we look around the Chinese Museum (Melbourne has a large and long standing Chinese community who arrived in Australia to seek their fortune mining in the gold fields) before having dim sum for lunch.I can just about face Asian food again as it has been almost been four weeks since we left Singapore.After lunch we say goodbye to Helen and head down to the seaside suburb of St Kilda, a short tram ride from the centre, to take photos of the skyline in the rain.The last three weeks can't really be described as stereotypical Australian weather.To top off our action packed day we go to the cinema (Lil is disappointed that they do not sell sweet popcorn) to watch the new blockbuster "Australia" which is pretty cheesy but topical considering our time in the outback.Day 67 - 74 Whitsunday IslandsSo far we have been to the Northern Territory, South Australia, and Victoria.The time zones seem to change each time we go to a different state and even more confusingly when we fly from Melbourne to Hamilton Island in Queensland which is east of Melbourne time, the clock actually goes back an hour as Queenslanders did not like day light saving when they tried it (bleached their curtains and upset the cows apparently).Eventually we work out that the Whitsundays are a three hour flight away and that since we arrived in Oz we have covered 8,000km.A little worryingly we arrive in the rain!!!The Whitsundays were discovered by Captain Cook not surprisingly on Whit Sunday in 1770 (as it was thought then - it was actually the day after in Australia).The Whitsundays are a series of islands which form part of the inner reef about 25 miles from the Great Barrier Reef.This is the second time that Lil and I have sailed by ourselves and we have a 32ft Beneteau.Like every sailing holiday we slip into a simple routine of waking up at dawn, setting sail for a few hours before dropping anchor for lunch, then going on to find a sheltered bay for the evening.After radioing in our anchorage details on the daily "scheds" (or skids as the Aussies would say), we would jump into the tender and go ashore to explore.Apart from the rain when we arrived the weather over the week has been brilliant both in terms of sun and winds of 10-15 knots, sometimes gusting up to 20 knots.During the week we clock up over 130 nautical miles.Apart from plenty of islands to sail around, there are numerous sandy beaches including Whitehaven beach which is 5km of pure white sand, regularly voted as one of the top beaches in the world.We wanted to go to Airlie beach as well as we had heard that it was a very popular destination but with the school holidays just out, we were warned that it would not be the best time to go as it would be full of "schoolies" and "prowlies".Many of the island names are pretty literal - we were not disappointed with the number of turtles we saw in Turtle Bay and Dumbell Island is the shape of a dumbbell; we did not chance gong to Heywood Island.The reefs were also fantastic although the threat of jelly fish which can kill means anytime you want to enter the water you have to don a stinger suit, gloves, socks, and hood - maybe the idea is that the jelly fish are too scared to sting you.One evening one really big and colourful fish spent the evening around our boat and seemed partial to wholewheat bread.