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Hi all, we didn't get chance to update the blog last week but I've been keeping it up to date on Laura's laptop, so I've just thrown 2 together. Happy reading!
16th April
Hi again, thought it best I write a blog as it's been a week although I'm not sure when we'll post it up as we aim to be in the Snowy Mountains tomorrow. We may find a backpackers hostel or something with internet access. We're currently coming 'atcha' from Melbourne, and it doesn't half feel like home! For a start it's cold, really cold! Temperatures went down to 3C last night and we've had (aside from today) rain every day since we arrived in the state of Victoria! Also, if you take a walk out of our campsite and turn right you find yourself in the middle of a housing estate that could easily be somewhere in Little Neston, I mean the houses look exactly the same and the area has much the same feel about it.
Anywho, onto what we've seen and done since the last blog: We left you in Adelaide, we didn't spend long there but what we saw seemed like a very nice city. It seems a lot more laid back compared to Perth and especially Melbourne. There are no skyscrapers (I found out today Perth only has skyscrapers because the city council felt it couldn't be a state capital without them!), not much traffic, and a pretty good public transport system. I wasn't a fan of the campsite we stayed on as it was on a main road and right next to the airport, so it was a pretty noisy atmosphere, but everything else we saw was, as Helen would say, "Lush". We visited a town on the coast called Glenelg and took the tram into the city from there. Glenelg was a beautiful town, very upmarket with an incredible marina set in the middle of a shopping area and some attractive apartment buildings. It was obviously millionaires' territory; the rest of the town was full of pricey shops, al fresco cafes and fancy restaurants.
Our next stop was Port Elliot, nr Victor Harbour. We spent some time around there in the morning seeing the old pier, the town centre and visiting a scrumptious bakery for breakfast. The town was built in the 1800s and still uses most of the original buildings, such as the post office, for the intended purpose. We went on to Victor Harbour and took the walk across the wooden causeway to Granite Island. They have an 1800's horse drawn tram that crosses the causeway every half hour, but we decided that just seeing it in action is as good as riding it and a lot cheaper. We had a walk around the island then headed off for Robe. The drive involved jumping on a small river ferry which was an experience. So far as we know it was Charlie's first boat ride. When we arrived we took a coast drive just as the sun was setting, the coastline at Robe seemed very "Rottnest-esque", dramatic, and the sunset reminded me of taking photos at Rotto. We spent the night in a national park campsite down an unsealed road about 15mins out of town.
We decided to head straight for Warrnambool, at the start of the Great Ocean Road the next day. We stopped for breakfast at Beachport where it started to rain, we wouldn't see a day without rain from then until today. We holed up again in Mount Gambier for lunch, where we visited a cave and saw the Blue Lake. The city is built in the crater of an extinct volcano, so it was pretty interesting to look around. We spent a bit of time looking around Warrnambool, it was a nice place despite the rain. There was a really nice park that had been renovated from a swamp. It was incredible to see how such an unsightly place can be turned into somewhere so beautiful and productive. It's become a haven for wildlife which normally would have steered well clear of the swamp.
We hit the Great Ocean Road on Saturday, and as soon as we hit the coast my breath was taken away. The cliffs, islands and pinnacles are simply spectacular. I've been looking forward to driving the road since I read about it in my primary school geography books, so it was pretty amazing for me. We stopped at all the usual tourist attractions, including The Grotto, London Bridge (which famously collapsed in 1990 leaving 2 astonished tourists stranded!), The Arch, Loch Ard Gorge (named after a British ship that was wrecked there), and of course,the 12 Apostles. All were pretty stunning, but it was getting late despite only covering a little over 100kms. We pulled in at a free camping area called Johanna Beach, where we met up with Erik from Dome. It was good to see him again, we've swapped email addresses so we can keep in touch in future. He's definitely the most interesting German we've ever met! We swapped some info on places we've seen too, so we know a few places to visit now and so does he.
We had a lie in the next morning as there were no check-out times to keep to, then said our goodbyes to Erik and hit the road again. The miles to come were by far the most spectacular road I have ever driven. For the most part we had shear cliffs to our left and the ocean to our right, all the time twisting and winding following the shape of the mountains. We stopped at Apollo Bay for lunch then again at Kennett River where we turned inland onto a dirt track and made our way into the rainforest on a hunt for Koala bears. We were successful and got some great photos, as well as exploring some really dense rainforest. It was interesting, especially when the track took us over a rickety wooden bridge. A load limit sign told us it was suitable for up to 10 tonnes, although it didn't look like it'd hold much more than 10 kilos. We proceeded with caution and after a bit of creaking we made it across unscathed.
We headed back out to the road and followed some more amazing mountain/waterside road to a place called Lorne. After finding out there were quite a lot of jobs available in the town we decided to check in to the campsite there and try our luck the next morning as it was Sunday and there were no managers in anywhere that was advertising vacancies. We got a camping pitch right next to the river which was nice. We had the ducks pestering us for food all the time and some huge yellow crested cockatiels that were never far behind them. They were easily as tall as my knee when stood next to me. The town had a really nice atmosphere and was very pretty, so we got quite hyped up about working there but unfortunately no-one was willing to take us on for just two weeks.
We carried on to Bells Beach, the famous surf beach where they hold the 'RipCurl Pro' competition every year. It was cold, raining and the surf was poor, so we managed to resist the urge to go in. It would've been just like a dismal day at Hells Mouth anyway and we decided that it wasn't what we came for. We got a few photos though and it's nice to be able to say we've been there. We stopped off again in Torquay, a few miles up the road, where everything is surfing orientated. There's a huge shopping complex called Surf City which is made up almost entirely of surf shops, and the town is the 'capital' of the "Surf-shire County", which stretches from there round the Great Ocean Road to Apollo Bay.
From Torquay we aimed for Queenscliffe, where there's a ferry to Sorrento, which cuts across the mouth of Port Phillip Bay. We chose that route as we wanted to make a stop at Frankston. According to Lilly at Dome, who is from there, Frankston is the "Chav" capital of Australia. Naturally, we had to see it to compare with the UK, and actually found it to be quite a pretty place, and not at all threatening! Lilly is interested in visiting the UK soon, so we're going to have to show her around!
After Frankston we headed north to another town, Dandenong, where we were hoping to stay for a few days while exploring Melbourne, but there was no room for us at the campsite. We made a dash in the dark for another Big 4 site just north of the city, arriving just before the office closed and got ourselves three nights. It's a nicer site here anyway and public transport into the city wasn't too much of a drama, despite being the worst public transport we've seen in Australia yet - another thing that makes it feel like the UK!
We have abandoned looking for jobs in the southern regions of Oz, we're going to make a beeline for Queensland as the fruits are ripe up there now and there are thousands of fruit-picking jobs going, perfect for us as we only want a couple of weeks work. Not to mention it's warmer!
What did we make of Melbourne? A very busy, fast moving city that doesn't have much time to sit back and chill, and that goes for a lot of the people working there too. We felt a bit excluded but it did have a lot of charm and was fun to explore. Think, "London before the congestion charge", and you're pretty much there. We visited some huge markets there which were enjoyable, and we each got ourselves a gift of some sort.
Hopefully we can post this up soon, we're looking forward to hitting the road again now.
Much love, James Laura and Helen xXx
21st April
Well, obviously we never got chance to post up ^that blog^! But it's only 5 days later and we've done a heck of a lot more! We made our way to the Snowy Mountains as planned last Thursday. It was quite a long drive as the roads are very twisty making for slow progress, and we eventually pulled in at a little place called Geehi, an abandoned farming town on the way to Thredbo, Australia's main ski resort. There was a decent sized campground there that the national park had set up for travellers. We found ourselves a pretty pitch with a fireplace, plenty of firewood and a river running past it and set up for the night.
The next day we headed into Thredbo with a view to climbing Australia's highest mountain, Mt Kosciuszko (Cos-ee-us-co), as one the chairlifts takes you to within 7kms of the top, and only 300m below the summit. Thredbo itself is an incredible looking town, with slightly Scandinavian houses and roads built up one side of the steep Snowy River Valley, and chairlifts and ski slopes up the other. Driving the steep twisty roads into town must be as much fun as skiing the slopes, although I can't imagine they'd be much fun if the ice got to them before the gritters. We got on the chairlift at around 11.30 with a warning that the last chair down was at 4pm, and that a walk to the top usually takes 4-6hrs return. By 1pm we had made it 2kms to a lookout from where you can see the top. We had stopped a few times for snowball fights and to build a snowman but Laura and Helen were pessimistic about making the summit. I really wanted to do it, so with a bit of persuasion they let me go on my own as there was plenty of water around and mobile signal was good, and they made their way back to the top of the chairlift where there was the highest bar in Australia. By 2pm I had made it to the top of Australia's highest mountain, 2228m above sea level. The views from the top were pretty spectacular, but I wish it had been a little clearer. I met up with the other two for a drink at "The Eagles Head Bar and Restaurant" at the top of the chairlift before getting our ride back down. The drizzle was on and off that night and it was really cold, so we decided to get a cabin for the night in Cooma, a large town between the Snowy's and Canberra.
We'd heard Canberra really isn't worth visiting, but as it was on our route we decided we shouldn't let the Aussie capital go unseen. We took a drive through and saw the parliament buildings. That was about all there was to do. We carried on to the Coast and Wollongong, then headed up towards the Royal National Park, a rainforest just south of Sydney, where we had planned to spend the night on a campground. The drive up took us along "Ocean Drive"; not dissimilar to the Great Ocean Road only shorter, this road actually has a section on stilts which takes you out over the water, before you quickly cut back in between the mountains. It made for a really nice drive. Just as we entered the Royal National Park the heavens opened and the road quickly turned into a river. We decided it'd be no fun camping in the middle of nowhere in the rain so pressed on for Sydney. We located a Big4 campsite on the map just north of the city and set a course.
It was dark by the time we reached the city and still raining but that didn't stop us from driving straight through the middle. I really wanted to drive the famous Harbour Bridge and my wish was duly granted. It was great to see Sydney all lit up, we all looked to the right as we passed over the bridge and got a glimpse of the Opera House. It was amazing to see this world landmark with my own eyes that beforehand I'd only seen on TV and in books.
It was still raining when we arrived at the campsite but at least we had plenty of dry places to escape to. Helen and I set up the tent in a covered bbq area then carried it out to our pitch. Our site is in a place called Narrabeen, just north of Manly Beach. The surf is fantastic and we'll surely be going in for a session while we're here, just need the sun to come out for a bit first!
We got the ferry into Sydney from Manly yesterday and had a look around. We watched a very artistic show called "Swoon" outside the Opera House, which involved four people standing on bendy poles… strange I know, you'll see from the photos (we have loads of photos to put up so these will be up when we get chance). We took a walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens then up to Sydney Tower, where we got some great views of the city and saw a few places to visit. We walked through Darling Harbour where we had lunch. Afterwards we caught the bus to Bondi Beach, it had to be seen even if we didn't have the board with us. Helen got some photos of people surfing and we had a nice walk. It's a nice enough place, we'd heard it was too overcrowded but it didn't seem too bad when we went. Before leaving Sydney we had some drinks at the ice bar, "Minus5". It was cool in all senses of the word, everything is made from ice, even down to the glass you drink from! I (stupidly) asked if they had any lager, but of course it would have just frozen, so they only served liquors. We got the ferry back after nightfall, and it was dryer this time so it was an even nicer experience seeing Sydney all lit up, especially as it was from the water.
Today has been rather lazy, it was much needed! We took a walk up the coast this afternoon and had a nice Thai lunch and watched some people surfing on the Beach. Hopefully we'll be out there tomorrow if it's nice, then we're heading for the Blue Mountains.
From us all, ciao for now. Hope you're all well and we'll speak to you soon.
Love James, Laura and Helen xXx
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