Melbourne to Adelaide

Melbourne – Adelaide 21st March - 2nd April

Total KM covered: c. 2000km
Roadkill: 3 white butterflies. Narrowly avoided 2 suicidal dogs, 1 Echidna, 1 Kangaroo
iPod albums game: Just hit 'B' starting Bag of Hits by Fun Lovin' Criminals

Stop 5 St Kilda, Melbourne
After 3 weeks fairly civilised camping and travelling we finally reached the sanctity of Melbourne, more specifically our friend Sam from Raleigh's place in St Kilda (cheers mate!)
Melbourne definitely gives off a different vibe to Sydney on the basis of what we saw. Sydney is glam, showy and surfy. Melbourne is more grungy, funky and independent. St Kilda is a crazy mix of tiny bars, restaurants, coffee and cake shops and boutique cothes stores.
One of the main differences is the social scene. Melbourne has a host of small, independent bars whereas Sydney's tend to be big flashy places, this is mainly down to the state differences in alcohol licenses - $500 in Victoria, and $50000 in NSW. This laws due to change in NSW soon so it'll be interesting to see what type of places spring up in Sydney following it.

Our first point of call once in the city was to drop Amy & Jamie off at there flat – unwittingly they had booked themselves into one of the more colourful area's of St Kilda and within minutes of arriving we'd seen several crazy people including a man with a parrot on his shoulder, an old crocodile hunter and a lady of ill repute who looked like she was a bit to familiar with the use of a syringe. Having dropped them off it was time to say a sad farewell to Charl's parents who were heading back to Sydney via the inland route.

As an added bonus Sam had wangled free tickets to a local music festival – the point Nepean Folk and Country Festival. Most of the bigger names where on the day we didn't go – KT Tunstall, Jools Holland & Newton Faulkner all played on the Sunday. Despite it being out of our normal genre we had a great day. We say a funk band called Deja Groove featuring the worlds best 5 minute long drum solo, an American Alanis Morrisette style singer called Brandi Carlisle who was excellent, A couple of amazing acoustic flamenco guitarists called Rodriguez Y Gabriella and an amazing band called The Galactic featuring Charlie Tuna from Jurassic 5.

There was also a guy called Keith Urban playing who I hadn't heard of – he's quite famous though apparently and married to nicole kidman, we watched one song and decided he sounded a bit too much like Brian Adams so left. Being a country festival there was a lot of rednecks about though and he didn't seem too popular with them. When the headliner (John Fogherty from Credence Clearwater ) called him back on stage to do a couple of songs with him the scary country folk next to us were like “ you've mad a mistake there John, you shouldn't have done that” and hurled abuse at Keith Urban, all was not happy in Hicksville.

Point Nepean Music Festival - The Galactic feat. Charlie Tuna & his little brother

Great stay, Sam also introduced us to a night at the “Espey”, a pub which is a bit of a St Kilda Institution. Liked Melbourne a lot – great social scene, probably still prefer life in Sydney but I can see what people move to Melbourne for, and it's not quite as extortionately expensive.

Stop 6 Lorne

Leaving Melborne we set out to explore the Great Ocean Road. A snaking route along the coast from Melbourne to South Australia. In order to explore this region we stationed ourselves at Lorne, a pretty little coastal town some 2 hours out of Melbourne. The idea was for sun, surf and relaxation although the weather had other idea's. Having been dealing with a heatwave of up to 40 degrees previously all of a sudden souther winds brought in a lot of rain and overnight temperatures of down to 10 (appreciate that won't draw gasps of sympathy from most of you lot back in the UK but is harsh enough if you're sleeping in a tent).

The Light house from "round the twist if anyone remembers that

(Lines of Surf coming in at Bells Beach for the Rip Curl Pro tour & The Great Ocean Road snaking round the "devils shoulder")

Still it turned out nice for us to go and see the Rip Curl World Pro Surfing Series at the Famous Bells Beach (although it was actually moved to the brilliantyl named Winkipop reef just round the corner. We got there just in time to see all-time great Kelly Slater whupping some guy called Jihad (who is Brazilian before anyone thinks it odd the Iran have people competing in the World Pro Surf tour )

(Above - Amy particuarly loved the rain and cold conditions at Erskine falls_

We also had time to do a day trip out seeing Koala's at Rye River, walking through the rainforest canopy at the Ottaway National Park and a photostop at the magnificent Twelve Apostles.

(The incredibly photogenic twelve apostles and the canopy walk)

Stop 7, Swan Lake Nr Cape Bridgewater

At this point we said another set of Farewells to Amy and Jamie, with the weather still decidedly dubious we were at this point a little envious of them flying off to spend a week in an apartment in the now very sunny Sydney.

(Classic old Oz bush hous and the veiw over miles of flat agricultural land form Mt Leura)

The trip up to Cape Bridgewater was about 4 hours and included a stop at the volcanic marr town of Camperdown with magnificent views from Mt Leura. We started to go through some pretty rural country and it's funny the things you come across – like the random well fortified and modern looking Glaxo Smith Klein plant in this tiny little village in the middle of nowhere.

We'd been paying campsite fee's up to this point and were determined to start saving some money by camping in the national parks. We reached this site near Swan Lake in the dunes close to the sea which was about 7k down dirt tracks off the main road. We'd expected to find a few other budget campers at least but in the end spent most of the next 48 hours there with only a few kangaroos and a collection of birdlife for company.

(Above - miles of vegitated sand dunes nr Swan Lake, Cape Bridgewater and the Superb Fairy Wren for anyone interested in Australian Ornothology)

We also spent the day surfing and walking at the fantastic cape bridge water – a beautiful little town if anyone's ever heading that way. (Charl: NB this place has a population of 100, it's not really a town)

(Petrified Forest on the cliff tops at Cape Bridgewater)

On the way back from Cape Bridgewater we had to rescue a Koala Bear that was sitting in the middle of the road. It didn't seem he was injured he was just doing his business on the road and taking his time about it. After shouting and stomping feet didn't even get a look up form him I fetched a blanket from the car wrapped him up and dumped him at the bottom of the nearest eucalyptus tree. He put up a feeble struggle and made some bizarre grunting noises but otherwise didn't seem to mind

"Oi - Einstein ,get off the road"

Don't let Koala's dopey look's fool you they were once really clever little critters. So clever that when they worked out their daily routine consisted of nothing more than moving one metre up the branch to much some more eucalyptus leaves they actually evolved smaller brains – why waiste all that mental energy pondering life's mysteries when you sleep for 20 hours a day? I wonder if this is what happened to a few of us at Uni ?

Stop 8 Little Dip National Park, Nr Robe, South Australia

Crossing the Border into South Australia our first stop was the Piccanine Ponds where we dipped our heads into the water to check out the supposed 40m visibility... obviously doesn't work when it's been raining for most of the previous day and there's lots of bits floating in the water.
We lunched at the scenic Volcano rim based town of Mt Gambier before setting up camp in the little Dip Conservation Park near the small town of Robe. It was four wheel drive stuff through dunes and forest – all good fun. Robe's a scenic little spot with the most English pub I've seen so far – The Caledonian.

(Above -the track through little dip, the crater lakes above the town of Mt Gambier)

Stop 9 Meningie, Lake Albert Caravan Park

After three days bush camping we decided to go for some comfort and hot showers at a caravan on the shore's of lake Albert. The drive up had been fun as we did some off roading through the Coorong National Park – both of us getting some practice on getting our speed right for driving over corrugations – we're going to have hundreds of k's of bone shattering ride in the outback if we don't get our speed right so you kinda float over them.

Pelicans on the shore of Lake Albert

Below - Larry the Big Lobster. This is an Australian Phenomenom, whenever a community reached a point of collective boredom they decide to construct something big. There is also a big Koala, Big Oyster, Big Banana and of course - the Big Rocking horse. About 30 have sprung up i believe

As we got further north the effects of the long standing drought became more obvious, the greenery evident in some parts of Victoria had vanished and everything was dry and pretty desolate seeming – it almost felt like we're in the outback already but I guess this is just a taster. The lake we camped on had retreated about 30m and gone from a lovely boating and fishing retreat from something difficult to access due to the deep mud now surrounding it. It made our whinges about the weather seem a bit petty.

Stop 10, Belair National Park, Adelaide
Arrived in Adelaide just after lunch on Tuesday after an easy 150km drive from Meningie, and, for the first time in a while it was hot and sunny! We stopped off at My Lofty on the way in for an incredible panoramic view over the city. Really gave a sense of its location and size. Set on the water and backed by the Lofty mountain range which stretches all the way north to the Flinders it's a pretty cool setting. Just so far from anywhere!

(a hazy Adelaide from Mt Lofty)

Adelaide has been a pleasant rest despite the stresses of parking in the city, both getting bitten by a 'friendly' possum (serve us right for feeding it sweet corn) and the rain and wind last night which we thought we had left behind. Tonight we're treating ourselves to a meal out in the city – which is a bit more like Melbourne than Sydney and has a really relaxed feel about it. Tempted to stay a couple more days but not sure the schedule will allow it, shame.
Next stop the Flinders Ranges, then into the outback – wish us luck and see you on the other side.

typical South Australian road view