Hello! Back after a long break! we're actually back home now, bit wierd bt nice not packing every day!

so after leaving melbourne, love that city; we joined a bus full of people and headed along the Great Ocean Road. the pic to the left shows a typical scene out the window, it really was a beautiful journey, it started out a bit cloudy but as we drove it got nicer. so nice hearing the sea! We stopped at a few beaches and bays, had lunch at apollo bay (i ate shark, was ok), a lot of the bays are small with houses only, one house was built coming out of the side of the cliff face and balancing on a huge concrete pillar holding it up! was the only house to survive a bush fire that went through the area.

we verred off the great ocean road to have a wander around a national park, forgotten the name, there were these huge giant old trees, believed to be over 1000 years old, there were about 60 of them but someone sliced them with a chainsaw and now theres only 1 left, real shame because we wont be around in time to see some more like that - what an idiot! anyway, the one we did see was pretty cool! back on the road we stopped to see some koalas, before finding the 12 Apostles! these are bits of cliff edge basically that haven't been eroded away but the rock around it has been. There is only 10 apostles left, but saying that more are being eroded out if that makes sense! pretty cool to see and the sun was out by this time!



London Bridge pretty much marks the end of the great ocean road, the outer rock was once connected to the mainland by a bridge looking piece of rock - hence the name. I cant remember what year it was but a couple were on the outer part of the rock when the 'bridge' part collapsed leaving them stranded! when they finally got rescued they wouldn't talk to any of the press and it turns out they were having an affair - talk about being caught out!!

After the beautiful drive along the great ocean road we headed towards the Grampians National Park. 12 months ago this was devastated by huge bush fires that could have destroyed the park had the wind not blown it back on itself. Was strange driving around, seeing parts completely unaffected, parts regrowing and some parts not regrowing at all. It seemed sad but its needs fire to regrow and give the stronger trees etc a better chance of survival. anyhow it was pretty awesom, looking out over Hall Gap at the mountain range, such amazing lovely views. We went on a nightwalk around where we stayed and saw kangaroos in dark, some possums, the milkyway - apparantly the grampians is an excellent place to see it, we even saw a satalite!

the next day before heading to adelaide we did a few walks, one of which was down to mackenzie falls as you can see! as we walked back we raced to the top, only we weren't as near to the top as we thought, by the time we got to the top we could hardly walk or breathe!! haha!

I can't remember the names of where else we went along the Great Ocean Road or in the Grampains but it was an amazing journey to adelaide, thanks Bill!