Adelaide to Melbourne

On our way to Melbourne, we decided to take our time and drive along the scenic route. When we were with Marion she told us to go and see the Murray Bridge. Apparently it's spectacular and the water is super clear. I had my suspicions though, since when we were in Wakerie, the water had a distinct brown hue. Sure enough, when we were crossing the bridge the water was muddy brown, and the bridge wasn't even that impressive, it was just a bit long...

We drove along the coast through the Coorong National Park where there were lots of big birds, most of which we could identify thanks to the birds of prey show on Kangaroo Island (I do wonder if we would have even noticed them at all if we hadn't been to that show?). The highlight was seeing a bird trying to take off but being swept aside by the very strong wind, it was like something from a cartoon. We stopped for the night in a small town called Kingston SE, where we rummaged through the Aldi bins to find flavoured rice and spicy biscuits, walked along the very long pier, and played cards on our new camping chairs.

The next day we drove to Mount Gambier, which is an extinct volcano with a very blue lake in its crater (the blue lakes I saw in NZ were much more spectacular in my opinion, but Matt and Amanda seemed to be impressed). After this we drove over from South Australia to Victoria. At the state border, there was a sign that read: "DANGER! Do not bring any potatoes or potato farming equipment into Victoria!" I really didn't know what to make of it, and decided that it would be best not to tell anyone about all the dirty potato farming equipment that we had in the back.

We stayed the night in a very windy town called Portland. There wasn't exactly a buzzing night scene in Portland. We couldn't even find anywhere to get a coffee past 6pm, so we spent our evening watching Beyonce videos in McDonald's until they started cleaning up around us, at which point we went to KFC where we got free cups of tea because the tea machine was broken (best thing that could ever happen to three English travellers).

Next stop was a small town called Port Fairy, which had a lovely little cove with rock pools FULL of starfish, and an island with picturesque beaches and a lighthouse. We stayed here for a while before moving on to Tower Hill (with some minor driving drama in between that involved Amanda doing a U-turn on a highway and Matt being very stressed, while I was in the back, cool as a cucumber, not really paying much attention). Tower Hill is actually a series of craters from another old volcano, we climbed to the top to see a quite frankly boring and beige coloured landscape - the same view that we'd had for the majority of the drive, but from higher up.

Amanda looking at the bleak view from atop Tower Hill

Soon after Tower Hill we were finally onto the Great Ocean Road (after Amanda and I had visited Cheese World and got a lot of free cheese tasters of course). I'm not going to lie, for me the first half of the great ocean road wasn't all that I'd expected. The roads were pretty straight and it was littered with rock formations like caves, arches and stacks, and I feel like because I learnt how they were formed in school, it now takes a lot for one to impress me - there were, however, some beautiful beaches and there was a pretty cracking sunset at the end of the day. I would also like to point out that just before dinner, Matt and Amanda revealed their skills as bird charmers and literally had birds eating out of the palms of their hands. It was very surreal for me to watch, and very disappointing when I discovered that I was not some kind of bird whisperer too...

The following morning, the "great ocean road" took us away from the ocean and into a rainforest. This is where the drive got interesting with winding roads and steep hills, though Matt and I both thought that the drive would have been much better if the van had a manual gear box. We saw a sign for a lighthouse, so thought we'd check it out. It turns out that it was a ridiculous amount of money to go and see it so we didn't bother, but it was SO, SO, SO worth taking that turn because we had our first close encounter with wild koalas! There were about eight koalas in this one tree, and one of them was about half a metre away from me when I stretched my arm out towards it! I could have stayed there watching it not do anything (all they do is eat and sleep) for hours, but alas we moved on - if we hadn't we wouldn't have seen the unsuccessful attempt of a man llama trying to mount a lady llama next to a goat that thought it was a llama. Poor little guy.

After this, we stopped for lunch in a small beach town called Apollo bay, which had warm water but the sea was full of seaweed which made swimming difficult and unpleasant. From here, the view from the road really was amazing. The sky was bright blue, the ocean was even bluer, and it was right next to the meandering road. It was great fun to drive, going slightly too fast around the corners to see what the van could do (but mum and dad if you're reading this, I slowed right down, almost to a stop, for every corner). This brought us to the end of the great ocean road, and a couple of hours later we were in Melbourne!

Sitting, watching, waiting

The van wouldn't start, and we couldn't get anywhere. We were beginning to think that it was going to be a huge waste of money, but at least we had somewhere to stay. We were still with Marion in Adelaide, spending our days aimlessly wondering around the city, reading, watching movies, checking our emails, going to the zoo (Australia's only zoo to have a panda exhibit) - anything to keep us occupied. She even introduced us to the art of bin diving. Bin diving is when people rummage through supermarket bins at the end of the day to get food that is past its sell-by date, but before its use-by date, which I think is a great idea considering the amount of waste produced by the large supermarket chains these days. We also played with Marion's dog (a jack russell called Weasel), who would just lie down and present his stomach for a scratch as soon as he saw any human.

We got a quote from a mechanic who, mysteriously, managed to start the van straight away, but told us that the radiator was bust. There were a few other minor problems with it, for example, the bolts on the drive shaft were worn, so it could fall off at any point and pole vault the entire van onto its side; or the fact that there was a bolt missing that should have been holding the alternator (attenuator according to Amanda) in place, and if it keeps hitting the engine then it would have exploded. We weren't too worried.

The next day we drove up to Jenny and Mark's house (Matt's relatives, who incidentally live up a huge hill, we had to stop half way up to let the engine cool down) for Australia day - a nationwide celebration of the day that the British invaded the country (aboriginal people actually call it invasion day). Marion was very against this holiday, and her views kind of rubbed off on me a bit - but not enough to stop me from going to Jen and Mark's barbecue. While we were there that evening, they kindly offered to let us stay until we got the van fixed. As nice as Marion was, she didn't have a son who could fix Reggie for free!

It took a whole day to replace the radiator. The gap to pull out the radiator was smaller than the width of the radiator itself, so the rest of the van had to be dismantled to get it out, and then reassembled after we'd sourced a new one and put it in. We could see why the old radiator wasn't working - if you touched it, it would crumble to pieces! We thought we should also put a bolt in to hold down the alternator. Exploding on the highway didn't sound like too much fun...

From here, it was another waiting game, because we needed to wait until Monday to hand in the change of ownership forms. In the meantime we kept ourselves busy by playing PS one games (mainly Rayman and Tekken 3), we went go karting one day, and Mark and Sam even play in a band, so we went to see them one evening. While we were staying with Jen, her brother and his wife (Dave and Alicia) were staying there too. Dave is honestly the most Northern person I have ever met. His accent is so broad that I could rarely understand him, and he had a whole vocabulary of word that I'd never heard of!

By 4pm on Monday 30th Jan 2012, after spending at least an hour trying to hand in the change of ownership forms, we were finally on the road again! I'd like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone in Adelaide who made us feel so welcome, Marion, Jenny, Mark, Sam, Joel, Dave, Alicia, and all of the other people we met  during our stay. You were amazing, and I hope to one day see you all again, but for now, Melbourne was beckoning!