Cymru am byth!

Finally, personalised number plates have a use.

Margaret River baby!

Nic now not so sure that eating the Grub was a good idea
Mmm yes, I'm getting floral hints
We owe it all to you, you beautiful, tasty grapes

Nic; intrigued. Me; sick. Caves do funny things to people

Right on the Southwest coast is a small place called Margaret River, which has about 70 wineries in the area. We knew this was our kind of place. We booked to go on a tour so we could properly 'appreciate' the wine and we were taken to four different wineries, with about 10 wines in each! Halfway through we had lunch, prepared by our guide 'Peri', but it wasn't quite as 'gourmet' as we were expecting. We had a selection of meats; kangaroo, bush turkey and some other anonymous pink thing. This was accompanied by some weird fruits and stuff, all directly from the bush! The piece de resistance was Nic, in an act of British pride against all the other Aussies on the tour, ate........... a witchety grub. Ok it was only a little bit but it was definitely either the head or the bum, so hat's off. It was a great day and finished off with a visit to a chocolate and a cheese factory, yum! We bought a couple of bottles as they were pretty nice and then our heads were banging! Oh and we went in some caves. Not the kind that are all pretty and lit up, the kind that are dark, dank and need a hard hat and a flash light.

The Southwest

Paralysed with fear
The imaginatively titled, 'Gap'
See the death defying blow holes!

Once we had crossed the Nullabor plain we were back in civilisation and went to a place called Esperance, for a night, and saw the resident sealion just outside our hostel in the sea! Then we went on down to Albany and we went to have a look at some of the national parks and some rocks and cool stuff like that. We had to go and visit the 'blowholes' of course, which involved a risky walk down some steep cliffs and following these very misleading signs that we were sure lead off into the sea to a Harold Bishop-esque death. We found the final sign which marked the blowhole, teetering on the edge of a cliff, and sat there for a while, bitterly disappointed that nothing was happening and that yet again we had been mugged off, so the steep climb back up would be even more painful. Next thing we know we hear a little wave crashing far away and then all of a sudden this blowhole came to life and gushed some of strongest (and loudest, might I add) blast of air up through this little hole and we thought we were going to be sucked in. Cue Nic and I screaming our asses off, yet we were so scared we couldn't even move away from the stupid blowhole for fear of being sucked in! But then we laughed for about 5 minutes straight before being subjected again to the geographical 'wonder' blasting away again and the laughs were replaced with screams. Ok I guess you had to be there, ha ha!

Our BEAST!

Hot. I know
Whatever...we're beginning to think these animals don't even exist
Emu!

Check our 'esky'! It's a fridge-in a car!

Here is our beautiful car, which we have already tested to the extreme and clocked up hundreds of kilometres every day. She's been doing well though! We've been warned against driving at dusk by some hillbilly petrol station worker, not unlike the weirdo in 'the Hills Have Eyes' that tips off the mutants to kill the humans, as that's when all the kangaroos come out. If you're lucky enough to meet one, it will probably bash up your car a treat. Fortunately we didn't see one, but we saw a few hundred that had perished at the side of the road...but our one encounter with wildlife was an EMU! It was pretty cool but at the side of the road they CLAIM you have to watch out for kangaroos, wombats, koalas, emus and believe it or not, camels..... but so far it's been a poor show!

Exploring outback Oz

A quiet walk down the High Street, literally

Downtown Quorn. Population: Zero

Attempting the journey that we have has been pretty long, but filled with some hilarious moments, and some not so great moments, that one day when the emotional scars have healed, we'll look back on and laugh. Just after we left Adelaide we didn't go far and decided to stay in the Flinders Ranges, which were pretty impressive and were assured they had a hostel. So we arrived in Quorn (yes their tag line is 'So much to see, just around the Quorner'. Oh dear) and went to find the hostel. We were confronted by hundreds of beds in what was a converted hospital, and not a single person in sight. We lied and said we'd be back, but went to a pub instead and met some old guy that didn't really have a clue what day of the week it was, and was looking after the place for a while. We managed to get a cheap room out of him and then went to have a look round the town. Now I don't know how they class settlements into villages, towns and cities etc, but I'm pretty certain that to qualify your shack of an establishment as a 'town' you need to consist of more than one street. So there we were walking in the middle of the high street, again with no fear of seeing another person, and that was it, just one street. In desperation, we went in one of the few pubs, were met with the 'you're not local' look that we have become so familiar with, and chatted with the one old guy in there. We asked him if there was much to do in the area, and he picked up his beer and said 'I'm doing it!'.

Leaving Adelaide...our last sanctuary for a LONG time!

Yep...another 90 miles of nothing

Oh look, it's straight for a change

Although we didn't find Adelaide all that interesting, we would soon realise that we should not have taken it for granted, given its great commodities such as err petrol and civilisation, that we would soon be missing. I may have mentioned earlier that the distance we were aiming to travel between Adelaide and Perth would equal that of London to Moscow, which although is long, is still achieveable. However there was a twist when doing it here of course, as imagine you set off from London, maybe go through France and the rest of Europe until you reach Russia. How about you replace going through France and the rest of Europe with COMPLETE AND UTTER NOTHINGNESS. That's pretty much what this journey was like, as after leaving Adelaide we visited a couple of other towns until we got to the Nullabor Plain, which is a couple of thousands of kilometres of nothing. When I say 'nothing' I want you to imagine you're stuck in the middle of scrub land in over 40 degree heat, with no civilisation and no people for as far as the eye can see. Fortunately we had checked our tyres, oil, water levels, and had a spare can of petrol before hand as breaking down wasn't really an option. Out there there is no phone signal for miles, and according the the lovely stories we have heard, the Aboriginees would have your car on bricks before the RAC got to you! We had invested in a (free) map of the Nullabor plain before we set off though and it marked out all the 'towns' along the way so we aimed to stop for the night at one of these. The one we went for is called 'Cocklebiddy', which unashamedly brands itself as the 'Home of Bulls**t and Beer'. We were a tad suprised, as you can imagine, that the 'town' consisted of a petrol station and a motel. Ritzy. We put our foot down the next day, drove through the 'longest, straightest' stretch of road in Oz (what a crowd pleaser....all 90 miles of it!) and thankfully made it out of the Nullabor plain and back into civilisation, albeit only a small town, but it sold beer so we were pleased!

Seeing the real Oz...could get you killed!

Our pimpin wheels

Driving about the country is so different to back home. The scale of things is about 10 times bigger! For instance, driving between London and Manchester would be about 1/4 of the distance between Sydney and Melbourne..and they are 'close'. So we are planning on driving between Adelaide and Perth, which should take about a week. That's if things go to plan. Apparently you can't leave without making sure you have a spare can of petrol with you, adequate food and drink to last, oh and an idea of where you're going! We have heard many horror stories of the drive..including the fact that Aborigines lie at the side of the road, and when they see someone coming they jump out forcing you to stop, and then they rob you. One couple apparently broke down and went to walk for help and came back to find everything had been taken from their car, including the car seats. Oh and the heartwarming story that we read the other day that an aboriginal couple broke down in the bush and just...died! They ran out of water and it was lights out! So wish us luck!

Middle of Nowhere

I was just waiting for the guards to shout LOCK DOWN!
Who's that freak?! Deserted restaurant number 1
Deserted restaurant number 2

Going along the Great Ocean Road you are pretty far from any large towns, so you often look on the map for a big place and when you get there, you are confronted with a 'massive' town the length of one small street. Complete with one pub, one hotel, one post office and one grocery shop...and they all close about 5pm. Brilliant. So we had to stay the night in the back of beyond really. The first night we stayed in a place called Apollo Bay, we check into a hostel to be greeted by some woman in her PJs called Molly and she shows us our room crawling with bugs! We had a mooch about the garden and saw that we weren't 'lucky' enough to stay in a shared 4 bed room...better known as a CARAVAN! Yep, they are just sat at the bottom of the garden, rusting away! We survived the night! The second night we stayed in a place called Port Fairy in Victoria's oldest hostel...and you could tell! The toilets were a rainy walk away from our room in the 'Hay barn', but the best bit was the town. All one street of it. We had to eat out and went in some pub and as we walked in it seemed to go deadly silent, for fear of 2 non-locals! At about 9pm the place went dead and it was time to ship out! Finally we stayed in Mt Gambier but the choice of hostel left a little to be desired...it was a jail. No lie! It was like a scene from Shawshank and it was so creepy! Plus the fact that it had a wild, and may I say angry, emu sneaking around oustide, we went to the nearest motel and had done with it!

Great Ocean Road

The 12 Apostles
London Bridge
'Hello POSSUMS!!!!'
Blue Lake in Mt Gambier

The Great Ocean Road is a stretch of coast starting just outside Melbourne and going West for about 200 miles (that's a short distance here!), and along it there are many sights to stop off and have a look at. First of all there was Bell's Beach, a famous surfing beach (as featured on the end of Point Break...but there was no Keanu or Patrick in sight), which actually wasn't that impressive but worth a look I guess. Then there are loads of bays until you come across the '12 Apostles' which are rock formations that have separated from the coast through erosion to form stacks in the water....I guess at one point there were 12 of them and I guess they needed a catchy name for it. Also along the road there is another rock formation called 'London Bridge', which has a little hole in the bottom of it to make it look like a bridge! Unfortunately the weather that went along with it was probably the same as in London, so it meant the drive was a bit more like a jump out of the car take the snap, get back in the car and go! We went on and came across some teeny tiny little places that they referred to as 'towns' and then we found a place called Mt Gambier, which is built at the base of a volcano crater. It was a really nice place and we had a look at the volcano which is a now a lake, and they had this 'sunken' garden where you can go at night and feed possums! We went to go and take a visit and in the quest of trying to take an awesome snap I held out on the little possum a little too long and he grabbed me by the little finger with a look of 'gimme the bread, lady'. I nearly forgot to mention that I made us go to 'CHEESEWORLD' along the way! Their selection of cheeses was NOT impressive! We met some interesting people and saw some interesting things along the Great Ocean Road, that's for sure!

Sheila's on wheels!

After the tennis finished in Melbourne we realised we had been there for 2 weeks and it might be time to move on. Considering a lot of the people in the hostel had bought cars recently, and we didn't fancy shelling out considerable amounts of money on taking more buses everywhere, we looked into buying a car. Like most things in Oz, its not easy. Similarly to the UK, where you need an MOT in order to get your car taxed, you need a 'Roadworthy' certificate to get your 'rego'. However, this has to be done in the state where the car is registered which brings up so many issues as all of the cars for sale through other travellers were from entirely different states, and so it seemed impossible. After a couple of days of head scratching we decided to just go for it and we met up with this New Zealand couple selling their 1994 Ford Falcon. They turned up and the car seemed ok except it was registered miles and miles away, although they assured us this would be fine. We probably should have been a bit more cautious given that the lad was a spotty 18 year old and used the word 'kewl'. A few days later and yep, it all fell through...so we went out, ate some cake, and rented a car to go out to the suburbs of Melbourne and find a cheap car from a dealer. We set out with high hopes and went to a place called 'Melbourne's Cheapest Cars'. We can't go wrong. Then we were harassed by some old geezer named 'Ken' ('Barnesy' to his pals) who told us to go and 'try the other 50 car lots down the road and you will still come back to Melbourne's cheapest cars'. So we did. We came back thanks to the allure of 2 cars....one sexy automatic beast with a pimpin cd player (complete with USB attachment!) and another in our price range that looked not unlike Alan Partridge's car in his pre-Lexus days. After some deliberation and sweet talking by the 70 odd sly salesman, we went for the first car...and picked it up a a few days later and set off on our journey!