Great Ocean Road - Day 1

 Our first stop on The Great Ocean Road was Bells Beach.  What a beautiful beach!  It is where the final scenes for Point Break were filmed.  The waves were huge and there was no way I was getting in the actual water.  The pictures really don't do their size justice.  The foam rising up the beach was fast coming and disappearing.  I got the ends of my short trousers soaked a few times.  Amazingly, not many people who were looking at the beach actually went down the steps onto it which probably contributed to its serenity.

Great Ocean Road - 1

Wow!  What an amazing road trip.  The views were stunning all the way along.  Every time we stopped, there were more fantastic views to behold.



Most of these views were even before we'd hit the actual 'Great Ocean Road'  Even though the weather does look a bit English at the lighthouse, it was a nice warm day at about 23 degrees.

Melbourne

 Melbourne is a bustling city with a feel of many European cities.  First stop was the Ugg boot shop, of course, where purchases needed to be made!  We then found a quaint little bar called 'The Charles Dickens Tavern'  The bar had a real English feel to it, we could have been in London!

We found a great little hotel just down the road from China Town so it seemed obvious that we should investigate and sample some of the food they had to offer.

Later on that evening, we decided to go and investigate some of the nightlife.  Being a Monday night it wasn't too busy until we got to a bar called 'The Carlton' which was really busy and quite funky.  The bar had all sorts of stuffed animals including an emu and a giraffe!


We also found a bar with very strange sinkware and the bottom of bottles for a wall which was quite funky.


We also found a bicycle without any wheels and a giant purse on the way back to the hotel - all  very strange.

Road Trip

Our road trip began with a huge drive from Adelaide to Melbourne.  There were many weird and wonderful places to see on the way.  We stopped for a cup of tea in this bizarre cafe which sold all sorts of items made from wire.  The characters running the place had missing teeth and lots of tattoos (the guy had a spider's web on his face!), they were really pleasant though.
The drive took us about 12 hours!  We were pretty tired when we arrived in our bogan campsite and not particularly happy about the $730 speeding ticket that had been handed out!  I did see my first 'big thing' though so can tick that one off my bingo at school.

Visit from Home

It was great to have one of my best friends come over from the UK.  After a good night's sleep, we headed down to Glenelg for some shopping and lunch.  We watched a super sunset from the Grand Bar.  A lovely day.

Great Easter Weekend!

 We all enjoyed a great Easter weekend in the Clare Valley, we had fun and laughter and lots of roaring campfires to keep us warm.  Everything had to be washed by the time we got home as all our clothes and bedding smelt of smoke!  All worth it though as we had a brilliant time relaxing and enjoying the outdoors!

Clare Valley Wineries and Cats!

 After a day at the races on the Saturday, we spent Easter Sunday visiting local wineries.  



As you can see, one of the wineries was full of cats - one was even in the sink.  Apparently the sink was above the heater so the cat liked the warmth.  The one outside on the boxes looks just like my Tigger at home.


I love hearing how some of the wines got their names.  At this particular winery, one of the wines was called 'Big Fine Girl' because the person who founded the winery wrote home to Scotland to say he wouldn't be home because he'd 'Met a big fine girl'!