Adelaide to Geelong

Adelaide

During our stay in Adelaide, we went on a wine tour of the Barossa Valley - you can never do too many wine tours! We visited a few wineries including Wolf Blass and Maggie Beer's Farm Shop to taste some jams and sauces (very yum).

The view of Adelaide from the pier at Glenelg.

The Wolf Blass logo

Me relaxing on the lawn at Wolf Blass vineyard.

Some old vines.

On our last day, we went to the Whispering Wall (A.K.A. Barossa Valley Dam), where you can hear another person speaking from the other end (or in J's case, burping!). We also visited the Big Rocking Horse and the small wildlife park next door, where we were followed by peacocks and psycho guinea fowl who thought we had food. A cute little roo wandered right up to me, sniffed my feet and let me stroke him.

The noisy dam!

Old Red. He was at the sanctuary too.

Later that day, we paid a visit to a German settlement called Hahndorf and we drove up to the Mount Lofty lookout over the city.


View from Mount Lofty. Adelaide is there, trust me.

Mount Gambier

From Adelaide we travelled south to Mount Gambier. On the way, we passed through the Coonawarra wine region for another spot of wine tasting - no complaints there!

In Mount Gambier just before dusk, we went to feed the possums at the Umpherston Sinkhole garden. It was a lovely garden and we've never seen so many possums in one place! I was a bit cheeky and stroked a couple of possums whilst they were busy eating, but by the looks of it they were used to the human interaction.

The view into the gardens.

Possum and joey.

Trying to stroke the possum.

The next day we headed east across the SA/Victoria border to The Grampians

Welcome to Victoria!

The Grampians (Halls Gap)

On the way to Halls Gap in the Grampians National Park (named after the Scottish mountains), we stopped at the Petrified Forest on the coast.

Jamie is really petrified! They are not really trees, just a natural rock formation.


Jamie feeding the Crimson Rosellas at the caravan park.

The next day, we took some photos from the Boroka lookout over Halls Gap and the Reed lookout over the Grampians. We also went to see The Balconies - a rock formation that looks like a lizard's mouth and Mackenzie Falls, which was pretty spectacular.

View from Baroka lookout.


See the lizards mouth?

Mackenzie Falls. (Jamie trying to be arty!)

Jamie on the edge!

After leaving the Grampians, we headed south to drive along the Great Ocean Road.

The Great Ocean Road (Port Campbell)

On our Great Ocean Road trip, we stayed at Port Campbell, where we went to look at the Twelve Apostles rock formations in the ocean. There aren't 12 of them anymore, however, as some of them have fallen down. It was recommended to us that we visit the Apostles at sunset, which we did, but it was pretty cloudy, so we went back to the campsite to watch Rove and drink wine!

The evening shot of the 12 (6ish) Apostles.

The Great Ocean Road (Bimbi Park - Cape Otway)

The next day, on the way to Cape Otway, we went to check out London Bridge (part of which did actually fall down in 1990), The Grotto and The Bay of Martyrs. I also enjoyed some lovely cheese tasting at Timboon and Apostle Whey cheese shops. And we did some wine tasting at Heytesbury Ridge Vineyard. It's so nice to taste the cheese/ wine at the place where it's made and chat to the people who make it and are passionate about it.

The Grotto.


Bay of Martyrs

Later on, we went back to see if we could get better photos of the Twelve Apostles in daylight and we visited Loch Ard Gorge, the Thunder Cave and the Gibson Steps leading down to a beach.

Take two: 6ish Apostles during the day.

London Bridge HAS fallen down!


An arch.

Me and J on the beach at the bottom of Gibsons Steps.

I was really looking forward to staying in Cape Otway because our campsite was called Bimbi Park Camping Under Koalas - and I wasn't disappointed! We must've seen about a dozen koalas in the trees and wandering around the campsite. Did you know that koalas communicate by growling? They look like such cute balls of fluff, but the noise they make is quite unnerving! Especially when you're sleeping in a little tent and those growls sound awfully close.

One of many koalas hanging around the campsite.

Geelong

On the way to Geelong, on the last stretch of the Great Ocean Road, we did a fairly short walk to the impressive Triplet Falls through ancient rainforest. We also did some koala spotting at Kennett River - we saw quite a few fuzzy bums in the trees.

Triplet Falls.

Margaret River to Adelaide

Denmark

From Margaret River, we headed to the south coast to a place called Denmark. On the way, Jamie climbed the Diamond Tree, one of the tallest types of trees in the area, it used to be used as a lookout for forest fires (helicopters are used now). Jamie also fed some brightly coloured birds. I did neither of these things because that tree was bloody tall and those birds were psychos (maybe a slight over exaggeration there!)


Jamie up the Diamond Tree (He got down after that point, he said it was too high and scary!). I think it was about 60ish metres high.


J's got yet another new bird!

After all our complaining about it being too hot up north, it was too COLD down south! The weather was very British: very windy and rainy. We were the only people crazy enough to sleep in a tent in our campsite in Denmark.The wind was so strong that I was sure that the tent would cave in any second!

The following day, we went to Walpole-Nornalup National Park to do the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk. A steel walkway has been erected in a forest of Tingle Trees. It ascends to 40 metres at its highest and you can see through the floor - it's very scary! But J enjoyed it, he did it twice.


J in the giant trees


The view from the canopy.

We also visited the Giant Tingle Tree, which is over 450 years old and has a hollow base.

Apparently they used to drive their cars into the hollow!

Esperance

We headed east along the south coast to Esperance. On the way, we stopped near Albany to check out the blowholes. Basically, they're a natural phenomenon of seawater being 'blown' out through holes in the rock. It was pretty impressive and reminded me a bit of Jamie after eating a curry. We also checked out some other natural sights on the rugged coastline.


Jamie's arse!

The Natural Bridge.

The rough seas around Albany.

The weather was much more cheerful in Esperance, though still a bit cold. We drove to some of the sights including the Pink Lake, a beach and some coastal lookouts. The Pink Lake was, disappointingly, not pink! There was a detailed explanation of where the colour comes from (involving the ingredient that makes carrots orange), but the lake was more like a grey-blue. Oh well.

What a difference a day makes!

The Nullarbor Road Trip

We drove north from Esperance to Norseman, where we began our journey east across the Nullarbor Plain into South Australia. Apparently, people do this drive just to prove that they can do it. It's a very long drive and there's very few places to stop on the way. It also includes the '90 Mile Straight' between Balladonia and Caiguna - the longest straight road in Australia! 'Nullarbor' is derived from the Latin for 'no trees' and although it would be wrong to say that there are no trees, the land is very flat and monotonous.

We stayed the night in Caiguna.

Very misty and atmospheric at 5am

The next night, we stayed at Eucla. In the evening, we went to see the old telegraph building out in the sand dunes. It was a very serene place - nice cool breeze, very few people and the sound of the sea in the distance.

The old telegraph building.

The dunes around Eucla.

The next day, we crossed the border into South Australia.

One of the many lookouts over the Great Australian Bight.

We drove on the true 'Nullarbor' section, where there isn't a single tree for about 40km (a relatively small distance). We stayed the night in Ceduna. After tea, we enjoyed a few hours drinking wine and chatting to an old Aussie biker and a Swiss-German guy by the fire (as it was a bit chilly).

The long and not winding road!

Port Augusta (Spear Creek)

We drove to Port Augusta, the following day, passing through Kimba on the way.

Mad Jam: Beyond Thunderdome - loo break on the way.

A big gallah with the Big Gallah!

The weather had been pretty crazy recently in this area and roads were flooded. Luckily, the place where we stayed hadn't really been affected.

Sunset over Spear Creek.

The next day, we drove south to Adelaide via the Clare Valley wine region. We stopped at 3 wineries for a spot of tasting - not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon!