Arriving at night awarded Melbourne an impressive air as we crossed the bay bridge and gravitated toward the bright lights of the CBD.

Our abode here was luxurious compared to the hostels we had become accustomed to. Susannah and Rowan (family friend) had kindly offered us their spare room for a few days while we explored their home from home. As much a backpacking is the life we chose for now there is nothing like the comforts of home, even if it is not your own. Being surrounded by the warmth of friends, clean dry warm fresh-smelling fluffy towels, soft comfortable bed, efficient washing machine and detergent, homely kitchen, television etc and all complimentary too. For us this was heaven! After a delicious ‘welcome’ supper, I joke with Susannah that their abode would of course be included and scored our rated travel accommodation list on our blog. Obviously  there was nothing to concern her as their score is a clear 5/5 with the ultimate in luxury being able to lie-in passed 8am and not have to pack our bags for check out for a few of days. Bliss! Thank you again

 

Susannah and Rowan’s lovely St Kilda East home

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Our nippy little automatic

After much discussion and deliberation on the best/cheapest way to see the Great Ocean Road, we hired a car from Adelaide to Melbourne for the 3 day trip with our itinerary loosely based on a conventional tour.

Avis hired us a reasonably priced 5 door, brand new, automatic, Toyota Corolla which was lovely to drive. We (I) were particularly happy in was not white like most Aussie motor vehicles! The automatic gears were easier than we feared so, after a quick and embarrassing initial explanation, we were on the road.

Driving out of town we climbed up into the pretty wine region of the Adelaide Hills and the German settlement of Harndorf. At the cellar door we sampled a few good wines, of which Nepenthe Winery was a highlight for James having enjoyed their mixed grape blend named ‘Tryst’ many times before. In town lunch was classic German fare of sausages and sauerkraut. We pottered around the shops remarking how familiar the European culture and architecture seemed.

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The Ghan train journeys from Darwin via Alice to Adelaide which is an impressive way to travel through the unending sands of central Australia. For us the journey began in great Aussie style with all the luggage being transported incrementally from check-in to the train in the boot of an employee’s car. The reason spread like wild fire down the customer queue, apparently “the luggage truck was stolen”! Standing around with the midday sun beating relentlessly down on us we massaged in sun-cream as the Aussies from Adelaide mocked the laid-back attitude here in Alice.

Our carriage awaits for the 19 hour journey from Alice Springs to Adelaide

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You may laugh, but travelling is quite tiring! If you’re anything like us then after three weeks on the road day and night you’ll want to press pause for a while. However, you keep at it as after all “This is Australia” and you can’t just pop back again anytime soon. So our schedule has been full of early mornings and overnighters on the Greyhound and we felt entitled to take a break from the road and hole out for a few days. Whilst staying at the wonderful ‘Dreamtime’ hostel in Cairns we were recommended to go south to visit ‘The Sanctuary’ near Mission Beach.

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DAY ONE

Our RTW ticket included a wonderful flight over the outback from Cairns to Alice Springs. The landscape was how you may, and we certainly, imagined Australia to be, red dusty and dry as a bone. Awesome mountain ranges rose out of the endless flat plains of the outback with the occasional line of trees denoting where an underground river flows.

We arrived in Alice on a downer, discovering my continued affliction of loosing/mislaying/theft of my wallet had followed my to the other side of the world. Sadly it had been nicked at Cairns domestic airport lounge, which included ALL my cards; bank, credit, driving, YHA and even the global gossip card too. You name it and it was gone. To make things worse we did not have the telephone number for Sentinel 24hr international cancellation service and so had to wake Arabella in the middle of the night to cancel them all. Thankfully no one has tried to use any of them and I imagine it was dumped, fleeced of the small amount of cash before we left the lounge!

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I am one of the late Steve Irwin’s greatest fans, although at first I was unsure that his larger-than-life-persona was not just that; a persona.  Something he took off like a hat when he got home.  I soon learned my mistake by watching one episode of his program where his wife and he came across a large pod of whales that had beached themselves and lay dying in the sun.  Steve was heartbroken and it was very clear to me that he was genuinely upset.  Steve Irwin, I realised, was the real deal.

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Words and pictures (c) Cescabell

Before we touched down on Australian soil we knew that we were going to make the effort to go here and taste the wines of Uncle Richard’s youth.

Having spent a difficult night in Sydney en-route to the Hunter Valley, we were more than ready to hot foot ourselves onto the Rover coach direct to the door of our new abode ‘Hunter Valley YHA’. We pick up the coach from Sydney Central where I stood overshadowed by the EY building, but there was no looking back.The morning light was enjoyable even through the throngs of rush-hour. Our coach was virtually empty as we navigated out of the city and over the famous harbour bridge. The journey lead us through the suburbs and town after town, until the coach turned west towards the mountains.

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