Left Melbourne, Arrived in Auckland New Zealand

We spent our last day in Melbourne out in the city, shopping and checking out the sights. Izzy and Nicola visited a Disney exhibition that was on so me and Luke made the most of the sun. We could have spent at least a few more days in Melbourne, but our flight to Auckland was already booked.

We arrived in Auckland late afternoon yesterday. The flight wasn't too long, only around 4 hours from Melbourne. The time is a further couple of hours ahead from Australia, this must be the furthest into the future I can get from the UK! After all the fun and freedom we had on the Great Ocean Road, we ditched the bus idea and hired a camper. Wicked Campers were so crap and the service was shocking we stepped it up a bit and went for a Jucy Camper. It's worth every penny more! The van is mint and really well equipped.

Netiher of us had any idea where to go, so we came to the conclusion that we would do the South Island first, and started the long drive to the south coast of the North Island. I managed about 4 hours of driving before getting tired at around midnight. We stopped in a small town called Taupo, which is near enough in the centre of the North Island. I knew there was a lake nearby and guess that we had parked by it, but we woke up this morning to this amazing sight...

The further we drove the more dramatic the scenery became, I'm very excited to see what the South Island has to offer.

Melbourne & the Formula One

We have had a great time in Melbourne since arriving back aftger driving the Great Ocean Road. Yesterday was our first full day in town, so we went to check out some shops and an 'Indie Crafts Market' that Izzy wanted to visit. I'm so glad the F1 brought us here, because Melbourne is ten times nicer then Sydney. It's cleaner, friendlier, nicer atmosphere and has better shops. The market was really nice too; it was in a warehouse in Docklands and most of the things on sale were hand made. One couple had a stall selling vegan cupcakes, and offered me a deal. Take some photos for them and they'll give us a couple of free cupcakes!

Obviously the main reason I've been excited for Melbourne is the Formula One! I was pretty worried the weather was going to be cold like it has been the last week, but we were really lucky with the weather, it was bright sunny skies for pretty much the whole day and well into the twenties. The result wasn't quite what I hoped for, I did want Hamilton to win but second place wasn't too bad. We also met up with mum and dad as the they were in Australia too, and Luke and Nicola.

We spent a while on the grass at turn 3 watching the Australian V8's, then moved to turn 7 for a better view, and then eventually to the grass on turn 10 for the end of the race.

Melbourne is an awesome venue for the F1, it is set in Albert Park, which for most of the year is public roads through and around a massive park in the middle of the city. At the end of the day after all the racing they open up the track and all of the spectators are allowed to walk around it. We were all so tired from spending the whole day there so didn't walk the whole thing. 

^ Kissing the tarmac on the straight after turn 10... and here's a little video of the opening lap at turn 7. The atmosphere was incredible and I forgot how loud the cars are.

Finished the Great Ocean Road

Today was our last day with the camper and so our last day on the Great Ocean Road. Last night we had already started heading back towards Melbourne so we wouldn't have such a mammoth drive today. On our way back, we visited some of the sights we skipped on way down such as Erskine Falls.

Erskine Falls is a thirty metre high waterfall near the small town of Lorne, which we chose to be our base for the night as it is only around 120kms from Melbourne. It was raining all day, so there wasn't much else enjoyable to do other than have an explore or the Otway National Park rainforest. We're both glad we visited the falls though, as most of the others we went to had lookouts near the middle that were not great for viewing (or photography), whereas at Erskine we could get right to the bottom of it. There was even a walk down the river leading away from the waterfall, which we decided against based on the sign warning us of snakes and another saying 'Experienced bush walkers only'.

So we got back to Melbourne early afternoon and made our way to the hotel; which was a bit of a mission and included a bus, train and a tram! I'm starting to get seriously excited for the Formula One now, our hotel is 7kms away from the race circuit but we could still hear them practising.

The Great Ocean Road

I think I have just driven the best road in the world, admittedly not in a Ferrari but a crappy old van painted like Scooby Doo's Mystery Machine. One of the main reasons I wanted to come to Australia was to visit the road and the Twelve Apostles and I'm so glad we did it. The weather hasn't been great, but occasionally the sun has broken through to give a dramatic sky for some photos so I'm happy.

We started off by going straight from our Sydney to Melbourne overnight Greyhound to pick up our camper van from Wicked Campers just outside the city. Although, I might look into taking a different route back to the city centre on our return because the area was an absolute hole! Some douche called me a cocksucker because the lift door closed before he got to it in the train station, what a ghetto. We went with Wicked Campers because they were the only place that didn't require 24 hours' notice before collecting the van and they were pretty cheap, although I can see why they are so cheap because the van is quite tatty and under equipped. Still we've had a lot of fun in it, especially because of its paint job.

We stopped quite regularly on our first day, at Bell's Beach and Split Point Lighthouse, but the weather was really grey and the photos were pretty dull. Our first night we stayed in a really nice campsite near Kennet River which had koalas in the trees above our van, and the next morning we were lucky enough to have bright blue skies!

After travelling west from Kennet River for another hour or so, we headed north on a little detour to visit Triplet Falls. I picked up a leaflet in a tourist information about the waterfalls, because apparently they are 'the most spectacular', and the good thing about having our camper van, we can go wherever we like! The road leading up to the falls was a little scary in our front wheel drive banger as it was 25kms of uneven terrain and it was now raining. The waterfall was impressive, although the view wasn't great for photography. I did try to get down the side of the steep hill to the bottom of the waterfall, but it was wet mud and overgrown bush and I if I had gotten down there I wouldn't have gotten out. Not to mention I would hate to think what creepy crawlies were hiding in the undergrowth. The walk from the car park alone was worth it though!

Another hour or so along the road was the Twelve Apostles. The Apostles are huge juts of land that the sea has eroded around and left standing in the sea. I really wanted to come here because the rocks looks like a more magnificent version of Bedruthen Steps, one of my favourite places in Cornwall.

Annoyingly the stove that came with our camper van was so crap we couldn't even boil water with it, and even more annoyingly everywhere in Australia closes at 6pm so we needed to move on to the nearest town to find some dinner! Port Campbell was the closest town and only a 20 minute drive further west, and it's actually one of the bigger towns with more then one shop and more then one take away. Screw paying for a campsite every night when you're in a camper van, so we parked up for the night inbetween a 'No Camping' sign and another camper van. Every road in the town had signs saying no camping, but we asked a few locals and they said the police don't care as long as you don't litter.

Today we're heading back up towards Melbourne so we haven't got such a long drive in the morning to return the camper, we've already covered about 500kms so far. Cross your fingers for some sunny weather in Melbourne on Sunday too, as we're off to the Melbourne F1 race.

Sydney & Deus Ex Machina

Sorry I've taken an age to write about what I have been up to since Byron Bay, but there is a distinct lack of
wifi in hostels down in the south of Australia. After Byron we took the night Greyhound coach down to Sydney and me, Izzy and Pete met back up with Nicola and Luke. We all booked into a hostel in King's Cross, to say it wasn't the nicest hostel in the world would be generous, but it was cheap and one of the few hostels around that had enough beds for all five of us.

As it wasn't raining we thought we'd go and get all of our sight seeing down at the obvious tourist spots like the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and the Botanical Gardens.

The next day we all chipped in and hired a car (a surprisingly nice Kia Sportage to be precise) so we could drive to the Blue Mountains, or 'White Mountains' as we called them because of the cloud and fog. On the way we dropped into a shop that I've been dying to see for years, a custom motorcycle shop called Deus Ex Machina. They take classic bikes and give them a modern twist, I think they have the style down to a tee!

After I had calmed down in the Deus shop we got on our way to the Blue Mountains, which really just ended up being a picnic in the back of the car for Nicola's birthday. We took a bit of a detour home to find 'Red Hand Caves', some caves which have ancient Aboriginal artwork inside. I found getting there the most exciting bit! We had about a half hour off road drive (in our front wheel drive car) and then a 10 minute walk from the end of the road. It really felt about a million miles from any civilization, we even heard wild dingoes barking in the distance. Unfortunately my camera was too big to fit through the metal fencing to get photos of the actual artwork itself!

Byron Bay

Luckily for us the Greyhound stops at the Zoo, so we left around 4:30pm and got into Byron at around midnight. Along our travels we had met quite a few people raving about a hostel called 'The Arts Factory', I can honestly say I have no idea why, because it's utter crap. It's quite run down, and in desperate need of renovation. I can see the hippy look they were going for, but they charge an obscene amount of money (even more then the newer, cleaner hostels in the centre of town and near to the beach). The staff were particularly rude and we've been quite unlucky with the people in our room. Last night at about 4am, two of them fell out and had a fist fight, and the night before they spilt wine all over another girl's bag.

The town itself is awesome, similar to Noosa in its chilled out atmosphere but with a bit more happening. The beach is perfect too, the water is crystal clear, but because there is no Great Barrier Reef in the way, it gets huge waves. We've been hanging out with James, Luke and Nicola (some people we met on our Fraser Island trip) on the beach for the last couple of days because we've been lucky enough to have clear blue skies.

Australia Zoo

On the 14th me, Izzy and Pete got up early to check out of Flashpackers Hostel in Noosa and got the 8am bus to Australia Zoo. We all agreed we could have spent a lot longer in Noosa as the hostel was amazing and the town is so clean and has a great vibe. Anyway, only a couple of weeks left in Australia now so got to get a move on!

Turns out Australia Zoo is quite far away... it took an hour and a half on the bus, but it only cost $5 as it is run by the Zoo themselves. Shortly after getting on the bus they put on a DVD for us to watch, a documentary about how the Zoo was started by Steve's parents and how Steve became a famous TV personality. The Zoo was created by the Irwins from scratch and has developed from a 4 acre reptile park into the 72 acre attraction that it is today. The focus of the park was very different to the other zoos we've visited on this trip, it was more about educating people about the animals and conservation.

The Zoo gives a lot of freedom to get very close to the animals, particularly the koalas and kangaroos (and the sheep as Peter found out...). For $2, you can buy kangaroo food from a vending machine, and walk freely around the enlcosure feeding them by hand. The koalas were not quite as hands on, they were sat in trees and could be stroked under the supervision of the staff.

Noosa

We've been in Noosa for two days now. We spent our first night at Nomads which was pretty crap, the staff were rude and it just generally had a bad vibe. The town itself is brilliant though, really clean, nice beach and has some awesome shops. I went a bit mad in Noosa Longboards shop and bought some more shorts and t-shirts so I'll be having to post some stuff home I think. This morning me, Pete and Izzy met up with a girl called Ilona who we met during our trip to Fraser and went to see the famous Eumundi Markets. I didn't buy anything after going a bit mad in the Longboard shop, but I could have spent plenty on all the cool souvenirs and art that was for sale.

There's quite a famous surf competition on at the moment in Noosa and pro surfer Kelly Slater is in town so I think we're going to watch that tomorrow and check out Australia Zoo on Monday.