restaurant called Mamak. Our Sydney Highlight came the following day when we headed accross the harbour to the excellent Taronga Zoo. http://www.zoo.nsw.gov.au/taronga-zoo.aspx This is a great zoo with a fantastic array of animals all in really nice enclosures. Well worth a look if you are ever there, and in a really spectacular setting with great views back accross the harbour to the Opera House and Bridge. The Bird Show is a must if you ever go here.....a highly entertaining display of amazingly well trained birds that cannot fail to make you smile.Robin struggled to keep recently self-confessed post-Vegas gambling enthusiast Yolanda out of the massive Crown Casino complex but finally relented and allowed team Roblanda to have a cheeky flutter on the penny slots. A great decision as Yolanda promptly won $50....good work partner. On the same day Yolanda was roped into a street magic act with an american man in a strait jacket called Magic Brian....this was particularly amusing for Robin as Yolanda had been trying to push him to the front of the crowd for audience participation since the start of the show.
We awoke on our final morning in Melboune to more biblical weather, so promptly donned our full waterproof gear for the half mile hike through Melbourne's rugged CBD area to collect our hire car. Once safely ensconced in our stylish white Toyota Corolla we put the pedal to the metal and headed out of town (via Burger King) to start our Great Ocean Road camping adventure. Thankfully the weather improved!
NB - we had high expectations of the 'Great Ocean Road', due in part perhaps to its name. Note also that we had just come from NZ, by far the most scenically beautiful place in the world which had great ocean roads a plenty.
Our first stop was at a campsite near the town of Wagga Bugga Mugga and we managed to find a decent pitch and got the tent up in the dry, good timing as it pissed it down for most of the night. We happened to put the tent up right next to a small tree and, as Yolanda watched Robin erect the tent, she happened to notice a Koala Bear about ten feet above us in the tree....result! Not being the most dynamic of creatures the obliging little fella posed for lots of pictures and generally kept us company for our nights stay.
We awoke the next morning, our first night of camping in Australia, a country known for its many creatures of death, to find a menacing looking spider running around inside our very small two man tent.....excellent! After a few minutes pondering the predicament Robin deployed the hard outer case of the travel scrabble set to excellent effect thus saving the fair maiden Yolanda from almost certain spidery death. Species identification in the aftermath was difficult as Robin had taken something of a shock and awe approach to pest control, however after careful identification Roblanda agreed that it was almost certainly a 'Red Backed Funnel Web Blue Ringed Octopus Box Spider' and that they were both lucky to get out of the tent unscathed.
We spent the next couple of days driving along the Great Ocean Road stopping frequently to look at the many fine views and spectacular sea cliffs. It's eroding at a hell of a rate and makes for an ever-changing landscape. Overall we enjoyed our trip along this famous road but left feeling that it was not quite what we expected....the road itself doesn't actually sit right on the coast for the main part, rather on a plateau several hundred metres back from the cliffs. The result of this is that you dont actually see the sea for large parts of the drive and that you have to stop at the many viewpoint carparks along the way and walk several hundred metres from each one to view the various coves, grottoes and arches. It is indeed a spectacular stretch of coastline when you can actually see it, just not that engaging a drive. We would suggest that the road is perhaps renamed 'The Quite Good Ocean Road' or the 'near the Great Ocean Coast road' and that the road south to Kaikoura in New Zealand or perhaps the road around the Coromandel Penninsula (also in NZ) inherits the 'Great' title instead as these are somewhat better roads in our humble opinion.
We headed away from the coast and spent a night at the slightly odd but strangely enchanting town of Mt Gambier. An excellent campsite and a chance to catch up with the laundry followed by a poke around the town's bizarre blue volcanic crater lakes in the morning.
After a brief and windswept lunch stop in the lovely coastal town of Robe (thanks for tip Marco) we finished up the day on the Fleurieu Pennisula, in the rather charming town of Goolwa. Some free internet at the library, a couple of cold beers in the most Australian pub in the world (pub and bookmaker in one dangerous combo!) followed by an excellent wood fired pizza and we were ready for bed.
The next day we headed up to the famous winemaking town of McLaren Vale to say hello to some more of Robin's wine contacts, this time Linda Domas and Steve Brunato at Linda Domas Wines. Despite being absolutely exhausted from 5 weeks of almost continuous work during one of the toughest vintages they had known (there was a heatwave halfway through vintage which meant that the grapes ripened too quickly and 13 weeks work had to be done in 5 weeks!!) they took the time to show us around and let us try all their latest wines straight from the tanks. Once again we were looked after royally and taken out for a lovely meal at a local eatery....thanks again guys, we had a fab time and haven't laughed so much in ages!
The wines were tasting fab as usual....if you ever thought that Aussie wines lacked finesse and were over-concentrated, alcoholic monsters then think again...these wines are elegance vinified! Available in the UK through Novum....though you may be lucky and grab a bottle of the delicious Boycatt Merlot from your local M&S in the coming months. For more info check out http://www.ldwines.com.au/
We waved a fond farewell to Mclaren Vale and headed towards Adelaide for a couple of nights suburban camping, stopping on the way at the excellent Warrawong Wildlife park where we were lucky enough to see a Duck Billed Platypus. The weather in Adelaide was foul (mega windy and loads of rain) so we spent most of our two days there in the campsite kitchen or the local mall/cinema before heading to the airport for the flight up to Broome. Unfortunately we never made it into Adelaide itself.
We had spent a bit of time looking into various Broome related ideas, one of which was hiring a car and drivin
g south down the west coast to Perth. This along with everything else in Broome was unfortunately prohibitively expensive so we resigned ourselves to a week of sitting by the pool in the sweltering (a word which has new meaning in Broome - the most humid place in the world in April) heat of the WA sun. Despite feeling pretty broke and there not being too much to do in Broome on a budget we made the best of time there and topped up out tans nicely. We watched a couple of beautiful sunsets over the stunning Cable Beach and generally had a very relaxing week.
We had already started to realise that a combination of a very weak exchange rate(2 AUS$ to the pound) coupled with a pretty expensive country was taking its toll on the Roblanda finances and during our time in Broome decided to cut our time in Australia short by a fortnight and head up to Asia early in search of some cheaper food and lodgings. A quick phonecall to Qantas and all was sorted. We were to depart early and head to Malaysia!
We still had a bit of time in Oz and headed down to Perth to hook up with friends Emily and Travis for a few days. Due to our last minute change of plans we were a bit stuck for accommodation (Em and Trav would have put us up but they were still building Archibald Towers and currently stopping with Travis' folks....) so after trawling the internet we booked ourselves into 'Mountway Holiday Appartments'. If ever you are in Perth and stuck for accommodation we would suggest sleeping in one of Perth's many lovely parks or bus shelters before giving any money to this festering cess hole of an establishment. We are not going to say any more on this for fear of not being able to stop.
Despite the rather grim accommodation (which in fair wasn't too bad once you got used to the smell) we had a fab time in Perth. It was lovely to see Emily and Travis and they looked after us superbly. Some great meals out, an excellent day touring the wineries and vineyards of the Swan Valley and a fab BBQ at Trav's folks house on our last night in Perth. We had a super time and will doubtless be back when you have finished building your enormous house! Thanks again guys we had a lovely time and hope to see you in Corsham at some point in the future.
Our time in Perth was a lovely end to our time in Australia and it was all too soon that we were once again packing our bags and heading off to yet another airport on our way to Kuala Lumpur.
