I was looking forward to Melbourne because so many people talked about nice cafes and funky bars that you find down little alleyways. After Sydney and the rest of Oz, Melbourne felt very, very European but we sorted that out by feeding our latest Sushi habit mmmmmmmm 🙂 God sushi is great!!! And Amy you were right, it’s everywhere around Sydney and Melbourne!! It’s the perfect meal for me because you can have little bits of everything 🙂

We rented a car (a bucket of shite but damn it was cheap!! 🙂 ) for a few days and drove the Great Ocean Road which is just breath taking. Everyone says it’s beautiful but that doesn’t even sum it up to be honest. We drove through little towns like Geelong (where we stopped for lunch by the water), Torquay (and resisted buying surf gear – oh it’s soooo hard) and visited Bells Beach which is just outside. This is pretty much the most famous surfing beach in Australia.

 

It’s really lovely but the current is so so strong, it’s not really recommended to swim there – even though we did see some idiot attempting it. We drove on to Lorne where we stopped for the night (as we had set off a little late) Lorne is lovely, a nice small town with good bars and restaurants but it was a treat to have a home cooked dinner in the hostel, cooked by our friend, Remi – so thanks for that mister 🙂 . The following morning we headed off to see nearby Erskine Falls and then headed on to Apollo Bay. The road from Lorne to Apollo Bay is basically carved into the cliffs and the views are out of this world, kinda distracting when you’re trying to drive!!

 

The real must see spots started after this when we reached Port Campbell, The Twelve Apostles……

 Ahhhhh seriously just look at it!!! There’s only 6 of them left now but it’s still massively impressive, don’t ya think? We got a great day weatherwise too so our photos came out really well. Next up was The Arch…..

London Bridge…….

Bay of Islands, Bay of Martyrs, the list goes on and on….. and you can check out the rest of them on my flickr site. We basically filled our cameras (for a change!!) and even though the pictures came out pretty well, they still don’t do it justice. It is just AMAZING!!!!

 

Back to Melbourne and we met up with Snowie (Cork girl) and Heath (who we worked with in Darwin) and they showed up some of the Melbourne nightlife.

 

We found ourselves wandering down a very dark dodgy alleyway (where you find the best little spots in Melbourne) to find a cracking bar with a kind of science lab theme. These are the bathrooms……

 

Good fun, and one too many glasses of wine for Lindy – oh dear!! Melbourne is great but I do think you need FAR more time here to explore or else someone needs to show you around – big time.

And so that ends my time in Australia and I’m really sad about leaving actually. I didn’t think I would be as sad as I am so it’s a little unexpected. There’s so much to see here and I’m gutted we didn’t have the time to see the west coast which I think would be really beautiful but unfortunately I’ll have to wait til next time…….

But for now it’s on to the next chapter…… New Zealand, which will be action/adventure packed!!!!

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157612280266032/