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Next day we picked up a car to
do the GOR. First off though we hit Victoria market. Known as
a must do in Melbourne, we loaded up the car with some great
fresh fruit and veg for the next few days. Rach couldn’t
believe the size of the place, they had literally hundreds of
stalls selling everything from fruit and veg, meat, fish, breads
and cheeses and clothes. Wish we could’ve stayed longer for a
proper shop!
Not long after getting out of
Melbourne and actually hitting the GOR we saw our first sign to
watch out for Kangaroos on the road - and we actually saw some
straight away on the road side. Rachel was very excited at this
as she hadn’t seen a roo in the wild before…
First night we managed to get
along as far as Lorne still in time for a run along the beach in
the late sun which was great. We stayed in a kind of rainforest
lodge that had pet white cockatoos that provided a great wake up
service in the morning. The next day along the GOR was a day to
stops lots and see the sights in the various coves and bays
along the way. The famous couple of places are the 12 Apostles
(Now 11 as one crashed into the sea a couple of months before)
and London Bridge. Great clear blue skies as well. We even got
to see some emus running around Tower Hill Nature Reserve before
spending the night at Port Fairy an old historical navy town.
That’s pretty much the end of
the official GOR, so we headed in land a short distance to the
Grampians to a town called Halls Gap and stayed at the very nice
eco friendly award winning YHA. With beautiful weather we did a
great run/hike to the Balconies Look Out that afternoon which
had us doing lots of rock climbing to a point with some amazing
views. Chilling out in their big comfy lounge in front of the
log fire was a great end to the day after the hard run!
Definitely in the top 10 list for Rach so far!
The next day on our way to
Adelaide we stopped at Naracoorte to pay a visit to the
limestone caves. They have been there for millions of years and
are really long with a mixture of dry caves and wet caves with
some great stalactites and stalagmites to be seen. There are
also lots of fossils in the caves as that part of Oz used to be
under the sea many millions of years ago. That night we crashed
out at a place called Murray Bridge after some long driving and
stayed in a place set back in time. It was a guest house set
above some shops with huge great wooden furniture and larger
than life 4 poster beds, but all with flowery décor! Hmm Nice.
Run by a very friendly family though which was great.
After about an hour the next
day we rocked up into Adelaide. But before dropping off the car
we got ourselves booked into a small hostel. It was also lovely
and warm in Adelaide. In fact it was Adelaide’s hottest day for
10 years in August. But then the rain came down for the
hostel’s city bus tour that night, which was good. Afterwards
we all went down the local pub which was cool as it was local
jam night. Even a couple of people from the hostel got up sang
and played an instrument…
Next day we woke to lashings of
rain but had planned a wine tasting tour in the Barossa Valley.
This is a great location to do some wine tastings in Oz. A
great trip with a very knowledgeable driver Matt who was from a
family of wine makers and had some great stories to tell about
the drunken antics aboard his bus from all the backpackers over
the years! We got to go to Australia’s most famous Jacobs Creek
(biggest export is to the UK!) as well as 4 other wineries. So
plenty of wine was drunk that day as well as some good info
taken in. We both liked lots of the wine from the Shild Estate
and bought some of their Frontignac to sample later!
We also got taken to a couple
of the other famous landmarks. One being the “Largest Rocking
Horse” in the world and the other the “Whispering Wall”. The
wall is bizarre. It’s basically a dam but a person can be stood
either side and have a normal conversation without having to
shout across the water! They say this was first discovered when
it was under construction and the bosses could here the work
force bitching about pay and conditions…
Next day we mooched around the
city in the sun and went for a long run down by the river. We
ran off some wine, but soon put it back on again that night as
the hostel had a dvd and pizza night! Next day we had an early
flight up to Alice Springs and connection onto Ayers Rock. |
