Adelaide is ‘real’ Australia. The local pubs welcomed us with open arms, a beer and a long chat that you struggled to get out of. It also has a museum dedicated to Sir Don Bradman who played with a bat made in Chelmsford, Essex. Fact. We had 3 enjoyable days in Adelaide not doing much. But we did pick up a 6 gear 1.8 Toyota Corrolla that had lots of gadgets and cup holders! In our super car, we headed off to the Barrossa Valley to pursue more of Lou’s favourite activity-wine tasting!
The Barrossa valley is home to famous wine makers such as Penfolds, Jacob’s Creek and Wolf Blass. We booked into a hostel here that turned out to be a little cottage surrounded by vinyards and as no-one else had checked in, we had it all to ourselves!! The wine tasting was especially good at Jacob’s Creek and yes, the creek next to it is called Jacob! We also had a tour of the wine making facilities that surprised us both and was interesting. A good stop.
We drove to the Grampian Moutains in Victoria. We had to move our clock forward 30 minutes as we crossed the border from South Australia into Victoria-it’s odd how they have split the time zone in half. We had heard that there were many kangaroos in this area of Australia and we were not disappointed. We had slowed to look at the scenery and up on the road ahead we saw a make-shift roo crossing. The kangaroos were bending underneath the wire fencing and one would have the role of lookout as the other hopped across the road to the field opposite. It was quite a sight! We watched this for a while and then found a cabin for hire on some property. We decided to take it. On the owner’s field were emus and kangaroos. It was quality to eat dinner and breakfast with kangaroos hopping past. At one point Lou heard what she thought was Jonty jumping around trying to trick her, but then a 5 foot kangaroo came hopping round the corner! Kangaroos are massive when they stand up to each other. We saw a few having a box and using their tail to lift their feet off the ground to kick with. In the Grampians we had a nice walk up a mountain before moving on to the Great Ocean Road. On our way, we saw a group of 4 stags in the bush. They started to gallop alongside us, before overtaking us and crossing the road ahead. What a sight.
Now, this was a drive that we had been looking forward to. The road hugs the coast. We stopped at various points to walk and admire the rough sea. We ate lunch whilst looking at the twelve apostles-of which there are only 7 left. These are impressive stacks that have been bashed about by the sea. A great day’s driving was finished off with some wine from the Barrossa Valley in a hostel that had a vinyl LP player-we spent the evening listening to some classic hits. The next day we followed the hostel owners instructions and found some koalas. We spotted about 22 in the space of a kilometre. 2 were the most active we’ve seen, they were climbing up and down munching away on the eucalyptus leaves. On our way back down the track we stumbled across a tour group feeding the colourful parrots that are in many of the trees out here. They gave us some of their feed and we were then ambushed by them. Jonty was bitten by a less friendly fellow and so we left!
Onto Melbourne. We decided to rid ourselves of the car we will never afford in real life, but before we did that we went to visit Ramsey Street. It is actually called Pin Oak Street and is in a suburb of Melbourne. It is tiny in real life. We wandered around and Lou gave Jonty the run down of who lived where and when, before taking lots of photos and bowling down the street (Jared Rebeki/Toady style). We timed our visit to coincide with the Aussie rules finals, so we paid a visit to the MCG on Saturday night and watched a match with 65,000 others. The noise of the crowd at the MCG is a roar. Great entertainment.
Melbourne is a nice city to meander. We enjoyed visiting the markets, parks, beaches and riverside. But really and truly we(Lou) had only stopped for one thing…NEIGHBOURS night! We had the choice of 2. The official and the alternative one (run by Toady, since he was banned from the official one!). After extensive research, we found out that Ian Smith aka Harold Bishop aka Jelly Belly would be at the alternative night, but that we could also make our way over to the official one to see Karl Kennedy’s band play. We could kill one bird with 2 stones as Jonty said!
The whole day leading up to the momentus occasion was filled with apprehension. But on arrival, and after recieving our free beer and wedges, Harold arrived. He stole the show. He is a comic. And a genuinely nice guy. He wrote in our journal, had an arm wrestle with Jonty and gave Lou a hug worthy of the mighty Lou Bear himself! We also got to meet Ringo and Elle Robinson from the show and they were equally friendly and down-to-earth. We had a great time. But it was soon time to race over to the official gig. And what a race it was too. We arrived at the tram station (oh yeah, forgot to mention that Melbourne has trams everywhere-a nightmare for drivers-glad we lost the car), but our tram had just left seconds before and the next one wasn’t for another 20 minutes. Karl was due on then. There was only one thing for it. The flip flops came off and we ran after it. We saw it stop at the next station, but it pulled off as we approached. Someone claimed to know a short cut so we all followed (oh yeah, there were 8 of us chasing down the middle of the road!). We caught it at the next stop and managed to reach Doctor Karl with seconds to spare. It was well worth the chase. Pure entertainment, great songs and some classic ‘Dad’ shapes were thrown on the floor by Karl. Jonty even remarked that it was one of the best nights he’s ever had- praise indeed. We left Melbourne happy a couple of days later.
We have now returned to the start as it were. We’re back in Sydney, having completed our circuit of Oz. This time around it is warmer weather. We will get to see a little of the World Cup here before we head off to Singapore on the 17th.
