maynardcase.co.uk linkfest

We had a nice drive up from Robe today past the Coorong National Park. We stopped off at a very windy viewpoint to spot pelicans who were quite sensibly somewhere warm and cosy and thereby nowhere to be seen.

Pies for lunch in Meningie - fantastic! If there’s a better food than pie, I’d like to know what it is (not including Thai).

The early afternoon was spent driving through the beautiful countryside past thousands of grape vines, part of Australias thriving wine producing industry. We reached Victor Harbour mid-afternoon and then went for a wander over the bridge to Granite Island, a beautiful little place with some pretty dramatic boulders scattered between wheat fields.

The evening’s entertainment was a showing of Pride and Prejudice in Victor Harbour’s rather nice art deco cinema.

We left Portland late after a brief flurry of activity sorting out the trip to Kangeroo Island. The first stop was Mount Gambier, for a spot of very nice fish and chips, and a look at the quite bizarrely cobalt lake it sports as an amazing feature. The underground lake system apparently finds its way all the way under the town, and attracts weird pothole divers from around the world.

Onwards and upwards to Robe, a rather nice seaside town where we stayed at the Caledonian Inn. Thoroughly recommended; it’s like a proper English pub with an open fire and an excellent restaurant. The town itself is rather upmarket, has a lot of stuff going on (we just missed the film festival, and apparently there’s a famous surf competition here) and has a great site on the beautiful coastline.

More entertaining stone structures today - the Arch and the Grotto, specifically, then on to the Tower Hill State Game Reserve, set in the crater of an extinct volcano. Rather bizarre - shades of the Lost World, particularly as we saw a herd of emu grazing as we wandered around. Also: the largest number of dragonfly I’ve ever seen, a turtle, and a koala.

Port Fairy for lunch; a lovely town and a rather nice cafe (Rebecca’s). Onwards to Portland, a bit of a grim town again in a lovely location, although perhaps the drizzle didn’t help.

Busy day! Step one: escape Melbourne. Successfully executed despite the odd bit of panicky navigation.

Step two: Take a trip along the Great Ocean Road, via Lorne. Lunch of flies with some bits of sandwich attached, then up and down some big hills in the nearby countryside to the Erskine Falls, which were pretty impressive. The couple snogging on a rock at the bottom of the falls didn’t add to my enjoyment, but did point out a route which I used to get some better pictures. Ha!

Step three: Drive along the winding beach-sodden roads along the coast, which have fantastic bends. Great fun!

Step four: Head on to the Otway National Park where there’s a walk through some temperate rainforest. It feels quite astonishing wandering through vegetation that is thousands of years old, and it’s quite a difference from the usual eucalyptus forests.

Step five: Onwards to the Twelve Apostles, a selection of stone stacks that make quite a nice view. Just down the road is the Loch Ard Gorge (also pretty) and then to Port Campbell.

We bought a day travel pass for all areas of the city on any form of transport, for 2.50 AUD each. Scarily good value. With it we took a tram to the Queen Victoria Market, in which I confess I bought a hat. Pictures of said hat may be forthcoming if you bribe me enough. There was also lots of fresh food, astonishingly tacky “artwork”, leather jackets and camels.

From there to the Botanical Gardens. I wasn’t terribly impressed, although if it weren’t about 32 degrees celsius I might have paid more attention. We struggled to a tram to get back to the visitor information centre, on the basis that it was air conditioned. We had a wander around the Block Arcade on Collins Street, took some more photos of Flinders Street Station then back to the motel to cool down.

The evening saw us being unoriginal and taking a tram back to Lygon Street, where we had some rather nice Thai food, possibly the best food genre in the world.

Today started with a trip to the Koala Conservation Centre, where they have some koalas. In trees. And boardwalks that allow you to get pretty close to the little furry critters. It has to be said that they are annoyingly cute, especially when you consider that they are relatively aggressive beasts who would be quite happy to savage you with their sharp claws if you got too close.

Amusingly they move so little that the park keepers can put up signs describing the position of the koalas and leave them there all day…

After that we headed along to Melbourne, driving through a fairly scary quantity of suburbs before ending up at the George Powlett Motel. My talented driver was slightly concerned about tram protocol but thankfully we didn’t meet one on our route in.

Once we’d got ourselves sorted we went for a wander around Melbourne, particularly up through the Fitzroy area and along Brunswick Street, which was recommended for it’s character. Unfortunately it was a bit of a trek to get to a street that seemed more suited for goth-types and alternative chicks; you feel rather like a stupid tourist in such areas, especially when carrying a rucksack. Undeterred, we wandered westward to Lygon Street where we replenished ourselves with a great wodge of steaming pasta.

The route home was enlivened by a visit to a public toilet - there wasn’t a loo seat, but when you pressed a button a hatch raised, a cloud of steam blew out and a freshly-cleaned and sanitized seat was carefully lowered onto the throne! Quite impressive - although the fact that you had to press a button to dispense each sheet of toilet paper was a bit annoying.

From Yarram down to Wilsons Promontory, an amazing national park. We were greeted in the tourist information centre by some kookaburras which are very friendly. We walked from Tidal River to Squeaky Beach (so named from the clean, white sand that squeaks as you walk on it) - a lovely wander over the headland.

On the trip back we spotted another kangeroo on the side of the road, and our first emus, bobbing around in a ridiculously endearing fashion.

We then headed up the coast to Philip Island, where we headed off to see the Penguin Parade. Hundreds of Little Penguins wait for sunset to come out of the water (they frequently lose their nerve and run back to the sea) then waddle up the beach to their nesting grounds in the dunes - amazing to see, especially when some got confused and ran into the people sitting on the beach a few feet in front of us!

Eden is home of whale-watching on the NSW coast; yesterday we tried to call up to book ourselves on a tour. Unfortunately the swell was pretty high and they weren’t sure if they would be able to take us out, so we were advised to call at 6am and find out if they would be sailing that day.

We duly called up to find that there was a pea-souper outside; very poor visibility! They advised we came down to the harbour anyway to see if the fog would lift. Some time later, we managed to eventually get a go, and chugged gently out of the harbour.

A few seals later, we made our way out onto the ocean to hit the largest waves it’s been my misfortune to experience in a small boat! Everyone was starting to look slightly green around the edges so they called a halt, headed back for home and we stumbled back onto dry land, disappointed but at least still alive and (more importantly) not having been charged any money…

Lunch was some rather nice fish and chips in Lakes Entrance, a carbuncle of a town in a lovely location. Shortly after we went for a walk in a nearby heritage park, where we spotted a few echidnas - very cute creatures.

The afternoon took us to Yarram where we stayed the night.

A quick trip into the countryside from Berry to visit the Fitzroy Falls, which are pretty stunning - as is the roads leading up through the mountains to get to it.

Back down along narrow roads to rejoin the Princes Highway, then onto a gravel track for a trip to Pebbly Beach. Allegedly there are huge numbers of kangeroos around here but we managed to see a couple - a mother and her offspring. Lots of annoyingly curious scarlet rosellas, who stay around just long enough for you to get your camera out before flying off.

Beautiful wiggly roads past the coast, and finally to Eden.

Picked up the car from Kings Cross and managed to find our way onto the tunnel out of the city without any bother. Took the route through the Royal National Park - some great views and a nice introduction to Aussie forests.

Made it to Kiama for lunch, saw the famous Blowhole at low tide (hence no blowing) but there were huge numbers of pelicans knocking around. Very strange looking birds and astonishingly tame!

Stayed in the Berry Hotel for virtually nothing as they’re doing some work at the moment, but that didn’t really disturb us. Interrupted the party just after a horse called the Diva had won the Melbourne Cup, which is a big excuse for the entirety of Australia to party on! Berry is a lovely town, quite pretty (although that word doesn’t mean what you might expect as an English person - it’s a different type of prettiness) and with a very entertaining pub called the Great Southern, complete with every sort of memorabilia you can imagine.