This is so nice. It's our last day of our trip, we woke up to the sound of rain, effectively cancelling all our hiking plans for the day. That was 2 hours ago. I've been lying in bed since, finally able to catch up on my journal for the holidays, and Shannon is laughing out loud reading about vampires.

After just two days indoors, even in a chillaxing beach shack, I was ready for some more camping. After a good egg and bacon on Turkish bread brekkie we spent a whole 10 minutes packing the van again. Destination: Wilsons Promotory.

But first I wanted to see the sandy point that Sandy Point is named after, so we drove in the wrong direction for about 5 minutes, to the end of the road. It was at Shallow Inlet, which is the location for the current world speed record for wind powered crafts. It's also good for surfing and kiting. On the way there we met an echidna, and on the return we met a friendly koala! Or at least he wasn't grumpy. He was walking around on the porch of an empty house, so we got to get very close. It's such a funny animal to watch, especially out of his tree. After a lot of trouble he gave up knocking on the windows and found his way back to his gumtree.

40 minutes later we were at Tidal River camp ground, the only car based camping in the Prom national park. The camp ground is absolutely massive, I guess it has to be, they get 400.000 visitors per year. Again I'm happy for it to be off-season. I would've liked to hike down to the lighthouse and the southmost point of mainland Australia, but we don't have the time for that. Maybe next time.

I understand why everybody suggested we go here too, it really is beautiful here! Even just the little walk around the campground is great. The Victorians are very good a creating and maintaining their national park experiences. We sat and watched the mountain scenery from the little boardwalk at the edge of the swamp in front of the river in silence long enough for last night's cheap red wine hangover to finally give way. The beach, the islands, and the surrounding hills aren't to bad either. For sunset we brought our chairs and table down to the riverbank and played backgammon, with some cheese and vine. The seagulls were very interested, but the wombat jogging past was the highlight. I have now seen all the funny Aussie animals in the wild.

We've had our first "indoors" day in a little while today, we got sucked right into it, and we enjoyed it. Lying on the sofa reading, boiling water for coffee in the electric kettle, having a shower, it's the little things.

I got pretty antsy in the afternoon though, so I went for a run, exploring the town of Sandy Point. It felt both strange and blissful being almost the only human being in the streets. Evidently it's very much a holiday town for Melbourners during the peak of summer, and not much else the rest of the year. Later investigation at the General Store told me that there are 150 full time residents living here, but grows to 5000 at peak holidays. I'm sure it's great for local business, but I'm very happy I'm here now. Most of the houses are still in their original beach shack state, though the first million dollar plus holiday house (not home) is here. The few people I did come across today where all very friendly. Apparently not all the visitors are as friendly. The owner (I suppose) of one of the shops here told me he that last summer he added a 10% surcharge to any rude customers. A simple "please" or "thank you" was enough to get in his good books. I love it.

The lack of people seemed to be made up for by an overflow of wildlife in town. There are rabbits and cows and more birds than in a zoo. Yeah, I keep bringing up the birds, but the Aussie birds (the winged type) are way more exotic than anything I've come across back home, and it's fun seeing parrots in all sorts of colours and hearing them tweeting like they're on audition for a David Attenborough documentary.

As usual when I go exploring/running I came slightly off track, so my run around town accidentally included a couple of farms. Which led me past a true cowgirl herding cows across the road. The best bit was her outfit, a short denim skirt and cowboy boots. It seemed so out of place and simultaneously right that it had me laughing until it gave me a stitch.

Wow, I cant believe I've got so much to tell from today, I really didn't do all that much today. Anyways - afterwards Shan and I went for a less strenuous walk to the shops, moseyed up and down some of the streets, and walked along the beach. That probably took us one or two hours. Aren't holidays great?

Tonight we'll have our first indoor sleep since we left Melbourne a week ago. But we didn't commit to it until we did some vacuuming and spider killing.

The title pretty much sums up the day. Today we've driven from the Gramps, to and through Melbourne during the rush hour, and down to Wilsons Promotory. It took us about 6 hours. And it's been pissing down with rain the entire way. Which I don't really mind so much, after all it's dry inside the car. But arriving now I realise I'm a little more tired than I though I would. It didn't rain when we woke up though, but it was unusually warm compared to the other nights/mornings we've had camping. Just to add a little extra driving to the day we checked out a climbing crag and did some sightseeing around Halls Gap before we left. The view point we went to was covered in fog and rain when we got there, with some unhappy looking tourists leaving as we arrived. Since we'd made the effort of driving up the mountain we thought we might as well walk out into the rain and look at the fog. And with that the sky broke up, just for us! I was very pleased with that. Having the iPad turned out very handy, especially now that it had recharged the battery. We GPS'ed our way through Melbourne's chaos, avoiding the toll roads, and did all the correct lefts and rights the rest of the way. Somehow we've also had network coverage on the iPad the entire trip, until the last 50 meters before arrival today.

And here we are, in Kate's family beach shack in Sandy Point, wondering what it will look like in daylight. At the moment I'm mostly worried about sharing it with a few hundred spiders. They're only Daddy Longlegs, but they're the biggest ones I've ever come across. I'm worried they'll steal our camper or something. We are sleeping in the van tonight anyway, since the bed there is already made, it's late and we are tired and lazy.
Sent from my iPad

Being in the mountains it was finally time for some activities. The tourist info people and brochures recommended some view points, but I had my eyes settled on a more proper mountain hike. We went for Mt.Rosa, the highest peak in this area, with a 12 km round trip. We packed warm clothes, extra food and water, a flashlight and other mountain hiking stuff. Although the weather was still nice, I've slowly gotten used to Victoria weather being more unreliable than Western Australia's eternal sunshine. We threw everything in the car, unsure were we'd want to camp tonight. This camper van is incredibly useful for indecisiveness.

At the start of the walk we met the first two other people we'd met in the last 3 days. They turned out to be the only ones for the rest of the hike. The Grampians are similar to the Stirling Ranges, but larger. There is lots of sandstone that looks great for rock climbing. The walk itself took us through different types of forests and landscapes. We zig-zagged along the ridge before we reached the top where we lunched and relaxed for an hour. Instead of returning the same way, which would be shorter, we continued for the longer loop track. Though further, it was easier to walk, and we didn't really loose much time doing it. We also got to see more variating nature, and it was a lot less used. I guess most hikers had gone for the direct return. (The mosquitos were also happy to find somebody to nibble at.) But we were no doubt very pleased when we made it back to the car again.

And we very much wanted a shower. We planned on using the melted ice water in the eski, because our drinking water was running very low after 3 days in the bush. Or we could drive down to the valley and check in at the caravan park for one night. It's the best hot shower I have had all week. I felt bad using so much water after days of saving, but it was worth it. And I finally got to recharge all my gadgets. To top it off we got take-away pizza from the local unfriendly British backpacker shop, which we just managed to eat without falling asleep face down in the pizza box.

Our camping spot is so good that we didn't even make it away from it today. We are on a ridge, with wildflowers, a little rock crop to climb, a gully, all in the healing fire and storm damaged forest we're in. And we have mountain views. And no neighbors. For a busy Sunday we had a full 5 cars driving past. Only one of them bothered slowing down. We thought we would go hiking today, but we ended up just reading Sookie Stackhouse novels, sunbathing, drinking more tea and wishing we had more batteries in our cameras so we could take more macro pictures. The only downturn today was that some ravens ate my chips while I was looking for a cockatoo nest. I'd seen a white cocky, and I kept hearing it squeak. It turned out to be a tree leaning on another tree. There had been a huge storm about 5 weeks ago, snapping a lot of trees, including some of the very big ones. I don't think camping here then would have been very fun. But never mind the ravens, there was more snacks to be eaten.

To round of our already pleasant day we watched the sunset which just didn't seem to end. When it did end we got the thinnest slice of moon come up, it was like looking at the Cheshire Cat. And again the millions of stars, the Milky Way, and spotting satellites.

With much help from my alarm we woke up at dawn in this beautiful spot. All the birds woke up with us as well, so we did some recording for Theda to listen to. We hit the road immediately to make our way down to the 12 Apostles in the morning and have our breakfast there. As we drove, the sun heated up the forests and fields, creating some amazing scenery with mist drifting over the landscape. We were the first to arrive the 12 Apostles carpark, and strolled down to the cliffs to take our photos and look at the views. The surf looked good too, but it'd be damn hard climbing back up the cliffs. Or as the sigh said "If you fall over the edge you may DIE" (emphasis not mine).

We had our breakfast in the parking lot, causing a few raised eyebrows from the then arriving tourists. In Port Campell, soo "PC", our last coast town before heading inland, we picked up some good coffee for the road. It was yet another picturesque town I wouldn't mind spending some time in. Or buying a house…

As we left the coast we immediately came into farmland. Not nearly as exciting as the Great Ocean Road had been had been. Our maps didn't provide us with nearly enough details to find the way, luckily Google Maps did. Even though it guided us through a mud/gravel road through some fields. We had to get out of the car and walk to check that the ground was solid enough for our 2-wheel drive. At the tourist info in Dunkeld we were lectured for a while by an old feisty lady who had seen snow for the first time in Norway in 1955, and didn't find the scenery on the buss-tour from Broome to Port Headland very interesting. Also she didn't manage to let us know what we wanted to know about the camping possibilities in the Grampians. The tourist info in Halls Gap wasn't much more help either. So I did my own map reading and followed my gut feeling, and led us properly up into the mountain for the first time on the trip. Higher and higher (by Perth standards), onto a gravel track, we came past a few individual bush camping spots. We arrived at one where Shan wisely said "We've done enough camping to know a good spot when we see one". And it truly is!

We are the only people around, it is wonderfully peaceful, we have views of the mountains surrounding us, birds (again) (honey-eaters, wrens, white cockatoos), and millions of stars. And Shannon had somehow managed to get hold of a bottle of champagne today without me noticing. Not a bad way to spend our 7 year anniversary. Blissed out on nature and bubbly alcohol we sat by the fire and laid plans for the future.

I'm sitting in the middle of the Otway rainforest at the end of a successful car touristing day. This morning we woke up in Wye River, much more comfortable than the previous night, thanks to our new mattress and doona. Fueled by good coffee and a pide we headed for the koalas in Kennet River. They were very easy to find, apparently there's 1800 of them in the area. We saw 5. And a million King Parrots who were extremely interested in our breakfast and coffee. After the initial feeling of being in an exotic version of Hitchcock's Birds I was happy to let them wonder all over me. We have the pictures to prove it, but they'll have to wait.

We went through Apollo Bay and Marengo, Jules' old stomping grounds (more photos) on the way to the Rainforest Walk, which we shared with 3 buss-loads of tourists. It was pretty damn good though, I reckon the 200 or so photos we got from the 800 meter walk should show some of that. It was a tree fern rain forest, with some huge karri-like oaks. Next up was the the treetop walk. We decided to do the naughty and take the shortcut up an unsealed road. I'm glad we did! We got to drive through even more rain forest, and came upon a forest of huge Redwood trees which had been planted there in the 1930s. It was made even even better by having the Aire River going through it, with Mountain Ash growing at the opposite side. That gave us the two tallest growing trees in the world next to each others. Shannon fell in love with the place, and I did my quarterly Tai-Chi session among the giants. We spent so long there, and were so happy with everything we'd seen that we decided to give the tree-top walk a miss. We went straight for the Beauchamp falls camping area, imagining it would be another highlight. It turned out a bachelor party had the same idea. Which is why we are now at The Triplet Falls picnic area, blogging, reading, drinking beer and eating chips. We even did a quick walk through the rain-forest, nature walk, waterfalls circuit here as well. And apparently there are platypus here! We didn't see any, but I'm pretty sure they saw us. Life is good.

Just a little greeting from Lorne, Victoria. Yesterday our adventure started with a bang and a trickle. The trickle being the inevitable issues getting the hell out of town, packing issues, getting our camper van, picking up stuff and leaving stuff with various friends in Melbourne. And having the fun if driving a new car in a new town in rush hour. We made it out on the open road just as a the first storm of the summer hit. I felt more like driving a boat than a car. It was fun. An hour into the dark we rolled up into a picnic spot in a national park near Aireys Inlet. We were all alone in a a dark forest, and fell asleep as soon as we had organised the sleeping arrangements. Despite being cold and uncomfortable sleep we managed to sleep for almost 12 hours. Peeking outside we found ourselves in a beautiful forest. We did a little nature walk were we saw lots of birds - Splendid Blueren, cookatoos, and heaps others I cant remember the name of.

Hitting the road in daylight was remarkably easier and nicer. We pulled over almost every couple of hundred meters because there was something worth looking at. On the left, to the south, we have a very flat ocean with some very well shaped sets rolling in on untouched beaches. To the right the cliffs and hills go straight up, covered in green vegetation and outer worldly holiday houses.

Right now we've made it to Lorne, a touristy but nice little town, having a coffee and borrowing some power to charge my gadgets. And here Shan just rocked up with an extra pillow, mattress and a hot water bottle. Yes!

I woke up at 11, apparently the construction outside wasn't loud
enough today. Just enough time to throw in a quick grunt session at
the hotel gym before going for japanese breakfast-slash-lunch with
Toona. Turns out an entire bunto box is rather filling. The place was
pretty good, and crazy busy. And cheap. Just the way M-town should be,
Toona knows her places.

Fahmi showed up as well, and took us to some exhibition he knew about.
The first thing i saw was a photo of the Indiana Teahouse/Cottesloe
beach, and the photographer was Norwegian. And the next picture was by
a Norwegian. And the next and the next. Turned out it was a
Scandinavian show, though with no Swedes or Danes. They had a couple
of finish stand ins. And i got to practice my Norwegian with the guy
organizing it.

We had a wander through town to Fitzroy/Brunswick street. It's very
Grünerløkka/Mt.Lawley. Or rather the other way around. And the weather
was Perthy, as in warm. Something the locals didn't seem to used to,
there was lots of winter coats and scarfs in combination with skirts
and shorts. (Later I found out I was mistaken, they weren't confused
by the sun, but prepared for it to end any minute. I've been to long
in Perth.)

Melbourne is more worth visiting as a tourist than Perth it seems.
Food and drinks are cheaper and better, it's a shoppers dream, with
quirky interesting things around every corner. But with shitty
depressing weather most of the time. You can tell because all the
bikes have mud flaps, even the single-speeders. But Perth has WA, and
I've yet to see what Victoria has on offer.

I wasn't as excited as Fahmi and Shan about all the clothes shops, and
convinced them it would be a good idea to sit down at a pub for some
refreshments. We found Black Cat in the sun. 3 hours later we had
exchanged Fahmi with Toona and Juan, and both my feet and my mood was
lighter. We moved on to Naked for Satan, a great tapas bar. You should
go there if you're in the neighbourhood. Then off to another bar
somewhere, which I thought was on the way to yet another bar, but it
wasn't. But I got to walk through another different Melbourne area. I
should probably find a map… I did make it to this last bar though, and
met the lovely soon to be wedded couple and a large part of the Perth
posse. Naturally this led to a slightly later night then I would have
preferred to have the day before a wedding. But it all worked out
well, so no worries!