Jul 2006

Short section on Adelaide as we only stayed a couple of days and didnt take any pics.

While England was enjoying 30 plus degree weather, we were freezing our bits off with 5 degree heat outside. Sods law i suppose. This is part of the reason we didnt stay too long and are trying to head further north asap.

Adelaide was quite cool though, same as any other city in Oz i suppose, clean streets, friendly people and enough coffee shops to shake a stick at.

Nightlife was especially good, to which Servane and myself soon found out.

Onto Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road.

They werent joking when they said that people dont appreciate the scale of Australia. We have been constantly driving, every waking hour for the past 4 days. Covering 3000km and only three quarters of the way across. We crossed the Nullabor plain, which actually means no trees. Not only are there no trees theres not a lot of anything at all. We pass through small isolated 'towns' that all look the same and sleep on the side of the road. The most exciting part of the trip was getting to the 165km straight road which goes to show how bored we actually were.

We finally arrive in Adelaide and check into a hostel straight away

About 15 miles south of Perth, Fremantle was one of the first places they brought the convicts when they first arrived in Australia. Loads of markets aswell it has a bit of character and still looks old and authentic.

The Round House, one of the first real prisons in Oz.

On the way we visited the Stromatolites. The oldest living organisms on and earth and can only be be found in two places around the globe.

Thousands of tiny shells make up the blocks they used to use to build houses

Apparently the foam is caused by them 'breathing'

We werent sure what to expect from Perth but it turned out to be a really good place and definately the best city weve come across in Oz.

After spending so long in the van we thought we'd treat ourselves by getting a room at a hostel, might not sound like much but to us it was pushing the boat out.

Didnt do too much in Perth, we went out on a couple of occasions as the nightlife was pretty good. We managed to do the Swan Valley also which is one of the main wine producing regions of Australia. We did the wine conaisseur thing for the day and went round a selection of the wineries, tasting many different wines and ports, one bottle we tried was $95. Also visiting a chocolate factory, not quite Willy Wonkas but ok nonetheless.

Apparently the largest musical instrument in the world called the Swan Bells.

More pics of dolphins we werent able to put on last time

There are no monkeys here. No-one has really been able to tell us why it is called Monkey Mia, something to do with a British explorer naming it after his ship or something.

But Monkey Mia is known for the dolphins, especially the 'dolphin interaction'. They come into the shallow waters everyday and get fed by the park rangers, during which time the rangers gives a talk about dolphins in general. Quite a good experience and Servane even managed to feed one of them.

Saw the giant pelicans on the beach, with a wingspan of apparently over 3 meters.

Spent our night at a place called Eagle Bluff just outside the resort. You are supposed to see sharks from the top and although we didnt see any, we did catch the sunrise in the morning.