Road Trip Time,

We picked up the car that was to take us from Melbourne to Sydney, a Toyota Yaris….an Orange Toyota Yaris…It weren't that bad after a while, but it wouldn't be a colour I would have picked.We wanted to go to Phillip Island and also see the Great Ocean Road before making our way to Sydney, however as the penguin parade takes place at dusk, we had to go a slightly odd way round, starting in Phillip Island and working our way the wrong way down the great ocean road. Trust me, it made sense at the time.

We drove down the coast alongside the Port Phillip Coast and arrived at Phillip Island. Phillip Island is a national park and is famous for a large colony of Little Penguins (the world's smallest penguin). Every evening at sunset, the penguins come ashore, waddle comically across the beach and run up the coast to their burrows.As we arrived nice and early at around 4 O Clock, we also got a chance to see some of the other sights on Phillips Island. The first of these was the Koala sanctuary, which had a number of raised walks to allow you to move amongst the trees and checking out the local koalas.I really like Koalas, perhaps it's because I can empathise with an animal that lounges around all day and only wakes to eat JWe got some great photos, as this park really lets you get close to the koalas.We then went to the north of the Island, for their latest display called The Nobbies, which allows you to view a seal colony; well sort of. The Seals are actually further out off the island, but they have built a really clever visitor centre which allows you to see them. There are interactive cameras on the seal colony which you control remotely from the mainland. There is also a nice Cliffside walk to have a look around although the weather was a bit blowy at this point so Emma wisely stayed indoors.

We headed toward the penguin parade, the definite highlight of Phillip Island. Like a lot of the cooler things we have seen on this trip, you aren't allowed to take photographs of the penguins. Although in this case, there is a solid reason as otherwise they would be scared. We grabbed a quick cup of coffee and headed down to the beach.All along the beach, there is a concrete seating area, which we were near the front of. You are given a quick talk by the park rangers about the penguins and there habits and then it's a waiting game. As you peer into the darkness, listening to the waves crash it's a really strange experience. Suddenly you will here someone say that they saw something and after straining your eyes, you can see a small shape emerging from the water. Unfortunately, Little Penguins aren't exactly the most courageous animal in the world, and the beach leaves them very exposed. So there are some very funny trial runs, as 1 or 2 penguins start to make a dash for the shore before bottling out and running back to the safety of the beach. This process is repeated all along the beach until you get little clusters of penguins that all make a run for the shore and make it. It was a great experience and really enjoyable (apart from the rain which started to come down about ½ hour in) At some points the penguins ran right alongside the seating area, waddling along like some sort of tuxedo-ed Charlie Chaplin.As you then walk back to the lobby, you can see the penguins going into their burrows squawking amongst themselves as if talking about their days fishing.

We left Phillip Island and headed for our overnight stop in a little town called Sorrento which was about an hours drive away. We hadn't really planned on where to stay, but knew there was a YHA in the town…unfortunately it was nearly impossible to find. We drove around for ages before we found it…it was easily the most random place we have stayed in Australia. When we got there, we were able to get a double room quite cheap which was really nice, but the common room was very odd. There was 2 or 3 polish/bulgarian builders scattered around, who appeared to be sleeping on the couches.We found out that they had been employed to re-decorate the hostel so must have been simply crashing out.Despite this being a bit odd, we actually had a great nights sleep - too good as we overslept till noon and had to be called by the owner of the hostel making a hasty exit and rushing for the ferry.

Having left Sorrento, we caught the ferry which ran across Port Phillip Bay from Sorrento to Queenscliff. From there is was a short drive along the coast to the Great Ocean Road. This was built after the first world war by returning veterans as a war memorial (another one) and runs for 270km along the coast of Victoria. It's a stunning drive,and one which I really enjoyed, there was a slight bit of pressure on us time wise and I can really understand why lots of people spread this journey out over a couple of days.There are a lot of really nice seaside towns dotted along the coast and if there was good weather, you could have your pick of places to stay, swim and just chill. At this early part of the road, its mainly the road and the towns that are the sights, however there is also the lighthouse from "Round the Twist"which was fun to stop by and grab a pic.The main highlights on the Great Ocean Road, are large limestone rock formations, the most famous being the 12 Apostles. These are all located around the town of Port Campbell and we rolled into town just as the sun was going down. We managed to grab a couple of quick pics at Loch Ard Gorge with the sunset.We then headed into town and stayed at a nice little motel called Port O'Call. (Look it up if anyone is going there)

An early start meant we were able to wander around and check out the remaining highlights, including the 12 Apostles.These rock formations have been formed over thousands of years by the erosion of the limestone cliffs.There are now only 8 apostles still standing, the most recent one collapsing during the 70's.The other main sights are London Arch which was originally called London Bridge, but the bridge bit collapsed a few years ago.Having seen the sights, it was time to hit the road once more…and the longest part of our journey on to Canberra.This was a huge journey of approx 800km which I had slightly underestimated when planning it. The journey itself was fairly uneventful….one thing you can say about Australia is that its big….really big!The journey to Canberra took ages….despite me pegging along at a good rate for the majority of it. One downside to travelling here is that the speeds are in Km/Hr which doesn't mean a lot to me or Emma, so Emma was a little worried at me bombing along at 140km/hr for most of the ride - admittedly, the limit was 100 but in my defence, the road was clear and dry so I was not worried - besides, that's only 80 MPH.We rolled into Canberra at 9pm and crashed out for the night.

Canberra as every schoolchild knows, is the capital city of Australia, built between Melbourne and Sydney because the couldn't decide which should be the capital. It is a custom built city with frankly very few attractions to the casual tourist. 2 things which did merit visiting were the Parliament Building and the National War Memorial.The parliament building was quite impressive, with a lot of exhibits detailing the history of Australia's government. One advantage to being a fairly young nation is that there is a lot of well recorded history which allows in depth information to be kept and maintained. The 2nd attraction was more for my benefit than Emma's as her patience with war memorials was wearing fairly thin now. This one, however is the big daddy of memorials in Australia. Built in a direct line with the parliament building, it is a large park with a huge building housing lots of exhibits about wars that Australians fought in.It also houses a collection of Victoria Cross medals won by Australians. There is a large chapel, eternal flame and wall of honour in the building as well. I really liked it there, but we didn't have a huge amount of time before hitting the road again and it was time to move on to the end of our road trip and move on to Sydney.We got there just in time to meet Sinead for work and by this point our little road trip had taken 1'800 Km.We had planned 10 days in Sydney which meant we could relax a little more and settle in one place for a while which was just what we needed after that journey.