Crossing through the Victoria state border was a "blink and miss it" affair with the smallest sign possible, but either way we were on the road again towards another part of the trip we were looking forward too, The Great Ocean Road.

We had a 220km drive to a town called Peterborough(!) which is at the start of the Great Ocean Road, so we stayed here overnight as we knew we would run out of time that day to do the road.

So we were up nice and early the next day to crack on with the Great Ocean Road. There's lots of lookout bits to stop at along the way so you can view the cliffs, there was one called 'London Bridge'! And another where you could walk down to the beach in a cove, bit creepy as the sea was so rough! So we carried on to the '12 Apostles' which are the main cliffs to look at, but actually by the time we'd stopped off at around 8 other lookouts, the 12 Apostles didn't look that stunning as they are made out to be! Not being negative but they do seem to big everything up over here, and yeah that looked good but not that good! After this we had a massively twisty bit inland on the ocean road (go figure) before coming out the side one another twisty coastal road all the way to Geelong. On the way we went past Bells Beach which is famous from the Patrick Swayze & Keanu Reeves film, Point Break.

Geelong is city just south on Melbourne where a lot of expats tend to live and you can see why. Very nice city, clean and tidy with plenty to do so after a day we headed up towards Melbourne, taking a detour via the "Absolutely Gluten Free" store we found. Who would have a guessed there would a be a store where Em can eat everything there!!!

We arrived at Melbourne on Thursday night to sunny skies, but 15 mins later after a trip to Coles it was massive thunder and lightening!!

The campsite we were at, Ashley Gardens, was about 8km from the city but near all the public transport so each day we bought a day ticket ($6.80 or £3.50) and caught the bus and train into the city centre. Bit of a shock when we first got on the train as it was packed and were the only white couple!!! Not sure why this was as it wasn't like this once in the city, just on the train? Anyway, Melbourne was a REALLY nice city, massive compared to other places in Oz but wasn't busy at all for its size. Spotlessly clean again with lots of cool arty farty stuff around and loads of little arcades/allyways filled with cool different shops, which is where we found the greatest chocolate shop ever!!!!! OMG!!

We digress.... we went to the State Library which sounds dull but was actually really cool to wander round, the botanical gardens, chinatown, Shrine of Remembrance, saw Captain Cooks house, went to a casino in Southbank, did the Melbourne Museum and basically wandered around a lot enjoying the city. Other highlights was the Melbourne Aquarium where we saw lots of cute penguins and another Maori Wrasse like we saw on the reef. We also went to Queen Victoria Markets which is a huge open air market which runs each day. My god the fruit and meat was ridiculously cheap there so we brought loads and pigged out - healthily for once LOL :) Oh yeah, while we were walking down by the river one day we came across a little duckling who had obviously lost its mother, so he decided to latch on to us instead! Bless the little fella followed us around for ages, we nearly trod on him a few times as he was running around our feet, but we eventually managed to get away from him by climbing up a high wall. Hope he was alright when we left. We christened him Howard Jr :)

Again we found lots of places which cater for gluten free people like Em, which was good because we ended up going to a nice restaurant called La Camera for our 3yr Wedding Anniversary (a little early as we didn't know where we would be on the actual day).

One thing we have to say about Melbourne is the weather. Its know for having 4 seasons in a day and that is certainly true! It changes in a heartbeat here. It averaged about 18c during the day but was constantly going between rain/cloud/sun, while the evening could be 3c one night and then 29c then next! ARGH!!!!

Overall though, Melbourne was one of our favourite places we visited in Oz and is somewhere would could happily live if we had to come here for a visa. Would still prefer Queensland for the weather though :)

After a few days of being in Melbourne though, we hadn't driven the Bolt anywhere so we decided to travel to one of the malls to give him a run, only to find out our battery had died!!!! Nightmare!!! Luckily we managed to get around on the buses enough to a car place to buy a replacement battery which Andy fitted which thankfully solved the problem. Phew, hopefully thats our only mechanical problem.

On our way out of Melbourne on our last day we drove over to Albert Park where they hold the F1 GP each year. Its a public park normally and the roads in the park are closed for the GP, but you can drive on them normally any other time, so thats what we did. Took Bolt on a few laps of the circuit, parked him on the grid, ran the rumble strips, great fun!!

Thats it for Melbourne. We now head south towards Phillip Island for our next stop, but on the way we went to a street called Pin Oak Court, aka, RAMSEY STREET! Its located in one of the Melbourne suburbs and you usually have to go on a $50 per person tour to see it, but being the stingy people we're are turning into we thought stuff that and drove ourselves! LOL!