Tuesday 31st March 2009 - started my 3 day Great Ocean Road tour with 'Australian Adventures'. Had an awesome driver/guide called Todd who was from Adelaide, and he kept us all in hysterics the whole time with his wit and humour, and there were 14 of us on the tour, and a fantastic group they were. We started of in Torquay, then stopped at Bells Beach where part of the film 'Point Break' was filmed, then stopped at a little town Lorne, then onto Kennett River where we saw wild koalas and lorikeet birds, then onto Apollo Bay for lunch, then to the Ottway rain forest and did a tree top walk, and at sunset we were at the 12 Apostles. These were spectacular at sunset, and the coastal views all the way along were breathtaking. We settled down for the night at Princetown, which had a population of about 2 people. It was very much like the tiny towns we stopped in in NZ, and a group of us went down the pub which also was the local takeaway and bottleshop, and the same guy worked in all sections. We joked how he would put on a different disguise to work in each section. I shared a room with 3 guys, which meant no sleep due to snoring and smelly feet. Lovely as they all were, they really were typical boys.

Wednesday 1st April - started nice and early and went back to get morning views of the 12 Apostles, then onto Loch Ard Gorge, then London Bridge, which is now called London Arch, as the bridge part collapsed in 1990 when an illicit couple had reached the other side. They were stranded and had to be rescued, but did not want publicity as it was a boss and his secretary on a weekend away for an affair - ha ha, its called Karma!!!! We then saw the bay of Martyrs before heading to the Grampian mountains where we took a hike up to the top, to the look out point The Pinnacles. I almost died, and I mean I almost died. I am so god damn unfit, and all us smokers were almost comatosed climbing up this thing, but the views were incredible. We stopped off at the tours private lodges in Halls Gap, where there were kangaroos in the back yard. The lodge was lovely, we chipped in making dinner, and we had some wine, and there were English, German, French, Danish and a Chillian in our group, and us English consisted of me, Lyndsey, Paul, Clive and Steph. We played Trivial Pursuit with the Danish girl Kristina and the Chillian Carlos, and German Stafan, and we all agreed that we have not laughed so much in ages, as we then turned to card games, and we were all in physical pain from laughing so hard, that we even got a noise complaint from a neighbour way, way over the way.

Thurday 2nd April - another early morning back to the Grampians to see Mackensie falls, and then there was another hike on the menu. Todd said it was quite challenging, so I declined along with 2 other girls. I told Todd that I find it hard to stand on flat ground, and the thought of killing myself over 2 hours really was not appealing, to which he showed us a shorter walk to some Aboriginal caves where the children did painting with their hands on the walls, and that was really cool. We then had a long drive to Adelaide stopping off to see some white kangaroos. We got to the border from Victoria to South Australia and Todd jokingly said we needed to get our passports. The english guy Paul who's a 6'5" scouser and totally adorable, got his passport out. I gently told him Todd was joking, to which the bus errupted in hysterics. Bless. When we got to Adelaide, we checked into our different hostels then met in the evening for several drinks later on, and Paul gave me a steaming hangover by insisting we drink jaegerbombs. Of course I couldn't say No. It was an awesome trip and the people were amazing.