Right... It's been... well abit longer than a while, but i am to summerise, in my last $3 of internet credit... everything thats happened in the past,.. month? I have a list. So i left Mildura and my happy grape-picking home on the 19th March, and since then i took the night bus down to Melbourne, was there for one day, spent $137 to post home some clothes and the laptop James had lent me. Took some pictures of the city, then inadvertantly posted home the memory card...dur. Then saw Niv in the evening, who is the guy i met in thailand, and he took me to afew of Melbourne's secret pubs, theyre not in any guide books and only local people just about know where they are. He brought along a guy called Nick who he knows from football training or something. So that was a good night and then in the morning i packed up all my stuff and went to get my hire car. Upon arriving there i found out it was a brand new 4x4 with 12km on the clock and a nice big full fuel tank. So with my $1000 deposit handed over and a huge excess on the 'insurance' i bombed off to find the highway.. which was harder than expected. It took a good hour to get used to driving a large vehicle, and even then it was abit weird cos i havent driven in so long. I got used to it after a while though and was soon happy as larry on the great ocean road, looking out the window abit more than i should have probably! the concentration required for some of the stretches though was immense, ive never been so tired of driving, the bends, some of the down to 20km/hr, and this is bend after bend after bend... in a huge unfamiliar car with lots of people behind you! ARGH! so yeah, it was actually quite stressful to drive that part of my trip. I stopped for the night at one of the roadside stop places where some other motorhomey people were. Tried one stove and almost broke it (the van came with lots of brand new camping and kitchen equipment, forgot to mention that), and so luckily there were too stoves and i didnt have to bash the other one against the ground to get it to work :) so then i had some noodles for dinner. this was the start of my noodles and hot cross bun diet.. and it wasnt even that close to easter then! So day 2 i woke up to rainy drizzle and decided id seen enough of the sea for now, so headed north to the grampians mountains. It was pretty rainy and gross on the drive there, and i got a coffee to keep me going, andddd ermmmm yeah got up to halls gap, was still pretty misty up there, but cleared up just enough to get afew good views from the lookout points. then i made my way as far north-west as i could because the car had to be in adelaide by 3pm and i wasnt sure of the time difference and was paranoid i would lose my 1000dollar deposit! stopped in bridgewater for the somerset fans on the way, grabbed some wine for the relations i was staying with from the winery there, and headed on to mount lofty for a view over adelaide. all was going fine until i met a one way sign, had to do a 3 point turn (not my first, i took afew wrong turns), and was movin back to get out of the way of a car and bumped into a road sign behind me... luckily there was a nice squishy tyre on the back and no damage watsoever! PHEW! so yeah, headed into adelaide and found the car hire drop off, almost 2 hours early! and got my deposit back, my fuel money back, and generally was rather chuffed with myself. Then i spent 3days with my Aunt Yvonne and Uncle Joss who live in Adelaide. I had a really good time with them, they have a great house with an amazing view over the city, and i met up with my cousins too, which there are quite afew of them out here! and did a wine tour one day which was abit pants really, but something to do i guess, went to jacobs creek as i promised the rents i would so thats the important thing! and then had a BBQ on the wednesday night which was amazing food, but id stuffed myself at lunch on the wine trip so couldnt eat much which was a shame. then up at 4am the next day to get the plane to perth! wasnt much of a flight, no luxieries this time, no food or anything. budget planes are dull. So got to perth, and found the tourist info, and the YHA, where there was no room. so after a quick shop for a tent and sleeping bag and stove i found out about a bus down to the south-west and basically headed off. The next morning i began the Cape to Cape walk which is a 135km walk and usually takes about 6-7 days to complete. I wasnt sure that doing it alone was the best idea in the world, but it was going to save me money as teh campsites, most of them, were free, and all i would need was food. and it would take up a whole week of my time in WA, let me see alot of coastline, well abit, and put me out there in REAL Western Oz. So yeah, it took me, 7 days, and i didnt dislocate anything! My shoulder got abit of a problem at one point, and my knees were pretty weak at points, but other than that i just got afew bad blisters, which i now realised were probably caused by the immense amount of sand stuck in the goretex lining of my shoes! (i spent an hour getting this out today...) And i had afew incidents of the animal variety! i walked into a big spider web, with spider, at face height. and saw it that fraction of a second too late and instantly assumed i had that massive spider on my head somewhere... MINOR PANIC. but looked back and saw the big red thing was still in its web. i looked where i was going alot after that. I stood on top of a rock which had a large snake hidden under the edge of it, but it didnt move so i backed away.. and i saw quite afew lizards, birds, many many seagulls! ermmm the little villages did leave abit to be desired. i thought the map was illustrative of the place, not accurate when it had a toilet and a phone picture, and that was the big town! So yeah, the pictures tell most of the story of that trip, but it was great to finish, feels abit surreal still. So im back in perth now, after waiting for 5hours for the bus yesterday.. a long wait. Andddd i stayed in Fremantle last night which is 30mins outside perth on the coast, and that was alright i guess, looked round this morning at 7am, got a coffee on the famous 'cappucino strip'.. saw the sea. nothing very exciting, might go back to the markets on sunday, as tomorrow on the same train line is the V festival where the killers are headlining and i really dont want to go to near that cos it'll make me want to go, and probably be very busy. So yeahhh back in the main city now. got some more noodles and hot cross buns. Sorted out my rucksack, i think everything will fit in it again. and took a short walk around the main city, got the free bus around abit. did my washing, returned the compass which i never used! and yeah, just chilling out and for the alst 3 hours ive been updating my blog and researching stuff online about queensland and the whitsundays! some cool people in my dorm though so thats all good, might head out for a beer later as i think i need one after my trip. although i had breakfast out this morning and a sandwich yesterday so that might be all of my outside consumption budget gone for this month. RIght, argh the credit has just taken another hour off.... now i only have about 30mins left! I hope you are all sufficiently pleased with your updated blog, with pictures and all. Take care x