Hey hey hey, as it's been a week since we last posted anything we thought it was time for a blog update!

We finished our tour of the outback in Adelaide, and from there went to stay at some more family friends. We spent 4 days in Adelaide and had a really nice, chilled time which was well needed after our hectic tour! We spent a few days in the city in Adelaide wandering the shops and walking down the river front, and Phil even persuaded me to go on a guided tour of the oval, which was quite interesting, although the volunteer guide who showed us around told us EVERYTHING about every little bit of the stadium, and everything about cricket in general - he even said to us 'this is different to Lords in X way, as you British guys will know' - I didn't like to tell him I'd once had to ask what the difference between a four and a six was!Adelaide is famous for it's food and we were advised to go to the nfood market in town, which was absolutly brilliant. It was just like the St Josef Market in Barcelona and was full of stalls selling everything from nuts and fruit to little patisseries with gourmet cakes, and even chinese and Italien restaurants. My favourite stall had to be the yoghurt stall though - there was yoghurt available in every flavour, chocolate, fruit, nuts - but the flavour was all from adding fresh fruit or choc to the yoghurt, i was in my element! Phil wasn't quite as excited as me about the yoghurt though, and preferred the patisseries! We also spent a day in the Adelaide Hills going wine tasting which obviously we loved, and me being me got abit tipsy - the wine is so deceiving at wine tastings, you don't think you're having much as they only give you a drop each time, but after 15 tastings the volume certainly adds up. The friends who we stayed with had 2 young children so we spent an evening babysitting which was fun, and possibly the easiest babysitting I've ever done - grant went to bed as soon as he was told! Phil said I wasn't a cool babysitter though as I sent him to bed at the time he was supposed to go, and apparently everyone knows that babysitters let you stay up atleast half an hour later than you're supposed to! We were in Adelaide over halloween so we had a hallowen tea party for the kids with 'blood' sandwiches, scary pizza, witches fingers and green jelly - we carved a pumpkin too and were the only house on the street to have a glowing pumpkin outside the house - it wasn't till later that eve though that we realised Adelaide was on a fire ban and had to rush outside to blow out the candle! We had an extra guest at the hallowen tea - a koala decided to walk into the garden and come and stare at us through the patio doors - I couldn't believe the Koala was so close, it was soooo cute. Unfortunatly I didn't have my camera to hand, and Phil was having a nap at the time so I don't think he quite believed us that it was there!

We left Adelaide last Saturday and hired a car to drive the Great Ocean Road. We left Adelaide by driving through the Hills which was really nice, and then rejoined the coast stopping at a few coastal towns on our way to Mount Gambier. We found 2 gorgeous little seaside towns called Robe and Beachport which had some fantastic beaches and beach houses, and lots of cute shops like a handmade jewellry shop and some nice cafes and restaurants. We stopped off in Mount Gambier as we had been told it was a good place to stop and spent the night in a hostel which was an old jail - it was quite cool to stay in an old jail for one night, but the place did have an eerie feel to it, all the rooms were really echoie, and the doors still had the peep holes that the wardens used to use to check on the prisoners! Mount Gambier wasn't the most amazing place as we discovered the next morning when we went to see the sights - we saw the 'blue lake' (a lake which looks a really vivid blue colour) and a few sink holes before driving onto the Grampians. Our view of Mount Gambier was prehaps thwarted slightly by the fact thatit had started to rain that day and was really windy, so we didn't spend much time out of the car. We arrived in the Grampains in the early afternoon and it was still raining quite heavily. As I'd decided I'd come away for 5 months of sun i stupidly hadn't packed any waterproofs, and due to me falling over at the trainstation in Adelaide and cutting all my toes open I couldn't wear hiking boots, so a hike in the Grampians really was out of the question. Instead we did the few suggested tourist drives that there were to the famous spots like the balconies which was nice and there were some lovely views, but we felt like we'd cheated abit by driving.We spent the night in Halls Gap, a really nice town in the Grampians and managed to find a lovely backpacker place which had a log fire in the lounge area. There was a thunder storm that evening so we stayed in and drank tea and watched England get thrashed by the Aussies at rugby!\

The rain stayed for the next two days as we made our way down the great ocean road. It was absolutly freezing, and although we only had to drive to certain tourist spots and get out of the car and take pictures, it still took alot of will powder just to do that! We saw sights such as London Bridge, the grotto and the 12 apostles, all of which were really impressive. We both thought that the lesser known spots like the grotto were actually more impressive than the 12 apostles, but that may have been because the 12 apostles were the last sights we saw on the 'shipwreck' part of the coast (The Great Ocean Road is split into 2 parts, the shipwreck coast and the surf coast), so weren't quite as shocking. Although it was really cold and didn't seem like much fun at the time doing the first part of the Ocean Road, looking back the weather sort of added something to the trip as it meant the waves were really violent and the shoreline looked rugged and dangerous, which is what it is supposed to look like. We stayed in a place called Apollo Bay on our final night which we both really liked - it had a nice seaside vibe to it and had some lovely views. We stayed on the top of the highest hill in the bay in a retreat which was advertised as having 'time for relaxation and contemplation!' When we got thre we saw why - all the rooms had a view out over the bay, and the main house had a huge library stocked with books and films, a lounge area with an open fire and dining area, all for guests to use whenever they wanted. I was so impressed with the library - I could have stayed there for days, and just to make me like it even more the owner was German so half the books were German books!

The final day of our Great Ocean Roadtrip was spent along the 'surf' coast, where it is said the best views are. It was certainly true that the best views are there, and most of the journey was spent on windy roads which were built into the cliffs, hugging the coastline. Luckily, the weather cleared up a little on our last day so it was lovely to sit and watch the views through the window (in between navigating, obviously!) Phil sort of got the raw end of the deal at that point as he had to do all the drivng, so couldn't really appreciate the views as much as I could. We stopped quite alot along the way to take photos, and had coffee breaks in Lorne and Airleys Inlet, two costal towns. Airleys Inlet is the place where 'Round the Twist' was filmed, so we went to have a look at the lighthouse which was famous in the series. We also stopped there as our travel agents parents own an art gallery in Airleys Inlet, so we had a little chat with them before heading on.

The second part of the Great Ocean Road was definetly the most picturesque, and the part which was like I'd imagined the whole drive to be like - constant views of the ocean and lots of little beaches where you could just pull up. The first part was impressive and the sights were definetly well worth seeing, but each sight was signposted and there was a set walkway to get to it so was obviously full of tourists. I'd sort of expected that we'd just drive alng the road and stumble across the sights - in hindsight abit naieve of me! We both really enjoyed the trip though, and managed not to have too many arguments whilst I was navigating - I even managed to navigate us round Melbourne city centre when we got there - anyone who has had me navigating for them before will know that's quite an achievement!

Hope everyone is well, and looking forward to hearing from you all soon

Love cat and Phil xxxxxx