After a night in Melbourne, we all set off for a week of adventures along the Great Ocean Road and north into the Grampians. Vicky and Grant had booked a circular route for us to drive, with a combination of camping and appartments accommodation.

We headed out of the city and our first port of call was a koala spotting stop. We found some in trees really close to the path and I was able to get a fair few pictures of these cuties. Our first night's stop was Lorne, a pretty little town just past the gateway to the Great Ocean Road. We had a camping spot outside the town at a stunning site next to the beach. There was a river running alongside some cliffs, and with the place virtually empty, we got a prime spot. With much eagerness but not a lot of camping experience (bar poor Grant) we set about putting up our 3 tents. Thankfully there weren't many people about to witness it! (I have to say at this point we were much better the second time we did it ). We spent the rest of the day admiring our tent handywork and exploring the beach. Vicky and Grant made us the first of many amazing meals on an open fire and we sat round it playing cards and toasting marshmallows. That evening we discovered the campsite was a grazing ground for kangaroos which added an extra hazard when visiting the loo in the middle of the night!

The following day we explored the town of Lorne. Grant managed to get some fishing in at the beach, appearing in lots of photos as he was standing below one of the lookout points on the road where people stop their cars to take pictures. Unfortunately he didn't catch any fish worth keeping, but his bait leaking into the drinks coolbox added a fishy dimension to the trip!

We packed up early the next morning (again, this was much quicker the second time!) and drove on towards Apollo Bay where we stopped for lunch. We had some fantastic fish and chips and wandered around the town. We then continued along to the most famous stretch of the Great Ocean Road where the enormous rock formations such as the Twelve Apostles and Land Bridge can be seen. We stopped at these beautiful spots and I think I took about a million photos! I am going to try and limit myself when putting them up on here but I can't promise too much.. We spent the night at a wonderfully luxurious appartment in Port Campbell.

Driving on from Port Campbell the next day, we stopped at more of the fantastic rocks, including London Bridge, The Cove and Worm Bay. We stopped at a cheese farm for lunch, where we tasted a range of cheeses and ended up buying most of them! They were delicious though. We reached the end of our Great Ocean Road drive in Warrnambool where we had another night in an appartment. We visited the Flagstaff Hill fortifications, which is a maritime museum and full scale village. It had some fascinating, if tragic, accounts of the many shipwrecks along this coast. It also has artefacts and relics which washed up along the shores, including an amazing porcelain peacock, approximately 5 ft tall!

The following day we left the coast and headed north into the Grampians National Park. We had a beautiful drive through forests and hills, arriving at our campsite near Hall's Gap in the afternoon. We had another fantastic spot next to open grassland where a large herd of kangaroos were grazing. There was also an amazing number of cockatoos and kookaburras around, which were competing for who could be the noisiest and earliest squawkers. The cockatoos were very confident and quite keen to nose around our tents, particularly when food was being cooked!

We explored the area the following day, visiting an Aboriginal Cultural Centre and various lookout points. We also walked to McKenzie Falls, the largest falls in the area. The scenery was fantastic and we were really lucky with the weather, having glorious sunshine but without it being too hot. We finally packed up our tents on Sunday and headed back to Melbourne. Poor Vicky and Grant have to go back to work on Monday!

A really fantastic trip and a special thank you to Vicky and Grant for organising it and looking after us so brilliantly.