Mum and i moved into a really nice little hostel in St Kilda and used it as a good base to get the tram into town and potter to our hearts' content. We love all the shops and coffee houses esp Acland Street in St Kilda. We enjoyed the gardens and visited the National Gallery. A couple of obligatory beach visits. And of course we snapped up a bargain here and there. Joseph took us out for dinner on Valentine's Day in Lygon Street, in the Italian quarter whi...

A short drive of one hour took us into Melbourne and we immediately parked - mainly because i was so scared of having to do one of the infamous "hook turns", Melbourne's reknowned accident-causing strange tram-avoiding right handers where you have to get into the left lane to turn right and give way to everything first - weird. We seemed to be right in the heart of everything and were a bit phased by the full-on-ness of this packed city. Not a new experience fo...

Onward down the Great Ocean Road, it was a lovely drive and really hot day. Photo stop at Johanna Beach and on to the Twelve Apostles, the famous cliff/towers of which there are only eight left cos they keep falling down, bloody things! We loved this area and enjoyed the drive through very Yorkshire like rolling hills and farmland, towards Melbourne. My back being the state it was in however, we made one more stop at Geelong, a strange city with little goi...

We left Phillip Island and continued along the south coast which is also the very bottom of Port Phillip (at the top of which is Melbourne). There's some cool seaside towns around here and it all seems quite genteel. Sorrento is very posh with its distinctive yellow sandstone Georgian buildings - and the strange nasal Melbourne accent seems rife here. We got the ferry across the spit to Queenscliff which was less posh and more Victorian - there were some st...

Torrential rain marred the next days drive and it was just long and scarey. However, the clouds parted as we arrived on the south coast and crossed the San Remo bridge onto Phillip Island. A rugged place, it's famous for its penguin colony but also has koalas, kangas and seals. The main town is Cowes, which has a great little island-life vibe. The one and only backpackers was full so we checked into Tropicana motel - wohoo! Great. The reason for our stay was to...