My Mum, Dad, Brother and Uncle Nick are here! I drove to the airport topless, the sun beating down and the wind rushing through my hair. Hehe. We were slightly late getting to the airport but in time to see them all coming down the elevator with a slightly glazed look in their eyes form the 2 days of travelling. It was so good to see them that I couldn't stop from crying. I have missed them so much. We got back to the house and I didn't hear a peak from any of them for the rest of the afternoon; they didn't even wake up when the delivery van arrived to deliver the heaviest bags of cement I have ever hauled (not to say that I have hauled many). They finally woke up when we threatened to throw them in the pool! That evening we took a picnic dinner down to the school field and watched the girls end of year performance; it was a beautiful night and the girls were fantastic.

Tuesday was the first day of our little adventure down the Great Ocean Road. Uncle and the girls didn't finish work and school until Friday, so we had four days to ourselves to explore. In the morning we set out from Coromandel Valley in the Mitsubishi Challenger aptly named 'the tank'. The four days involved a lot of driving, unfortunately I was unable to help because 'the tank' has a 3.6 litre engine and the insurance for a 19 year old foreigner is a little hefty. The first stretch took us to Robe, a little seaside village along the limestone coast. We arrived in the late afternoon having stopped along the way at a little jetty in Cape Jaffa and at the Big Lobster. The Big Lobster is a famous landmark in South Australia as are 'big' things in general, all over Australia; there is a 'Big Banana' in Queensland along with a big Rocking Horse, Big Ned Kelly and plenty of others. Though, I somehow doubt many can claim to have broken their toe on the Big Lobster. Mum is an exception, or simply a klutz (a lovely one) and her foot swelled to twice its normal size!

The hostel we booked into in Robe was amazing! It was originally a Manor built alongside an enormous lake and was huge! There was even a library with enormous leather seats and a lounge with a widescreen LCD - not the kind of thing I imagined a hostel to be at all. On top of that, two of the people we were sharing the dorm with were from Swansea!I travel 10397 miles around the world and can't escape home! We went for a walk along the shore line and to a lovely restaurant and ate way too much! Mum and Dad were paying, so why not take advantage, because I am going to have to pay for it all on my own once they have gone - better enjoy the good stuff and lots of it whilst I can! I had a really good night's sleep in a comfy bunk and then one of the best showers I have ever had. Believe it or not but I have taken into consideration the drought that is plaguing Australia and have managed to reduce the amount of time I spend in the shower - honest, I really have! Hehe. We then headed off into the town and to the cliffs where a great big obelisk precariously overhangs the ocean before setting off again on the next leg of our journey.

Naracoorte caves lie about 90 minutes drive inland from Robe. They are a set of caves that have been formed in the limestone rock for which the Limestone coast is famous for. We took a tour down two of the caves that were home to impressive sets of stalactites and stalagmites. I suppose they held more interest for me because of the geology than they do for most people so I won't bore you with the details (I hear the sighs of relief already). We then drove the rest of the way to Port Fairy through terrain that was all too familiar by that point - dry, flat, and never-ending. We were booked into the hostel in Port Fairy for 2 nights. Again the hostel was fantastic, not quite as grand as the one in Robe but equally as good. We could come and go when we liked and everything we needed was there - all the cooking equip and facilities, we even had our own room. I think Dad fell in love with the fishing port. It was a beautiful place. That evening we went and found a fish and chip restaurant and Mum and I shared a seafood platter that included both battered calamari (squid) and scallops. Yummm. We then took a walk to Griffiths Island where we had our first up and close encounter with a wallaby that turned out to be not just one but half a dozen. Then as the sun set, an enormous flock of shearwater birds came in from a day fishing out to sea to roost on the island. It was an incredible sight because within ten minutes the sky had filled with thousands of birds. Finding our way back to the hostel in the dark was a little interesting. To be fair, coupled with Mum's navigational skills, where every 'left' is a 'right', there was no hope. So we took a path along the docks to find a fishing boat that had just come in. It was unloading its days catch on to a lorry that was destined for China. On closer inspection we found that its days catch consisted of over 500 crabs, each weighing approx 3Kg. They were enormous and so was the price they fetched, a whopping $120 each. We were then told that their normal catch was lot bigger with crabs getting up to 15Kg each - that's a $600 crab, equivalent to GBP 300!

We were up at the crack of dawn the next day and left early for our trek inland across to Torquay where we were to start our true trip along the scenic part of Great Ocean Road that runs from Torquay to Warrnambool. It took a fair few hours but we eventually arrived and began our way back to where we had just come from. The road from Torquay to Apollo Bay was beautiful; the road past by some gorgeous sandy beaches (one of which became our lunch destination) and along the sides of mountains that ran straight from the sky into the sea. The whole scene was almost prehistoric and then when we stopped to take a walk in one of Victoria's rainforests it looked as though I had stepped into a scene of Jurassic Park. The trip from Apollo Bay to Warrnambool was completely different. The coast line was far more rugged with the sea eroding away the cliff faces forming the features for which the Great Ocean Road is most famous; the 'Twelve Apostles' of which there are now only eight left, 'The Arch', 'London Bridge' and more. These natural limestone stacks are magnificent and rustically beautiful and it would have been a completely enjoyable experience if only the flies would just b***** off! Altogether the whole day was a complete success, it was long but the scenery was like nothing I have ever seen before, as was the scenery from the rim of the volcano we walked around the next morning. The crater of the volcano was home kangaroos, emus and lizards and invisible koalas that you could hear a mile off.

Over the whole trip we totalled rougrhly 2000 Km a lot of which was spent on the trip home from Port Fairy. We took a slight detour and travelled through the Grampians National Park. It was again a completely different scene; there were great big Rocky Mountains all around us, and tall gum trees lining the road. We stopped midway to go to an Aboriginal centre and then to view the vast expanse of the valleys from 'The Balcony' a viewpoint from one of the peaks. However fantastic the trip, we were all still very glad to get home, rest and prepare for our next trip.

Hope you are all well!

Kathryn xXx