I may be on the sunshine coast, but there has not been a lot of sun since i got here! Still it gives me time to catch up on my blog, before my bus to Rainbow Beach.

I am getting really behind now...

Thursday 10th March - The great Ocean road.

Got picked up from my hostel this morning and headed straight for a 2 day tour along the Great Ocean Road. The Road runs from Melbourne to Adelaide and was built by returning servicemen from ww1. We stopped at various points along the road to look at the stunning beaches and a lot of sea! We stopped in a fishing town for lunch but the fishermen were grumpy because they hadn't caught anything all day! (no lunch for them!) But they did say that one of them had caught a shark a few days ago...not sure how true that was...Anyway onwards to see some Koalas. One walked directly in front of us before escaping up a tree! There were some pretty cool birds who ate seeds out of our hands. I don't know what they were called but I liked them. Spent the night in like the oldest hostel in the world! Seriously had an oven from like the 1950s and a TV of a similar age. The weather turned bad today so we spent the evening wrapped in blankets watching crappy Aussie TV - we even had to get up to turn the dial on the tv - that's how old this thing was!

Friday 11th March - The Great Ocean Road - St Kilda

Up early for my first ever surf lesson! It was freezing and really difficult but I did manage to stand up for a few seconds! Saw various points along the great ocean road including the 12 Apostles - basically big chunks of rock in the sea that used to be part of the cliffs. There are actually only 8 and were orginially only ever 9 - they just called them 12 because of the biblical reference. Bloody clever marketing as it is now one of the most visited places in Austrailia! Saw a few more beaches and cliffs. Then the sun came out and it was time to make the long drive back to St Kilda.

As I was getting ready to go for my final night out in St Kilda, a girl in my room told me that in her previous hostel she had caught bed bugs and had spent a few days at her friends house washing all of her stuff. I didn't really think anything of it and went outside to drink cheap wine with the rest of the girls in my room. The second one of the other girls found out about this she went mental and told reception! This resulted in us having to evacuate the room immeadiately and having nowhere to sleep that night. I think the other girls moved hostels the next day and washed all their clothes. My bag hadn't even been opened and had only been in the room an hour with the girl who either did or did not have bed bugs. Thus being faced with nowhere to sleep and a bus to catch at 6 the next morning - I figured the only option was to drink a lot more goon and go and party all night. I picked up my stuff when I got in from the club and jumped on the bus and went to sleep.

Saturday 12 March - St Kilda to Lakes Entrance.

6am this morning saw the beginning of my 3 day trip to Sydney and I have to say I slept through the first few hours and felt very odd when I was woken up for a walk to see some 'real' wildlife. We walked through a gang of emus, saw some kangeroos and a red back spider! I really was in Austrailia! We stopped for a picnic on Squeaky Beach (so named because of the noise the sand makes when you walk on it). There wasn't much at lakes entrance, just really a place to stop and have fish and chips - Oh and find out afterwards the fish was indeed Shark!

Sunday 13th March - Lakes Entrance to Mt Thredbo

Another early start and a lot of driving before we reached the mountain. Weather still cold, it was actually so misty when we hiked the mountain that we couldn't even see more than a few feet in front of us. Discovered party pop today (fizzy cheap wine - usually aussies start drinking this at about the age of 15) Sat in the hot tub to recover from the mountain and went to bed.