We decided to head down to Melbourne but this time we booked onto a tour that took us via a mountain range called 'The grampians' and 'The great ocean road.' We thought the tour would give us a chance to see more than we would if we'd gone straight to melbourne and that we'd get to meet more people - which we certainly did!!

First day of the tour was a bit wet and cold, but we went into the grampians where we trekked through the forest and came to the 'mackenzie falls' a beautiful big waterfall! We were taken to various lookout points with awesome views across the mountain tops and saw a cool rock formation called 'the balconies.' At the end of one of the trails in a place called 'halls gap' there where loads of wild kangaroos hopping around which was so cool!! Brian (tour guide) took us to 'tower hill reserve' where we saw little fluffy sleepy balls in the trees - koalas!! They were all wild ones just sleeping curled up in the trees, about 10 altogether, and the last one we came across was on a low branch and we were so close we could almost touch it - this one was awake (although it looked pretty drowsy/high off eucalyptus) and it was the sweetest thing ever!

We then began our journey on 'the great ocean road,' which is what it sounds like really - a long road along the ocean. It passes some beautiful scenery and as the road winds around the edge of the ocean its just gorgeous beaches one side and monster cliff faces the other side!

We passed loads of cool rock formations and 'stacks' of rocks (I think they're called) Have a look when I put the pics up! The plan was to watch the sunset over the '12 apostles' which is the most famous part of the ocean road. I imagined a beautiful sunset like the cricket one , we got there and it was still light but it was freezing (ok probably not that cold compared to home) and really dark clouds. We were all so cold we huddled against the wall of a lookout point to shield from the wind. We waited for ages but the sun went down behind the clouds and we saw nothing! Just as we were about to leave it absolutely poured down with really heavy rain!! We had to run for about 10minutes to reach the bus - we were so cold and drenched! So that was a bit disappointing!

On our last day we saw a few more rock formations, a little cave where 2survivors of a ship wreck took shelter in the 1800's, and the remainder of steps that had been carved into a cliff face down to the sea. Later we did a 'rainforest walk' although it wasn't technically a rainforest. It was very beautiful and there was a huge fallen tree that was supposedly around 300 years old - older than most things in Oz!

We stopped off at 'Bell's beach' which is a famous surfer beach known to have 6ft waves! They weren't quite that big that day though. Last stop was torquay where there's loads of factory outlets for billabong, quicksilver and places like that, so we did a bit of shopping before arriving in melbourne! We met some cool people on the trip and plan to meet up with a few of them later this week so should be cool!

love you xxxxx