WARNING: THIS WILL GET LONG. (And I will upload pics soon)

So around 13 days ago we left Sydney on our little road trip so see what there was to see, basically.

We jumped into our little campervan and away we went. Damn thing was an automatic, so for about the 1st 3 days I kept trying to grab a gear stick, automatics are so easy, they should just train monkies to drive them around as free taxi's or something.

Anyway, about 2 hours out of Sydney are the Blue Mountains, so called because the trees give out a particular sap that evaporates blue, and it is really really blue. We didn't know what to expect apart from that it was awesome. We decided to have some lunch, so there we were sat on a bench in the middle of nowhere, we both just looked at each other and could see we were thinking exactly the same thing "What the hell are we doing?" Anyway, off we trundled until we got to the Mountains. All I can say is Wow. We got out of the car at this little car park, a tad off the beaten track and all you could hear was nothing. You couldn't hear 1 man made sound, it was so so weird. The only noises were the wind, trees rustling and birds, not a car, or person in sight or sound. And the place is endless, its impossible to do it justice. As far as you can see are thousands and thousands of trees. Combine the silence, with the trees and the blueness, we were both speachless. A great start to our trip after initial trepidation.

We then drove onwards on our search for a place to stay for the night. We ended up in a place called Orange. It was a bit odd, not very touristy and the caravan site seemed to have more of a "long stay" feel. It was ok.

Next morning, we got in the car and drove and drove and drove. I have to mention that driving here is completely different to in England. For a start I'm in an automatic, secondly the roads tend to be about 300 miles long, with no other roads meeting them at all, and thirdly you see a car about once every 20 minutes.

Anyway, next destination was a rather quaint little place called Cobar, which I rather enjoyed. It was literally just a rather long street with a few shops on it. The caravan park was rather nice too, we had a chat with a family next to us on how to spot Kangaroos. It was rather early at this point so we had a stroll down the road into "town", had a beer and walked back. All in all, rather enjoyable.

Initially our next stop was going to be at a place called Wilcannia, but the owner of the caravan park told us we would most likely get murdered if we stopped there. Needless to say we rerouted. I put my foot down a bit and we travelled around 400 miles that day, to a place called Broken Hill. On the way to Broken Hill we passed through the renamed Wild Cannia, and it was scary. It was a ghost town, it looked like it should have been the centre of some old Western film. Yea.

So Broken Hill, it was ok. Not a massive amount to do or see, we had Pizza Hut. But on the way there we got very excited. We saw *drum roll* EMUS and a Tumbleweed, oh yes, a real tumbleweed, it tumbled right infront of us. It was AWESOME.

This is where it starts to get slightly more interesting, and not just hours upon hours of driving. Petrol cost us about 200 quid for the entire journey, pretty cheap considering we did about 2500 miles. It works out at about 60p a litre :D

So the next stop from Broken Hill was a place called Mildura, another bloody long drive, about 6 hours. On the way we passed through this little town called Wentworth. Normally we would have driven straight through but there was quite a gathering of people so we thought we'd park up and have a look. Seemed there was a country festival or something going on, all the men had cowboy hats on and there was a country band there playing, you guessed it, country music. We saw a pub offering free internet so we went in there. Victoria had a beer, I had a sprite and we went on the internet. Getting quite hungry at this point and they had a lunchtime special of a steak and chips for $9, which is about 5 quid. Oh my lord it was amazing, the steak was about 2 inches thick and as big as my giant hands, awesomeness.

Got to Mildura, it was boring. Stayed the night and moved on. Next stop Mount Gambier! And another really really really long drive. We're talking all day.

Got there around 6pm and found somewhere to stay. Mount Gambier is quite the hidden little gem. We were told we could see some Possums down at a place called The Sinkhole. So off we trundled, it was like someone had punched a giant hole in the ground and then planted a garden there, we also saw a Possum, way! It was raining so we didn't stay long, then we went to bed.

Next day! We decided as there was quite a bit to see we would stay there 2!!!! nights. There is this big lake there, called imaginatorily enough, Blue Lake. It's a big lake that formed on the top of an extinct volcano. It is very very blue, though apparantely it gets even bluer in about another month (spot the fake photo). We spent a while there, had a little tour and then went back to the Sinkhole during the day. A tad boring to be honest. We then went to some caves they have which run under the entire town. Had a tour of those too, which was quite interesting if a tad dull at times. By this time it was time to settle down for the night, and settle down we did. Oh and it chucked it down, so so much, we could hardly hear our little TV, we'd rented Up In The Air for a massive $1 (60p) and it was surprisingly good.

The next day was a bit of a meh in the end because Victorias camera had died. We saw around half the sights on the Great Ocean Road but decided to go back the next day once we'd charged it up a bit. We stayed in a glorified field.

Great Ocean Road day! It's a pretty amazing road really. How 1 coastline can have all these odd rock formations is quite strange, and even after all the formations have finished it's an awesome, if very bendy and quite scary, drive. We then ended up in a place called Torquey, which was probably the biggest place we'd past through, I think they had a population of 10000 or something. The man who owned the caravan site was a sandwich short of a picnic.

We were quite excited for the next day because we knew it would be Phillip (aka Penguin) Island. It's an Island off the South Coast that is very famous for it's little penguins that waddle ashore every night. So off we drove and got onto the island, and bought our tickets. It was around 4pm and then penguins come ashore at 7 but they want you there an hour before. About a 5 minute drive from the Penguin beach is a big rock where there are seals and birds and stuff so we decided to check that out. Lots of seagulls with chicks, but no seals or sealions or anything.

By now it was about 5 so we decided to be early and get a good seat. We waited around and at 5:30 they let us onto the beach, and good seats we indeed got, front row! It was rather cold, especially having to sit around for 90 minutes, but we got through it thanks to miming songs from my iPod, 3 cheers for Enya! At exactly 7pm the first penguins came out of the sea. They are tiny, they don't get any bigger than 30cm tall. They come out in groups so as to best avoid predators, so as the 1st group came out, they got mobbed by seagulls, poor penguins. Over the next 15-20 minutes, around 600 of these tiny penguins came out of the sea to go home. It was amazing, some groups would only have 3-4 penguins in them, but a few groups had around 100.

It was getting cold by this point so we walked along the boardwalk, which is placed above a lot of the penguins burrows, so as you walk back they are literally all around you. There were penguins everywhere, and they are so noisy. We were asked to check under our cars before we left too as they are known for standing underneath them. Luckily we were penguin free, and we left to go to sleep.

The next morning we woke up on Phillip Island, its such a beautiful place, infact its the only place so far either of us gave the coverted "we could live here" award too. Off to the Koala Sanctuary for us, where we saw like 15 koalas, including a baby, was very enjoyable.

We were quite dissapointed to leave, but we used the SatNav to work out a 4 hour drive, and it landed us in a place called Lakes Entrance. Well we turned the corner on the road into the place and our jaws dropped (you'll see why when I upload the pictures). It is hands down my favourite place I have ever been, ever. It's absolutely stunning. We had a little drive round and came across a nice little caravan park. We got out of the car, and Donna (1 of the owners) came running across to us asking if we wanted to see some Australian fur seals, naturally we said yes. So her husband came across and gave us a little map to follow. An hour of walking later and we find them. There was an adult and 3 baby seals all playing in the water just off this pontoon. It was amazing, the sun was just setting on a gorgeous beach and we had 4 seals to watch to ourselves. Heaven. (Wait till you see pictures :D)

On our walk back we were rather hungry so stopped at a fish and chip shop. Lakes Entrance is on the coast so they have freshly caught fish everywhere. We had Flake and Chips, again heaven. We walked back with our tea and sat and ate it in the caravan park and went to bed. We got up the next day, and had a chat to the owners for a while, who gave us their number and said to ring them if we want any recommendations on where to get work up the East Coast which was awesome.

Needless to say, I absolutely adored this place. To me its like Cairns before it got touristy. This was the 2nd place that got the "We could live here" award, and yea, the most amazing place I've ever been, ever.

Was gutted to leave Lakes Entrance but leave we must, and ended up in a very quiet place called Bermagui, we had pizza.

From there we drove to a place called Huskisson, which we'd read did Whale and Dolphin Tours. We got there at 2:50, and the last tour of the day was leaving at 3. Victoria jumped out of the car and I went to park up. Luckily they were running late and the boat didn't leave until 3:30. And off we went.

It was awesome. We'd just left the bay and loads of Common Dolphins appeared to ride the stream from the boat. You literally couldn't look somewhere and not see dolphins. They were in the distance, at the front and the back of the boat and right up against the side. They were with us for about 5 minutes until we changed course as the tour guy had seen a whale (Humpbacks) come up for air. About 10 minutes later we come across whales. He thought that there was 1 or 2, instead there was a pod of 5. We saw them come up for air 4 times, the 2nd time easily being the best. They were so close, and they were absolutely massive, and apparantely were putting on quite a show. They stayed at the surface for ages, they splashed their tales onto the surface of the water quite a few times, and in the space of the hour we even saw 2 breaches, which is where they jump straight out of the water completely. At one point we were also surrounded by whales as there was another pack a few hundred metres infront of us and some off to another side as well. Apparantely there were 12-15 of them around us, which was pretty awesome. We'd timed it just right as in September and October they migrate to the South Pole until Easter. It was an amazing way to finish the trip.

We found a caravan site, and we got put with a view of the sea which was such a nice thing to wake up to this morning. We drove back to Sydney earlier and had the joy of trying to get a taxi, which took about 30 minutes. I'm now typing this from a new hostel which seems pretty nice really, very roomy. We're about to go get our post from the old hostel and get some food for the supermarket for tea. I think we're going out with the crowd we met from the last hostel tonight which should be fun, really looking forward to seeing them again.

As a last note, here is a list of the Wildlife we saw on our trip:

• 10 billion birds (magpies and parrots mainly)
• 600 Fairy Penguins
• 100 dolphins
• 100 roadkills of various sorts
• 30 Emu
• 15 Koala
• 6 Humpback Whales
• 5 Skinks
• 3 Turtles
• 2 Echidna
• 2 Possums
• 1 KANGAROO! Yep, we drive 3000km, half of it in the Outback and we see 1 fricken Kangaroo, and that was on Phillip Island.

And finally finally a few misc comments I cba going back writing in:

• We saw a 4x4, and the spare wheel cover had "Adventure before Dementia" and 2 old people were in the car, made us Lol.
• I've found my weekness, Monte Carlo biscuits, they're like 2 hobnobs stuck together with a strawberries and cream filling.
• 80% of the trip we couldn't get a radio signal, and when we had 1 it was either a Christian radio station, country, politics or the same 5 songs repeated over and over.
• They have Mega Macs at McDonalds here, which is a Big Mac with twice the amount of "meat". Nom Nom.
• Whilst in Phillip Island, we heard a woman tell her dog off. Her exact words were "Stop it Stephen". Made us laugh our heads off, who calls a dog Stephen?!
• I can mime and dance to Ocarina Flow by Enya to a t.
• We passed through Sale.
• Victoria invented this dance to the NCIS theme tune where you just roll you're shoulder a lot.

That is all. Thanks for reading, sorry it's long but it is about 12 days worth. I shall email everyone in the next 24 hours or so, just spend about an hour typing this and I have stuff to do.

Hope everyone is good

L