Hello from the lazy backpackers that haven't written in ages!

We are back on the road again finally, having left Sydney on 6th March so you can all look forward to regular updates from now on...hopefully. We both really enjoyed living in Sydney. It's a cool place with loads to see and do. In our last few weeks we tried to do as many of the touristy things as possible there such as visiting the Taronga Zoo to see all the animals and especially the seal show, the amazing aquarium where we came face to face with a tank full of huge sharks, the Sky Tower where we could see the whole city from a really tall skyscraper and of course the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour! Unfortunately we didn't get to a show in the Opera House and had to be content with having some lovely picnics in the parks close by it!

On the 6th March we flew to Adelaide, which is situated right at the bottom of Australia. It's a small enough city so it was a complete change to the pace of life in Sydney, but that was a really refreshing change! We luckily landed in the midst of the Adelaide fringe and comedy festival so there was a great buzz about the city. To make up for missing the Edinburgh festival we went to a comedy show called the best of the Edinburgh fest. We stayed outside the city by the beach in a lovely area called Glenelg and luckily the sun shone every day. Adelaide doesn't have the best reputation among backpackers and is definitely the road less travelled but we were surprisingly impressed by the city and would definitely recommend it!

Our three day stay in Adelaide came to an end when we collected our new home.....a 'wicked' campervan appropriately called School's Out (total coincidence)! We looked like right hippies going around with weird graffiti on the van! People were beeping and waving at us as they passed by and a bunch a Japanese tourists even started to take pictures of us at one stage! You'll understand when you look at the pics! With a little bit of apprehension and bags of excitement we hit the road and started the long journey to Melbourne. On the map it looked like a reasonably short distance but maps in Australia are a little bit like optical illusions....you can't always believe what you see and the journey is always way longer than you expect!! Having said that we tried not to rush and we really made the most of the five days. We saw some beautiful places along the way particularly the spectacular Grampian Mountains where we parked up beside a fab waterfall for a night. The other highlight of the trip was the stretch of road known as the Great Ocean Road. This is the tourist drive along part of the South Coast leading into Melbourne. After four days of wall to wall sun we woke up on the Ocean Road to rain. Heading off in the camper was like going into a foggy unknown and we thought the 'beautiful coastline' had disappeared. Luckily, it cleared enough for us to see all the cool sights! We were like Formula 1 drivers at the end as we rushed through Melbourne to drop the van back in time while at the same time trying to see through the a massive amount of rain as the city experienced the largest amount of rainfall of the whole year!

To be continued....