ADELAIDE

We arrive in Adelaide bright and early on a Sunday morning, having caught the overnight bus, marvelling at how good it feels to be back in a sensible climate. We figure we'll have a coffee at the bus station cafe whilst waiting for the backpacker receptions to open at 8am. A few hours later and we have found out that we have messed up royally in not pre-booking anywhere in Adelaide for our two day stay there. Under normal circumstances it would have been ok, because backpacker accommodation in oz is fairly easy to come by, however we manange to catch Adelaide in the middle of three festivals on a Bank holiday weekend! Turns out they don't call it 'The Festival City' for nothing! We can't find a room available anywhere and it's getting to panic stations, so Mark calls in at one final place (a pub) as a last resort and joy of joys they have a room!

So this is how we end up staying in the WORST place we have ever stayed - well probably not the worst but definitely on our global top ten sh*thole list. As we said it is above a pub, all good we thought, but no, as astonishingly the pub remains closed over the whole of the bank holiday period. It seems only to exist as some sort of halfway house for its other residents who are like something out of 'The Night of the Living Dead' - very grim. So we dump the rucksacs and head out fast to see the City. Horrid accommodation aside, Adelide is a really gorgeous and laid back city and in the short space of time we have we manage to take in a few sights, most notably the Art Gallery of Southern Australia, the Botanical gardens and probably Sarah's favourite The National Wine museum of Australia (no freebies to be had unfortunately, plus surprisingly quite unexpectedly dull). After exploring the sights we have to walk past literally hundreds and hundreds of people sat outside lovely cafes and bars enjoying their bank holiday weekend, as we set off in our usual search for a bottle shop and cheap food. We do eventually find both of these, just one street away from where we are staying, but after opting for a thai dinner we realise that 'pad thai' is never going to taste the same as when its eaten out of a carton on the Khao-san road.

The following day we pick up our hire car for the drive to Melbourne and on leaving the City we are surprised by the amount of green space surrounding the main town. This really is one nice-looking city and one which probably deserves a bit more hype than it gets. We don't really want to leave yet but we have to push on, as the time in Australia is fast running out now, plus we wanna get to the Great Ocean Road.