Home bound

We have left Melbourne with fine memories of the day and night markets, tram hopping, and spending Australia Day at Big Day Out with the lovely Irish we met (chilli peppers were fab). The tram ride home was one I wish to forget.. Having not eaten most of the day and with the addition of alcohol, exhaustion and the excessive body heat on the tram, Alex mumbled he needed to get some air. About two seconds later I had 80kgs of body weight on top of me, and had to drag him through a mass of about fifty people out onto the street. Soon after, he came to and we jumped on another tram to head home. I don't think I've been feeding him enough steak..
The next day we began our journey home and stopped for a final night along the Great Ocean Road at a place called Airey River. The following night was spent at Lake Beomibong. This was where Alex and I thought we were being Wolf Creeked. Picture this: standing by our campfire we lit and had been camped at for a few hours, with not another soul at the campground, kilometres from any main road let alone town, on the edge of a pine forest, just as the sun went down and day became night, I noticed a fire had started in an empty campsite. My first thought was that we had started a bushfire with our embers, so I yelled for Alex and we both ran over. Turns out the "bushfire" was a perfectly lit fire in a fireplace. It was around this time that our minds were going AWOL with "do you remember those backpackers that went missing?" thoughts. We found a few scorched fingers (sausages) and hands (steak) that helped us out with our stories. I was on the verge of asking Alex to pack up and leave, and I think he was waiting for me to. We stayed, survived, and left the next morning.
We moved into a new campsite called Battersby's Camp which is in the Lower Glenelg N.P on the border of VIC and SA. We loved this spot so much we could have stayed there for weeks. We were right on the Glenelg River and only a few kms from the beach. It was here that we met Aaron, a dude from SA who taught us about cockles. Not only did we love the word but we heard they were an easy catch so the next morning we gave it a go. We came home with 10L worth of cockles and decided we were bloody clever at cocklin'. We used it for dinner and as bait, which we used to catch more dinner! Bream and cockles on toast, yummo. The fishing didnt do us too well though as the rain brought the midgeys, and we now look like we have chicken pox. Who could've thought midgeys could bite? After packing up in the rain the next morning (I don't recommend it to anyone), we drove 500km towards Adelaide and reached Port Parham - a place known for its crabbing (it's a hoax). Alex made a DIY crab scoop which looked bloody impressive, although couldn't locate any crabs... Change of story tonight! Another 500km later and we are back in Cowell, one of my favourite stops along the way. Having dismantled the crab scoop into its original form (crab net and shovel) the net is catching us crab for a year! Tomorrow we are heading to Streaky Bay for a night. Fingers crossed the Troopy doesn't catch on fire here again...

Shenae xxx