Hello to all of the people still checking the Team Safari blog. Thank you for your commitment and dedication to the cause. Yes I realize we've been neglecting our duties to update everyone on the fantabulous time we're having but we've been having too much fun to spend time toiling away on the computer. Ok well that's not the real reason (although we have been have a great time), actually we've just been a bit lazy…but you know that comes with the territory when you start to settle in to a 9 month holiday. All I can say is that we will attempt to do better. Now lets get on the stuff you came to read - what we've been doing for the past month!

Adelaide and Surrounds (March 1st - 7th)

Geez it's so far back I can hardly remember what we did…let me try to recall the main bits. We had a day in Adelaide to look around and enjoyed what we saw. However then we ventured back into more familiar wine country. We spent a day wine tasting in the Barossa Valley. We had a lovely afternoon and tasted some nice wine, including some very nice Sherry and Port from a vineyard called Seppelsfield, however we were slightly disappointed with the industrialization of the whole place. Being familiar with the small boutique wineries of WA and loving the family feel of most places left us feeling that the personal touches were missing in the Barossa valley.

The next day it was back to Adelaide to meet up with two friends of ours, Pete and Alison, who flew into Adelaide for the weekend. We had intended to only stay one extra day in Adelaide with them but we had such a great time we stayed for four days. With Pete and Alison safely on the ground, we went for dinner and then to a show at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. The show involved nudity and food throwing (from the performers) and several people got up and left. I was mentally scarred and stef and I worried that Pete and Alison might not talk to us again (because stef and I had chosen the show)…they did, and the next day we went wine tasting...again.

We decided to visit the lesser known wine region of South Australia, McLaren Vale (thanks for the tip Lisa). It was fantastic, back to the boutique wineries and family run businesses we enjoy. We had a great time and were back to firm friends with Pete and Alison by the first glass (check out the McLaren Vale photo album).

The following day myself and Alison did a bit of shopping in Adelaide (Glenelg specifically - great spot). I can't really give you anymore details than that as stef will read this blog later and ask me how money I spent - I have to keep a few secrets!

Right, almost finished this chapter of our trip. On the last day of our trip to Adelaide Stef, Alison, and I (Pete wasn't there, he must have been getting his nails done something) went to a little German village called Handorf. Loved it. Stef and I bought matching hats, we had bratwurst, hot donuts, and some german beer. We were sorry that Pete missed out but it was obviously more important that he get his nails done…oh wait no, he was sailing in a race that day, I don't know how I got that wrong…he he.

Right, then it was tears and hugs (mostly from Pete and Stef, Alison and I just shook hands) and we said goodbye. Stef and I were off again.

Travelling to Melbourne (March 8th - 13th)

This is taking quite a while so I might just give you a very brief overview of what happened between Adelaide and Melbourne where we got the ferry to Tasmania. We hit some bad weather and had to stop in a little town until the torrential rain stopped. It wasn't too bad though because we took a nap. There is something extremely satisfying about napping by the side of a busy street while people go rushing about their business. We got going again later that day and made it to a little town called Robe where we stayed at a campsite in the Little Dip Conservation Area. Best thing, aside from being only $5, was that we saw a wombat just strutting his stuff down the dirt road next to the campsite. Next day we were on the move again and made it to a place called Glenelg National Park in Victoria. Glenelg National Park has been one of the highlights of the trip, we stayed two nights and loved every minute of it. We saw (hold on to your hats): blue wrens, yellow bellied robins, red beaked finches (I kinda made that name up), orange bellied parrots, two echidnas (who by the way are much faster than look - I failed to get one good photo despite running full pelt after them when we spotted them from the car), and many, many brush-tailed possums (which I feed out my hand - yes I realize that you're not supposed to encourage that behaviour but they reminded me of the cats). Something we heard but didn't actually see were koala's. Just guess what they sound like. I might of thought they made some sort of cute growling noise like a mini bear or something, but no, they sound like demonic pigs possessed by pure evil. Thank goodness we had made friends with some other campers the day we arrived who told what they would sound like, because that night the koalas went off. If we hadn't known what the noise was we might have had to clean the bed sheets.

After Glenelg National Park it was on to the Great Ocean Road on Victoria's south coast. We definitely saw some spectacular scenery, including the Twelve Apostles (although we refuse to believe there are twelve), but what I will remember most is nearly running out of diesel.Let me tell you something about the great ocean road, it is all steep hills and tiny winding roads, not the sort of place you want to run out of diesel. But we weren't too concerned, based on my careful tracking of our fuel economy we were very confident that we could get to the next petrol station (50km away) on the remaining diesel we had.The yellow fuel light had just come on so we knew we had 14 litres of fuel left (based on my generally faultless recollection of what I had read in the Land Rover's owner manual). On the worst fuel economy we had experienced during the trip, 20L/100km, we were confident that we could go another 70km. So we carried on. At about halfway to the petrol station, I decided to check the manual again just to make sure that the yellow light meant 14L of fuel. It did…for petrol models...we have a diesel. The yellow light means 9L for diesel models. We freaked out. 9L meant we could only go 45km, not 70km. We were gonna run out of fuel, on some massive hill, on Australia's most famous road. We were going to look like idiots. But aha, Stef had a stroke of genius, he pulled in at the safest place he could find and unhitched the caravan. The car is literally twice as efficient on fuel without the caravan in tow. I stayed to guard the hut while Stef went to get our fuel. Result, Team Safari comes through again.

That night we stayed in a beautiful little town, right on the coast, called Apollo Bay. Amazing views and amazing food as it happens. We've posted a few photos of Apollo Bay on the blog. The next day was to be our last day on the mainland before catching the ferry to Tasmania. We basically drove through the day, stopping at few picturesque spots, and then headed into Melbourne where we'd stay the night. We had to be at the ferry by 8.15am the next morning. We had been given a list of nearby caravan parks by the ferry company and since the first one on the list was full we chose the second one.As we pulled in to the park we both realized that we had not chosen wisely but it was nearly 7pm by then and there was no going back now. In a nut shell, the park did not appear to cater to travellers, only long term residents, and as we drove in we were advised by one of the local bikey gang members not to take a site "down the back" of the park because "that's the Bronx down there". We thanked her for her advice to which she replied, "Welcome to the *hithole!". at ease now, we pulled around to one of the sites close to the main road. We slept soundly that night except for Completely occasionally being woken up by the sound of nervous dogs barking and someone vomiting outside our caravan at 2am. Well rested and eager to get to the ferry, we were up at 6am the next morning. However we were a little too eager as we tried to depart and accidently pruned one our neighbours trees with our caravan as we tried to negotiate the extremely tight exit. As it was only 6.30am, we were slightly loader than we would have hoped, what with all the branches snapping and scrapping off the side of our caravan, and sure enough the resident of that particular site was out like a bolt of lighting to thank us for helping with the gardening. I would tell you what she said but most of it seemed to be in French. Anyway we eventually made it out alive and now affectionately refer to that caravan park as Beirut.

Team Safari Signing Out