After over 1000kms on the road we've finally made it to Melbourne - only about another 7000kms to go until we get to Broome, our final destination on the West Coast!

We left Bermagui last Wednesday morning (10th Feb) and headed to "Blue Pools" - a swimming pool built into some rocks fed by sea water. It was pretty cool to be swimming around in calm (although cold!) sea water whilst a few metres away sea waves were crashing against the rocks. Whilst there, the sea mist came in thick and fast - so much so that a local pulled up in his car to take a look because he thought that there was a bushfire! Afterwards we continued along the coastal road, stopping briefly at Tathra, before making our way inland to Bega. Bega is famous for its cheese, so of course our first stop was the factory for some tasting! Later we headed towards Merimbula, stopping at a rest area called Yellow Pinch Dam for the night. Our second "free-camping" experience and this time surrounded by a load of hippie Aussies!

On Thursday we headed into Merimbula, a busy seaside town. As the weather was great, we went straight to Tura Beach, which was a lovely beach, with crystal clear water and it was totally deserted - result! After lunch we decided to check in to a campsite in Merimbula so we could make use of their swimming pool. Typically, as we headed to the poolside, it clouded over!

On Friday we continued south stopping briefly at Pambula to check out some pretty relaxed looking Kangaroos (they were in a reserve rather than wild... the only wild Kangaroo we've seen so far was lying in the middle of the freeway with both legs in the air!). We then stopped at the pretty little town of Eden. The rain had continued to follow us so we viewed the nice beach from the safety of the camper van then looked round the killer whale museum. This was actually very interesting and tells some great stories, including the whaler who got eaten by a sperm whale and was extracted (still alive) from the stomach of the whale about 30 hours later! We hit the road again and crossed our first state border into Victoria! We then headed off the main road to look at the town of Mallacoota. This was a tiny fishing village, which had a huge campsite spread right across it. It was spread out so much that we weren't sure where the office was and whether in fact people were free-camping. We found a couple of guys that were staying there to ask and it turned out that that one of them was an English backpacker working at the campsite for a couple of months to get some money together. He told us that the campsite is so big that the office never keep tabs on who's staying there so suggested that we pull up in a spot and not bother about paying. He assured us that half the people on the site were probably doing this, so we thought we'd try our luck too... and we got away with it!

We left early on Saturday and headed west stopping briefly at Orbost's visitor information centre and Lake Tyers (the start of Ninety Mile Beach) before reaching Lakes Entrance. Here we scoped out buying surfboards and began negotiating a deal on a Malibu board (a long board good for us beginners!).

After thinking about it overnight, we went back on Sunday and hit the owner with our deal breaker - the surf board, a leash, a pair of board shorts for Chelle and also a bodyboard, all for $270 (the surf board was priced at $285 alone). The owner gave us some stick for being cheeky poms, but relented in the end. We walked out of the shop with all the gear for our new hobby feeling pretty good! Unfortunately the weather wasn't great and as a result the sea was pretty ferocious... not the best conditions for our first attempt at surfing out here, so we left the boards in their cellophane wrappers for the time-being! That evening, we celebrated the fact it was Valentines Day by going along on a boat cruise to the Wyanga Park Winery. We had a 45 minute boat trip to the winery, on which we got to sample a couple of the wines, then on arrival at the winery we had more wine tastings before sitting down for a 3 course dinner. The food (and the wine of course!) was amazing and we met a great couple from Melbourne, Alex and John, who gave us loads of info about what to do whilst in the city (thanks guys!)

On Monday we woke up to awful weather - torrential rain again! We had to try and get away from it so we embarked on the long drive from Lakes Entrance to Wilsons Prom, a national park which forms the southern most tip of mainland Oz. After checking out Squeaky Beach (so named for the fine sand that squeaks under foot!) we parked up for the night at Tidal River - a campsite by Norman's Bay beach. We got bogged down in the sand in the first camp spot we found as we were turning the van around. I sent Chelle off to do her best damsel in distress impression and she exceeded all expectations, returning with two burly Australians, an Englishman and a German! After some manly pushing we manged to free Brucie, and we hotfooted it to another less sandy spot before any of the camp staff saw us near the huge holes we'd created!

On Tuesday we finally woke to decent weather and headed back to Squeaky Beach, where the surf board and body board were initiated into the South Pacific! The swell was pretty rubbish (only about a foot at best!) so it was difficult to get on a wave, but it gave us some practice! After lunch we got back on the road for another big drive to Phillip Island. In the evening we did the very commercial Penguin Parade - where you get to watch (alongside about a million Chinese and Japanese tourists) hundreds of the worlds smallest penguin, the Little Penguin, arrive on the beach and make their way to their homes and their chicks. It was great to watch them make their way across the beach in huge groups - sometimes running back to the sea because something spooked them! It was also made more spectacular by the interruption of a Wallaby bounding across the beach! Unfortunately there was a total ban on photography during the evening so we don't have any photos of this - boo!

On Wednesday morning we went to the Koala Conservation Centre on Phillip Island. Although we'd seen Koala's in Sydney, this centre was great because all the Koala's are wild and you get to walk about them within their natural environment on board walks. They were all so cute and we also got to see a Wallaby, several Kookaburras (birds with cool hairstyles) and a big lizard (which we initially mistook for a copperhead snake - one of Australia's most venomous snakes with no anti-venom available)! In the afternoon we went surfing again on Woolamai beach - this time we had waves of at least three foot to deal with - slightly more exhausting! In the evening we drove to Melbourne and arrived at Alex and Aliesje's house - our home for the next few days...