With the gold mining town left behind the feeling was that this was the start of our trip home. Having covered over 16,000kms so far the final 17 days were going to be a bit of a rush as we had spent so much time in Queensland. The weather wasn't really co-operating in temperature but it was still sunny so the plan was to head directly south then east and follow the Great Ocean Road from Anglesea in Victoria and up into South Australia. The views were spectacular which seems to be the common theme with most of the countryside we have seen. Stopping in at some of the little towns on the way through was lovely. Passing Bells Beach, the famous surf beach where Rip Curl and Quicksilver, the iconic surf brands were started, we watched the kite surfers and surfers tackle the waves breaking off the point before heading off to join the windy road along the coast. Some of the holiday homes around here were amazing. Glass boxes poking out of the cliffs and huge mansions with amazing views were nestled, very discretely, amongst the gums and bushes and overlooking the pristine clear blue waters and breaking waves. We landed at Lorne, a lovely coved beach that was out of the wind and watched the surfers for an hour or so then headed inland to a secluded campsite that was beautiful. We had koalas in the trees all around us and the parakeets were so tame they come down and would sit on your arm just staring at you. The noise at night was brilliant with growls from the male koalas and screeches from possums and fruit bats it seemed louder than the M1 on a bank holiday weekend. The following day was spent walking a track along a disused timber line where we saw some lovely waterfalls and spotted more Koalas just lazy around in the trees. When we returned to camp we had a slidy door camper next to us which was the home to two female backpackers touring Australia. We tried to strike up a conversation but they were so stuck up and rude that we decided not to bother and when they spilt their cheap tomato soup all over themselves when their cheap fold out table collapsed we made a point of staring but not offering help or food. We listened to them complain about the cold and the fact they were hungry before we went to bed and loudly talked about "Karma" through our tent walls before drifting off to sleep.

We left Lorne behind and made our way towards Naracoorte, our stopover before we caught up with an old childhood friend of mine who was the winemaker at Bleasdale winery in the Langhorne Creek region of South Australia. As we headed out of Portland along the Remainder of the Great Ocean Road we called in to see the Twelve Apostles. This was another magnet for our far eastern tourist friends and their selfie sticks and it was with some sighing that we got out of the car to look at this iconic Australian Vista surrounded by so many annoying people. We took some snaps then decided to have a competition to see who could photo bomb the most tourist photos with Bailey being the winner on 5, Harry on 3 and Fiona and I on 2 a piece. It made the experience that more memorable for us and I'm sure those who'll go through their snaps when they get back and see our happy family smiling through one or two of the 8.5 million photos that they took of the rocks.

The night was wearing on so we had a quick one night stop over before heading to Mt Gambia, the famous blue lake and onto Robe which was a pretty seaside town where we went for a swim and wandered through the art galleys and scoffed icecream in the heat. The campsite here was crap and had billions of ants so we bailed and headed towards Naracoorte. Whilst in Mt Gambia Fiona starting reading about the fires here called Black Saturday, which we didn't really know much about. By the time she had finished reading the wiki entry she had completely freaked herself and us out and we all became convinced that if we camped that evening in the bush we would die a horrible death by fire as it was windy and nearing the hottest temperature we'd ever experienced. The agreed plan was to stop at the first local Motel/Hotel/Pub/RSL/Meat Tray Bingo establishment we could find in Naracoorte. Fi sorted this out and when we got there about 7pm we all piled into the small room, chucked on the Aircon at full ball, had a shower and then went for dinner. Some burgers, a few chilled beers/glasses of wine and pavalova to finish off had all of us feeling better so we hit the sack and crashed out. The following day was our adventure caving experience which was brilliant for everyone except me as I realised, quite early on the tour that crawling around in the dark and squeezing through tiny tunnels put me into a pathological state of anxiety that I couldn't complete any of the challenges except the first one which was used to test us to see if we had a phobia of small places. This I failed miserably as was whimpering like a puppy caught behind the fridge so when we surfaced after the longest 90 minutes of my life I discreetly checked my pants as I haven't ever been that frightened in my entire life. The boys loved it and Fi was a superstar down in the cave but I was behaving like a scared little school boy which everyone, even the Korean couple called Agi and Nick (Assumed name I guess) had a giggle at…. Clambering back into the car we had some lunch, I changed my underpants, got my breathing under control then headed into the 42c heat towards my mate's place in Strathalbyn, S.A We passed Cheese World, which the family insisted we stop at. I was keen to get on but was overruled and so we spent 10-15 min tasting cheese and finding out how skimmed milk powder was made. A process that was interesting I guess but which we all forgot by the time we walked from the factory to the car. It was nothing as fun or as interesting as Monkey World in the U.K which I have been comparing all the parks and attractions to ever since the start of the trip. Monkey World, is a world just full of monkeys..….It's just hilarious……

We got back on the road and caught up with my old pal Paul Hotker and his family, Sharon, Oliver and Amalie. Paul showed us around Bleasdale Winery which was pretty cool and explained the process to which the boys really didn't take much interest but were attentive. We then headed to Paul's house, had a wonderful dinner, too much beautiful wine and a great night of reminiscing and chat. We felt this was the unofficial end of our tour so Meg was headed for home and we began to start counting the days until we got back.