Our flight from Bangkok to Melbourne was direct flight of 9 hours.

We thought that it would be difficult to go to the centre of Melbourne from the airport, but luckily there was a minivan that dropped us at our hostel. We decided to go to The Oslo Hotel, in St Kilda. The Oslo Hotel is in Grey Street which is well known from its prostitutes and junkies. I'm not sure if prostitution is legal in Melbourne but it seems it is because no one seems to care. Every day you see the same prostitutes on the street and sometimes they are so high that they just sleep on the street wearing miniskirt.

We paid 60 dollars per night for a double room, with fridge. But still it was quite of a shock after Asia's prices. We stayed there 5 nights ad after we went to Stephan's and Stephanie's house. They are David's mother's cousins' colleagues, so we didn't really know them at all, so it was very nice of them to let us stay in their house for few nights. They live in Caulfield North, not far from St Kilda or from the centre. We started to look for work right away. We also left some babysitting flyers in the French school which is owned by Stephane and Stephanie.

A week went by before our first phone call for a job. I did my first try out in a Greek restaurant in the city. It went ok, but the manager didn't even call me back so I left it to that.

After one week we moved back to the Oslo Hotel. I had received some calls for babysitting and also I started to work in n Israeli restaurant. I worked there 3 shifts, but then they closed for a renovation for 3 weeks. Only problem was that I didn't get my pay before they closed so I'm still waiting for to get paid. The boss didn't even answer my calls. And I just found out that the boss has left and nobody got paid! What an ass! And there's nothing we can do because we got paid in cash and we don't have a contract or anything…

I even went to the restaurant to see if someone was there but it was all empty…

Fortunately I found another restaurant where I work now 4 to 5 shifts per week. The place is much better organized and the staff is very nice.

I have been babysitting for an Australian family now every Thursdays. It's pretty easy, I just read them a bedtime story and then they go to bed and I watch TV.

David worked one night in a reception for a company as waiter. It went well but it was just a one night. Two weeks ago he had a tryout in a bar/restaurant at St Kilda and one hour after he came back the manager called that he got the job! So now David works as kitchen hand 5 days a week. It's really hard job and stressful too, so we'll see for how long he can do it!

I think I was very lucky to find the job where I'm now working because it's really nice place. The food is good and everybody is so nice. This Sunday the will organize a Staff party and we'll go paintballing!!! I have never tried it so I'm very excited!

Here again! I haven't written for a long time because we stayed 6 months in Melbourne just working to save money, so there was really nothing special to write about!

We were just waiting that my friends from Finland, Marika and Erno, came from Malaysia to meet us in Melbourne.

When they finally arrived, they stayed 2 weeks in Melbourne, also waiting that we finish our jobs. They stayed in the same hostel as us, in the Oslo Hotel. The last month I worked in the Kamel restaurant 6 days a week, cleaned the hostel every week-end and did some babysitting too. So I was pretty busy! But at least I saved more money!

I met some really nice people in the Kamel restaurant. I think I was really lucky to work in Kamel. I learned a lot from the hospitality- restaurant business, learned to taste differences between wines (thanks to our knock offs and wine tastings!) and met some really great people! Also I learned how to make different kinds of coffees. Australians love their coffees, they also have some weird names for their coffees, like flat white, short black, skinny cafe latte, skinny soy cafe latte, mocchiato, long black, etc.... It was hard to learn how to make their coffees because usually in every coffee they put milk in it. And that is the hardest thing to make, a coffee with enough froth.

Finally our last day of work came and we started our road trip on the Great Ocean road. We rented a camper van for 10 days.

We left Melbourne the 2nd of November. We took the road to Torquay, where we spent our first night camping. I had never stayed in a camping area and it was actually really good. There were toilets and showers for everybody, and we slept in the van. The van was for 5 people, 2 beds upstairs and 3 downstairs. There were a fridge and a table and even a little gas stove where we could cook.

The landscapes changed a lot when we left the Melbourne centre. The second night we spend in Wye River where we saw koalas on the trees by the Wye river. They were everywhere! And they are so cute! I think it's now my favorite animal! On the camping area we had some koalas on the trees and some very curious parrots around our van. We saw some really amazing birds, bright green and red parrots, or huge white ones.

The next day we drove through Anglesea where we saw kangaroos in a golf course. It was the first time we saw kangaroos in the wild.

We drove through Lorne, and then spent the night in Princetown, where we saw kangaroos on the fields next to us. After Princetown started the Great Ocean road. The Great Ocean Road is the most famous road, 250 km from Torquay to Warrnambool. After Lorne the road really starts to get interesting with twists and turns revealing spectacular coastal views from lookout points and koalas hanging out of roadside trees. The most photographed stretch of the Great Ocean Road offers sheer limestone cliffs towering over fierce seas. For thousands of years, waves and tides have sculpted the soft rock into a fascinating series of rock stacks, gorges, arches and blowholes. The Twelve Apostles are the best- known rock formations in Victoria. These rocky stacks have been abandoned to the ocean by eroding headland. Today their number has been whittled down to 6 apostles, visible from the viewing platforms.

Then we stopped in Portland for the night, which was nothing special.

We drove to the Grampians National park, the road there was amazing. The Grampians national park is a bushwalker's paradise and one of Victoria's most outstanding natural features.

We stayed in a free camping ground, or actually we should have paid 14 dollars but nobody came to check if we had paid so it was free! The next day we continued to Halls Gap.

Then we stopped in a small village called Euroa, drove all day to Junee, which is well known for its cherries. We stopped for a cherry wine tasting and bought some cherries and cherry wine. Little bit further away we stopped for a wine tasting of Lindsay winery. The guy was really nice and we even let him taste some Salmiakki kossu! He said that there was also a winery called Kalari, kept by a Finnish man. We wanted to visit the place but it was closed.

We wanted to go to the Blue Mountains National Park because it's very near to Sydney and it's said to be very beautiful. It's a world heritage site of Unesco. It was really hard to find a camping ground there, because in every village, there was only one caravan park and really expensive. In the end we found a caravan park in Blackheath. We had to check out at 10am, but it was ok because we wanted to go for a hike in the mountains. We spend a lovely day with 2 hour walk. Even though it was raining in the morning, in the afternoon it was ok. We had some nice pictures with the clouds over the mountains and also sunshine in the afternoon. We started our walk by admiring the Three Sisters rock formation. Legend has it that a sorcerer turned the Three Sisters to stone in order to protect them from the unwanted advances of three young men. Unfortunately for the sisters, the sorcerer died before he could reverse the spell!

We walked also by the Great Stairway, with its 900 stairs down.

The last night we spend in Penrith, 60 km from Sydney. We stayed in a camping ground and when the night came there were hundreds of bats flying around.

In a nutshell, I could say that whatever you prefer, nature, sea, city or desert, you can find it in Australia. It's so crazy how big the country really is and how empty it is. There are only 20 millions Australians in Australia! And it's almost the size of Europe.

Last day of camping we cleaned the car and headed to Sydney. Before we left I tried to call to the hotels to book a room, but everything was full. Finally we found a hostel in the west part of Sidney, Glebe. The hostel was really nice and cozy but we had to shear a 6 bed dorm with a Spanish and a German guy. It was the cheapest hostel we found; all the others were either full or more expensive. The hostel has a garden and a really clean kitchen. The area was also nice, it's well known for a cultural mix place and a student area. So we were lucky to pick that place!

The second day in Sydney we tried to do all the "must do" tourist places. We started with the Harbor Bridge. It is possible to go Bridge climbing, a guided walk up the ladders and arches that lead to the top of the Harbor Bridge. Even Oprah Winfrey and Robert de Niro have made the climb. We didn't do it, mostly because the cost was almost 200 dollars!!! Sydney is build around the harbor. After that we went to admire the Sydney Opera House, which is considered to be one of the greatest buildings of all time. It's designed by a Danish architect. When we saw the building, well, it wasn't exactly what we thought it would be. The building looked much smaller and uglier in real life than in the photos. So pretty disappointing. After that we continued to the Royal Botanic Gardens to have a picnic. The parks are amazing in Sydney, you have a lot of space and it's clean and beautiful. We walked home from the center and we could see some really nice houses not far from the center. We saw that in Melbourne too. It would be nice to live that close to the center in a nice house with a garden. But maybe it's only possible in Australia where you have so much space everywhere!

We will go to the Bondi Beach on Monday which is the beach area of Sydney.

It took about 1 hour to go to the Bondi Beach. We went there because I wanted to meet an old family friend from Finland, Katri , who's been living there for 3 years now.

We spent the evening drinking and chatting. It was really nice!

The next day we woke up in the morning when the receptionist came in to our room and said we have 30 minutes to pack our bags and leave! We forgot to pay the last day so the receptionist thought that we are leaving. But he was very weird, first he said that the room is booked for other people and they are waiting for us to leave. When we started to beg that we could stay just one more night, and explained that it was a misunderstanding, he said that he will try to see. And then he called someone, and said it was ok for us to stay 1 more night. But I'm pretty sure that he just takes his job too seriously and wanted to make him look like he was in charge and not us. It's not the guest who decides to stay, it's the receptionist.

Well anyway the last day we tried with David to take our travel insurance because our last travel insurance just let us know that we couldn't continue the contract with them because we left France 12 months ago, which means we will not have the French public health system anymore. It was really hard to find one, but in the end I took the Lonely Planet's travel insurance. So all is good now!

The next day we arrived to the Sydney airport more than 2 hours before our flight to Bali. When we arrived all the Virgin Air's check in counters were closed, and we had to wait that they opened. Finally when we got to the lady in the check in, she asked if we had a return flight from Indonesia. We said no, and she said that we cannot check in before we have a flight ticket leaving Indonesia. So we had like 10 minutes to book a flight and print it in the post office.

We decided that after Indonesia we would go to Vietnam, and there was very cheap flights to Ho Chi Minh City, so we booked that and printed the ticket, and run to the check in. After we had to run to the security and queue up for at least 30 minutes. There were people everywhere and we thought we would miss the flight. But fortunately everything ended well, the flight was delayed.

So that's all about Australia! Next destination: Indonesia.