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Published: June 14th 2008
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bay of islands
one of the many!! Having eventually sussed out the cheapst deal we could on a hired car we set off to pick it up on the wednesday morning. Once all our stuff was loaded in and we'd said a few good byes we set off for Port Fairy. After about 3 hours of driving we arrived in the quaint little town of Port Fairy where we sat by a little inlet and had luch with some rather cheeky seagulls waiting hopefully for a crumb or two!
After lunch we went for a walk round an island the name of which escapes me right now but where there was a colony of shear waters, the waves were crashing quite imoressively on the far shore, then later that afternoon we headed to Wornambool and set up camp.
That evening we had the best fish and chips in town according to the locals and they were pretty good too. We sat overlooking the see and watched the last of the sun go down finishing them in the dark!
The following morning packed up and headed out to where at the right time of year you can see whales and their young, unfortunately it wasn't the right time of
year for us! We then headed towards port campbell stopping at the many scenic bits of coast line along the way. By the time we reached port campbell the right hand indicator had had quite a battering! as we drove out of each carpark there was a reminder to drive on the left which was quite amusing! Having managed to avoid them all day we finally caught up with the tour groups at Loch ard gorge where it was teaming with point and clickers!! It felt suddenly quite claustrophobic for such an open space and althouhg everyone wants to see it i think the way you choose to can have a great impact on the atmosphere of a place. We watched the sun set over the 12 apostles with 101 other people before heading to Johanna bay where we planned to camp. It was DARK when we get there so we had little idea what the place looked like other thannthe sea was just over the dunes ans the stars were shining brightly overhead making it quite a cold night!!!
We got up for sunrise in the morning and it was undoubtedly the best one so far and it was
Numb feet
But worth every step!!!!!!!! made even more memorable by helen suggesting we take our shoes off and walk bare foot along the sand which was freezing, our feet went a good way to becoming numb but not quite far enough as it got ##%$*@* painful. When we made it back to the campsite we put on some porridge whilst we packed up and doned warm socks.
We visited cape Ottway before moving on to Blanket bay where we walked/ scrambled along the coast to parker inlet. As we scrambled along the rocks we were kept entertained by the fanastic formations , wierd shapes and what looked like fossilised trees. on the way back we walked more inland through the forests and saw 4 more koalas making our days total of 6. We set up camp in blanket bay and although it was again clear it was one of the wrmest nights we had whilst campingand we sat playing cards and chatting under the stars.
We were up again for sunrise but it just got light and wasn't very impressive having been spoilt the previous day.
We spent the rest of the day heading back towards ballarat hugging the coastline as far as Geelong making
the odd stop here and there for lunch and a short walk to a look out point.
We had planned to take the car back that evening but the place was shut so Peter very kindly gave us a bed for the night and fed us so we could take the car back the next day and head to melbourne on the train.
After having been in such wide open spaces for so long melbourne and its rain felt very depressing! We only spent a few days there feeling no desire to stay. We did see Queen victoria markets, art gallery, federation square and the very good museum. We treated ourselves to a trip to the cinema, indiana Jones and aliens???????! the verdicts not quite out on that one!
After 3 days in melbourne we jumped on the nights bus to Canberra where we spent 2 days. We visited the parliament house which was quite interesting and spent the second day sitting at various sunny spots around the city. As we returned to our accomodation we found a random snowboarding and skiing competition which was a laugh to watch but not so funny when we found out the after
party was in the pub below us!!! it was still in full swing at 2am!!!
We left the next day somewhat tired bound for sydney!!
But thats another story!
Hope everyone is well, always nice to here from you all.
All the best
Paul n Hele xxxxx
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