Farewell Adelaide, hello road trip!

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This morning it was a sad farewell to the Sparkes and Adelaide. The last 5 days have literally flown by and I feel like I'm leaving just as I arrived. Paul and Jules have been nothing short of amazing, not least because they don't appear to have had a minute's peace from visitors since they arrived, yet they seem to take it all in their stride and made me feel like I was the first person from home they'd seen in years. That takes some doing, I can tell you. Amazing.

I decided to throw the present I'd bought for them on the solid floor moments before handing it over, which made for a hold your breath moment as they opened the box holding the glass candle. There's gratitude right there for you. Luckily it survived intact - can you imagine if it'd been in a million pieces...

After Jules dropped me off at the airport, I went to collect the relocation car I'm picking up today. It could be anything - from a truck to a tin can, but whatever it is, it needs moving from Adelaide to Melbourne in 2 days. That I can do, particularly when all I have to pay for is fuel. Bargain.

I've been given a Dad's car - a Holden Cruze, which in the UK would be called a Vauxhall Insignia no doubt. They're the same car - why General Motors needs to have so many pseudonyms for the same manufacturer (Opal/Vauxhall/Holden etc) I'll never know. Then again, they did launch the Nova in Spain many moons ago and wondered why it wouldn't sell. A car whose name translates as 'won't go' is not going to sell that well, eh...

So I set off. No sat nav for me, just intuition. That intuition got me driving round what is a tiny airport 3 times. Fail. Outside the airport boundaries and I realised there was little in terms of signage pointing me to the road I want to go on. I had to resort to a quick Google maps exercise and then hey presto, I found myself on the right road again. Adelaide's hilarious because for some of the day, the main road only allows you to travel in one direction and for the rest of it, you can only travel in the other. Imagine the M5 having all 6 lanes going southbound on a Friday night, and all 6 only going northbound on a Sunday during the summer. The traffic congestion would be solved brilliantly - not so handy however if you're in Burnham and want to pop to Bristol for Sunday dinner or bowling in Taunton on a Friday night...

Anyway, ridiculous traffic measures aside, I was on the road and decided to stop at Hahndorf, the town Paul and Jules had brought me to on Sunday, for breakfast. Most of the shops were closing or closed last time we were there so it was nice to take a gander around the place. It has a feel like Cheddar - lots of tradition and cute little food shops, while being German-themed.

On the road again, and I turned off the motorway to head towards the coast. I stopped to take a couple of pictures at Lake Albert, a huge sprawling and stunning lake just before I reached the coast. Out of the car and I get a beep and wolf whistles from a group of passing lads - well, when I say me, it was probably for the car but I'll take the credit...

The drive along the coast was gorgeous and it wasn't long before I reached the south lakes and the town of Robe. Jules had mentioned that she'd heard Robe was great and she wasn't wrong. A gorgeous little town full of good food restaurants and a coastline that took your breath away. The sea was aquamarine blue - I'm not sure the photos do it the best justice but it was out of this world. I stopped at Long Beach for a swim - you could drive onto the beach, park up and then just literally jump into the sea. The beach lived up to its name but given I wasn't driving a 4x4, didn't fancy driving around to the furthest corner, much as it would have been quieter. I just took a dip, dried off in the sun having my lunch then hit the road again.

The road took me inland for a while towards Mount Gambier. What a find! Although not on my planned original route, it turns out it's an amazing place with stunning lakes formed from volcanic craters years ago. The Blue Lake (you guessed it, blue in colour - love the Aussies for naming things so literally!) was spectacular - whoever lived in the house overlooking it is one lucky soul. The water for the area is sourced from this lake, which was literally the deepest mid blue in colour you could imagine. I must have seen lakes spanning the colours of the rainbow on this trip because the next door lake, Valley Lake, was beautiful and green. You got great views of the town from the lakes, which are up on the hillside, and it would have been good to spend longer there, however I needed to cross the border into Victoria, and get to Port Fairy, my destination for tonight, to watch Andy Murray's big semi final match against Djokovic...

And that I did - by the skin of my teeth. Managed to grab a pizza and a drink and sit down in front of the telly at my hostel at just after 7pm (if I thought I had any time in the bag, it went when I realised that the whole of Victoria is half an hour ahead of South Australia...). My dorm is OK - fairly basic and a little bit Prisoner Cell Block H, with graffiti all over the bed slats of the bunk bed above. Not the kind of stuff you'd want your mother to read so I'll spare you the details... It's also not a closed room - more of a half partitioned room where the walls don't meet the ceiling. Interesting - more like a stable than anything else!

After seeing off the irritating Djokovic-supporting German in the lounge, I watched the full marathon of the match with a family from South Yorkshire. Murray lost - and I really don't fancy bumping into the smug German at breakfast. Time to hit the road early, me thinks!

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