Australia, the first feww weeks.

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We could smell the smoke as soon as we started our descent into Melbourne from the fires that had occurred in Victoria recently.

We took a cab out to Diamond Creek, north east of the city….. It was so dry and brown, not a green blade of grass anywhere.
Martin and Jane had offered kindly put us up.
This was a nice gesture as Martin is volunteer fireman and has been a bit busy lately.
We got an invite to a BBQ at another couple of friend’s place, Dave and Cynth, and caught up with ex work colleagues’ who emigrated over here for work purposes at Visy Paper.
Then off down the pub to meet others, and have a jolly good time.

While we stayed with Martin and Jane we went out for day trips with our host family to see the nice beaches and sights around Melbourne.
We also travelled on our own into town, the train fares are very well priced, we would recommend other do this as parking a vehicle can be a pain.
There is a lot to do and see in Melbourne, we did a tour of the Old Gaol and learnt about Ned Kelly, took a trip to the top of one very tall building to have a look over the city, and a bit of retail therapy, (I bought a new digital SLR), so maybe the pictures will improve as I learn how to use it.
There are museums and an aquarium, lot of shops and food outlets, you won’t get bored.
Our time was over with our hosts, so we purchased some foodstuffs for a BBQ, to say thank you to everyone for the great welcome that we received.
It was so nice to see everyone again, (Martin, Andy, Andy, Ada, Dom, Dave, Chris and Maria, all from the UK,) and their better halves and families.
Many thanks to one and all, and good luck for the future.
Maria very kindly offered a lift into Melbourne to collect our Motorhome, thank you Maria.

We now have in our hands a very nice modern campervan, a VW Crafter, (never heard of it before), diesel, with a six speed auto box, and plenty of room with a bed we can leave down full time, (it gets a bit monotonous doing the bed thing everyday, as we found in New Zealand, especially when its raining and dark). It has a shower and toilet as well, so if we can’t find a site, we will still be ok.

We headed off down the Pacific Coast Highway in our new Apollo van, well worth the time spent driving along it.
Our first night on a site was good as there was plenty of birdlife to see, very colourful.
Our first ‘in the wild’ Koala, was being given bottled water by a local at our first campsite. They rarely drink, but the temperatures had been extremely hot and the bush so dry, that many were forced to come down from the trees to seek water. It was so dehydrated and bewildered, poor little thing. Declared a girl by the crusty dreadlocked bloke who fiddled around the furry nether regions for a bit….she was carefully caged and taken to the vet for a shot (electrolytes n stuff).
The coast was rugged and beautiful and on our way, we saw loads of Koalas, ‘just hangin’ in the gum trees. They must all have been fairly dehydrated as Victoria had seen so little in the way of rain lately. We were told to offer water to any Koala we encountered on the ground.

We visited Red Rock, the 12 Apostles, London Bridge, walked through a canopy and viewed the salt lakes, then made a dash for the other side of Melbourne before the traffic got heavy.

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Photos

Our first guest in the Oz trip van
a Huntsman Spider, quite harmless to us and will keep the flying things and other spider population down.
Sorry, now no longer with us, too much fly spray. Ooops.

Some of the Twelve (8) Apostles
some have fallen down.