Pt Augusta to Melbourne

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Thanks to Jackie and her lovely family we left Port Augusta re-energised and ready to go. The scenery changed from arid bushland to fertile gentle hills. We visited the Cornish mining town of Burra - with its huge copper mine that looked just like Cornish tin mines. We then spent some time travelling through the Clare and Barossa wine valleys. We slept one night among the Wolfblass vines and awoke the next day to sweet grape smells. Another common wine found in England is Jacobs Creek, well we have stood and looked at the creek!!! Our favourite spot in that area was the Barossa reservoir dam or the whispering wall. Due to the exact curviture of the dam wall it does not absorb any sound. This means that you can talk or whisper a conversation to each other from opposite sides of the dam - some 100 metres.
Adelaide is a city of parks and water - very beautiful. We were there on a sunday so it was fairly quiet. We found it really peaceful and pretty. The free tastes at Haigh's chocolates were not bad either! We visited the museums and art galleries which had a strong polynesian influence. We left Adelaide via williamstown and the murray river chain ferry which is a great way to travel and free!! We stopped at narracoorte caves and had a look at the famous exhibits. They house fossils and bones of extinct animals that ran around australia thousands of years ago including a small lion and a carniverous kangaroo!! The blue lake of Mt Gambier lived up to its name - very blue. The short walk around the lake gave us a bit of exercise and good vantage points to view the lake. Our next stop to us to Cape Bridgewater and the large seal colony. We walked the trail to the tip of the cape and back where the seals lived - it took about 2 hours. We were able to sit and watch the seals playing in the rough seas and crashing waves.
The Great Ocean Road is billed as one of the greatest drives in the world - we certainly believed it lived up to its reputation. The first part of the road is not the coast exactly but more a string of stops that show prominant rock formation - but you have to drive off the road to get to them. We got to see the grotto, london bridge (now partially collapsed), the arch and ultimately the twelve apostles. The second half of the ocean road actually hugs the beach and rocks providing magnificent vista's. The only problem driving that stretch of road is concentrating on driving and not the scenery.
Melbourne is a fantastic city. Again lots of parkland, churches and water. Flinders train station is architecturally interesting and stands out despite its small size against the skyscrapers. The aquarium was really good with perspex tunnels giving you a chance to walk through looking at the rays and sharks close up and personal. We were then elevated 253 metres into the Melbourne skyline in the rialto obsevation deck, providing 360 degree views out over the city. The immigration museum was really interesting althoough there was a lot of reading involved and it really tired us poor tourists out. We had two nights out in Melbourne we spent one at the casino pretending to be james bond and the other we spent watching a footie match (aussie rules). We watched Geelong trash the local team Carlton.

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