Melbourne to Adelaide

We entered Victoria when we crossed the Murray river at Albury. The landscape changed from flat open fields to rolling hills with areas of forest. On our left we could see the Australian alps in the distance. We spent the night just north of Melbourne in the vine-growing Yarra valley and had a memorable meal at the Balgownie estate vineyard's restaurant.

Rain followed us down into Melbourne, but cleared up later to show the city in better colours. Melbourne has a more Victorian English feel to it than Sydney - it's where the old money is. The centre is full of trams and lovely old-fashioned alleyways with cafes, restaurants and shops, though there are plenty of more modern buildings too. We haven't quite made up our minds about the newly-built cultural centre by the Yarra river!

After Melbourne we headed for Torquay and the start of the Great Coast Road. The road which covers nearly 200 km of the coast between Melbourne and Adelaide was built after WWI by ex-soldiers in memory of all the Aussie soldiers who lost their lives.
Despite having seen endless pictures of it beforehand, it is a really spectacular coastline, and the pictures cannot convey the relentless force of the ocean. Particularly the Twelve Apostles and London Bridge - two areas where limestone stacks stick up through the sea - were stunningly beautiful. There was a bracing wind blowing from Antarctica most of the time and the temperature was only around 15 degrees so I was glad I'd brought a pair of jeans!


We spent a couple of days driving and stopping along the coast enjoying the views and walking in the Otway national park. One of the places we stopped the woods were full of koalas sleeping up in the Eucalyptus trees, waking occasionally to chew a leaf or two.




Then we turned north and drove up through the Grampians, an area of sandstone mountains. We stayed the night at Halls Gap, a pretty little village in the mountains and woke to the calls of parakeets, lorikeets and corellas. We spent the morning walking up to one of the peaks, which gave a stunning view over the mountains and down to the valley below. Kevin ran a good part of the way, past endless groups of very unfit Australian schoolkids who were being forced to take some exercise.

At one of the picnic spots in the area we sat for a while watching a mob of kangaroos lazing under the trees before bounding off to find better pastures.
And so on through the Wimmera and endless kilometers of wheatfields before crossing the border into South Australia, where everything was noticably yellow and drier until we neared the Adelaide Hills. The countryside here is much more lush, with wooded hills, the famous Barossa Valley wineries to the north and a pretty coastline. Adelaide itself is a city with a rather gracious but provincial feel to it - much smaller and quieter than either Melbourne or Sydney, except when there is a test match or festival on!

Tomorrow we fly to Alice Springs and Uluru - our last week in Australia.