Moving on: the great ocean road

Our last day in Melbourne was spent visiting some old haunts with my friend Meens and her chap Nifty, including a visit to The Rising Sun, owned at the time by Mina's parents where many a happy hour was spent!

From Melbourne we head out west to the Great Ocean rd and into South Australia, heading in the direction of Adelaide. In the process we see a few things and learn a few more, so, in no particular order -

1.Great myths of Aus #1 - the Australian climate is one long hot summer of prawns being thrown on endless barbies. Well, not round here it's not. The first few days in Melbourne were hot n sunny, but since then the weather has been distinctly mixed, cool and grey and - at times - extremely wet.

2. GM of A #2 - all the Aussies ever drink is Fosters lager. Can honestly say we have not seen the so-called amber nectar on sale anywhere so far. That said, most of the range of beers on offer seem very similar - long on chill and somewhat short on flavour. That said, the craft ale thing seems to be taking hold a bit here too, with the result that there are a few honourable exceptions to be found, especially a very nice locally brewed stout I could have drunk a lot more of in Portland....

3. Travel is relative. On a coffee stop at Cape Bridgewater we encountered Daren Carter, a gentleman explorer who left his native Dorset aboard his motorcycle in March and has no plan to go home anytime soon. Riding through Europe and across Asia he crossed from Malaysia to A us where he spends the next year prior to shipping himself and his BMW to New Zealand and thence to the Americas. Now that's travelling.

3. Koalas are cute,end of. Check out the photos of the one we found ambling along by the side of the road this morning.

4. Unique to this part of the globe, we believe, is the Drive-thru bottle store - to be frank, in essence a speedy pit-stop for piss-heads, where you can load up with stubbies without even the inconvenience of turning off the engine, let alone get out the car. Photo evidence provided below.

5. History is strictly relative too.Yesterday we made a significant detour to visit a much-hyped landmark,viz, the Cape Otway lighthouse. In return for our AUD 40 we were treated to a house which got built in the 1800s and used to be a telegraph station and a lighthouse about as awe-inspiring as the one in, er,   Shoreham. The telegraph station spotted various historic artefacts to gawp over, including a seeing machine to which Sian commented "my machine at home is older than that". We left disgruntled but others seemed blissfully happy so, as we say, it's all relative.

We are still somewhat at a loss with various aspects of this blogging lark. We think we have posted photos to accompany this entry. If not, little of the above will make any sense.