Having had our fill of sydney and its surrounds we decided to plough a furrow south in search of some good weather, big surf and plenty of alcohol.
We'd acquired ourselves a bargain tent in the blue mountains from some unsuspecting germans - $40 for a tent and airbed seemed like a good fleecing to me - and so set out on a different kind of trip as we camped it up down the coast of new south wales and victoria in our trusty hire car.
We stopped off at jervis bay and north durras on our first two nights in nsw and were greeted by some unspoilt secluded surf beaches and even some friendly kangaroos on the campsite.
Determined to get as much in as possible we ploughed on round the south east corner and into victoria. There was a brief stop over in lakes entrance to break up the trip (bit touristy but still had a reasonably impressive 7 mile stretch of golden sand) before rolling into Wilsons Promontory national park.
"The prom" is a 60km peninsular poking out from the arse end of the australia and has the privilege of being the only place in eastern australia where you can watch the sunset over the sea. Couple of great walks to be done in the area and we pottered to the top of mount oberon for a panoramic view of the whole place. We even had a friendly wombat living in the bush by our tent (apparently they can kill foxes but I think that might be what is technically known as bollocks).
We drove straight past melbourne, knowing we'd be back to soak up that little cosmopolitan gem in a week or so, and headed off along that most iconic of ozzie driving routes - the great ocean road.
This stretch of track hugs the coastline all the way from Torquay to Wornambool, some 150km away. It winds up and down the cliffs showing off plenty of rugged coastline being relentlessly pounded by the sea, and all in all its damned good fun - even if we did have a hyundai getz rather than a porsche. They even put handy signs on each bend advising a sensible speed limit. All you have to do is add 20km/h and you have a good racing line to overtake that pesky campervan.
Erica had time to grab a surf lesson in anglesea and we spotted some koala bears on cape otway, before we veered north up into the grampian mountains for some climbing. Not being known for my rippling muscular frame i found I was even less well equipped with the guns required for clambering up sheer rock faces. We managed to scramble our way ungracefully up some reasonably challenging routes before doing a cheeky 25m abseil to end the day.
That done, it was time for tasmania. The residents of this little nugget of an island state off the se coast are inclined to feel a little like the forgotten world at times, and well they might as apparently tassie gets missed off the majority of maps altogether.
We only had a few days to sample what it had to offer so spent the first day driving up and down the tamar valley to stock up on plenty of wine and the famous local cheese. All boozed and cheddered up, we headed to bay of fires on the east coast and found a free camp site right on the edge of a white sandy beach with some 3 metre swell crashing down onto the shore. A different kind of wine and cheese evening but quality all the same.
Next stop was the famous(ish) wine glass bay, allegedly ranked in the top ten beaches in the world. It's a 6km hike out there over the saddle of a mountain. Having got there, you can join the hoardes of tourists spending the day on the white sands, admiring the hazards mountain range that towers over the bay.
We fancied a bit more peace and quiet though and so strapped our camping gear and alcohol to our backs and hiked on out. Arriving as the crowds were leaving was a nice touch and we spent the evening trying to stop the wallabies eating my chilli con carne and admiring the views with the handful of other folk who had made the effort.
Last stop was port arthur - a former penal colony for really naughty boys - to hear about how some dirty convicts were sent here once upon a time and ended up hanging around.
Melbourne was our last stop on this little mini adventure and we arrived just in time for australia day and a good old fashioned bbq with part of the australian kpmg contingent. We took a bit a of time to soak up the sporting shrine that is the MCG and even managed to sit still on the beach at St Kilda (hadn't been doing enough of that recently).
All done down here in the freezing cold south (i.e. below 40 degrees) , we hopped on a plane and jetted up to tropical cairns...
