Sydney: sometimes they come back for more...

Our flight out of Oz was from Sydney, so we hauled ourselves back there just in time for the Sydney festival - a huge street carnival with lots of circus acts, music, bands and general paarty type things. It was loads of fun!

Sax in the City (get some ideas here Wonderbrassers!)

Och Aye the Noo

The highlight of the night though, was getting to see The Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, who were headlining one of the stages. What a nice surprise!

You can't see us, but we are swing dancing! It was a cracking way to say goodbye to Australia after our brief visit. Next it's onto Fiji for beach fun!

A-delayed post. Arf.

We went to Adelaide for a day to return Bertrande (boo hoo, we'll miss you old friend!). It was VERY hot and all our pictures melted. Sorry.

Man playing 'Dancing Queen' on a didgeridoo - how abba-riginal!

Ah its good to be back on the open road!

Matt, Bertrande and the Open Road

We set off into the outback for some mountainous adventuring in the Grampians. Bruce, not Ned gave us a bed in Ned's Bed's and we spent our first evening watching (and joining in) some Aboriginal dancing : S

Cutting down a tree to get some honey...

...Oh no the bees came and got us argh!

After drinking tea and watching Harry Potter back at the hostel, we were fortified to hike ourselves up to the Pinnacle of the Grampian Mountains the next day.

At the start of the clambour

Nearly there now Jen...

Gasp...we finally made it to the top, and the scramble was definitely worth it for the view. Down we go!

After some icecream

we went for a drive about to see some of the rest of the local scenery.

Hall's Gap from on high

Jen on a rock

Obligatory waterfall pic

Kangaroos!

On to Adelaide!

The Great Great Ocean Road Trip.

After our extended Christmas stay in Melbourne we decided it was time to hit the open road once more. Ah the smell of adventure! With the companionship of Bertrande, our faithful steed, we set off on our five day long drive up the Great Ocean Road, through the Grampians and onward to Adelaide.

First stop was Torquay - a beach more reminiscent of Barry Island than Australia, except with surfers instead of donkeys. Anyway, we had a celebratory lunch of fish and chips at the seaside.

And five minutes drive brought us to the famous Bell's Beach.

After a brief stop over at Lorne (with a bath!) we journeyed on, spotting Koala's on the roadside. There is a suspicious Koala here somewhere, can you tell which one it is?

We took a detour down to visit 'Australia's most significant lighthouse'. Or something. Here we are at Cape Otway:

Ooh mister lighthouse keeper!

The main attraction of the trip was the rock formations along the great ocean road itself. We stopped to look at The 12 Apostles, London Bridge and The Loch Ard Gorge:

The 12 Apostles

London Arch (it was a bridge, but some fell down)

It started to get dark, so we decided to find lodgings for the night. After driving through some scary hillbilly towns and finding no luck (ie near Port Fairy, with one house and a dog) a kindly innkeeper in Warrnambool sent us to his friend and we spent the night in our own room above a pub for less than the price of a dorm bed!

Next Bertrande took us to The Grampians, stay tuned kids!

Smellbourne, ARF.

So back to civilisation in St Kilda in Melbourne. We booked into our hostel and prepared to settle in for the longest stay of our trip! 2 weeks in one place, blimey!

Fist on the list was the sightseeing, which we performed with enthusiastic zeal.

Once we had finished the bland drudgery of seeing the city, we reached Fitzroy Park...

Here we are at Captain Cooks cottage, which they removed brick by brick from Yorkshire to be laid here in Melbourne. Here's Jen with some of Captain Cook's friends:

Matt as a sweet little girly

Matt and Captain Cook himself - he didn't move that much...

Next was the Model Village:

And Matt's favourite, the Fairy Tree:

We decided to check out the attractions of Melbourne's Gaol, where a man actually arrested us and locked us in the dark cells for 500 years...or 2 minutes, depending on who is telling the story.

They eventually let us out of the Gaol and we went down to explore St Kilda beach in the evening. There were penguins. No really!

Flashless penguin - they don't like the bright lights...

And then it was Christmas:

That took a little recovery! 3 days later we set out for the tour of our lives...

Yes Blog readers, you are NOT dreaming - that IS us outside Susan Kennedy's house in Ramsey Street, and here is the street itself:

After a neighbours viewing, lots of trivia and a bus tour round the filming locations of the show, we were greeted back at St Kilda by...

CONNOR!! He ISN'T dead after all!

Ah what a day - living the dream eh?

Obviously the next day was the 29th - let the celebrations commence for it is the birthday of Jenny. Hooray! First off we spent the night watching Top Gun with wine at the open air cinema in the botanical gardens. Obviously there isn't much to photograph here, but we did our best for you!

I liked it best when the audience sang along to 'You've lost that Lost that Loving Feeling', what about you Matt? Oh yes that bit was lovely.

The next day we spent a day picnicing and playing scrabble in the sunshine at the botanical gardens...

...before setting off for a terrifying evening at Dracula's Cabaret. Unfortunately we couldn't take any pictures, but again we managed a sneaky one just for you guys.

That leaves only New Years to celebrate in Melbourne. After a day spent in about 40 degree heat, the skies opened as we left our hostel and we brought in 2010 in a huge thunderstorm. The fireworks were very nice, but it was very wet indeed.

Onward Ho, to the Great Ocean Road we go!