Upon arriving into Melbourne we were surprised by how much warmer it felt having come from Tasmania. We weren't sure why this was because the weather reports had said that Melbourne was only going to be slightly warmer than our last stop in Tasmania, Hobart. Nevertheless we were happy to be in slightly warmer plains for a few nights. During our time in Melbourne we spent it mostly shopping and meeting with friends to enjoy a reunion meal and get to grips with the city. We were glad not to be in the Australian State of New South Wales yet due to the recent heavy downpours and risks of flooding. We had difficulty landing in Melbourne due to heavy low lying fog being present over Melbourne. This meant that our flight from Hobart was delayed by around 5 hours. From Melbourne we left on the start of our 5,000 km road trip of Australia's eastern coast. From our pickup point we headed out along the southern coast to enjoy the "Great Ocean Road".
Due to our car pickup taking over 2 and a half hours we ended up hitting the road later than we had anticipated and as such ended up having to spend most of this afternoon's
drive enjoying the views from the car. It also led to us breaking at least 2 of the rental rules by a) having to drive at dusk and b) having to drive down an unsealed road to
our campsite. Needless to say we were happy when we arrived at our campsite in the middle of nowhere and were able to begin cooking. We had the entire campsite to ourselves
and had many animals living with and around us in the forest due to the nearby river which we could here flowing during the night.
In the morning we set off all normally having had to get up in the pitch black. We had been planning to hit the road early knowing that we had over 500 km to cover today by
16:30 in order to meet the Penguin Parade in Phillip Island (see below). Unfortunately we weren't able to get on the road as quickly as we had hoped as when the sun did
finally rise it appeared that the grass and mud which we had parked on the previous night was now heavily sodden from the overnight dew / rain. This led to us being stuck and
unable to get over the small ridge out of the grass camping bay. With nobody around for over 6 km we had to try and try again including each of us pushing the vehicle in order
to get it free from the mud. Eventually we did manage to get it free by reversing it out with Kat pushing the front and me keeping the accelerator heavily depressed. It ended
up taking us over half an hour though. After leaving the campsite we were met by a bull in the middle of the road which insisted to a stand off for 5 minutes before it eventually
moved on. We weren't sure for a while whether it was going to charge us down.
After we finally got on the road we headed away from Phillip Island towards the Twelve Apostles and the Loch Ad Gorge. Both of these sites made the 500 km detour here entirely
worth it. From here we headed straight to Phillip Island in hope of not missing the Penguin Parade (see below).
Late in the afternoon we arrived in Phillip Island in time to watch the Penguin Parade. This is when all the Penguins come ashore at night in order to avoid being eaten by birds of prey etc. The act takes place every day just as the sun is setting. We didn't know this before arriving but the breed of Penguin we saw was the smallest in the world up to 30cm tall at tallest. It was great fun to watch them and hear them quack, especially when they kept getting wiped out and taken back out to sea by waves, or when the seagulls standing on the beach led to them pushing each other forward in case it was going to eat them. Even though it was very busy here we did manage to get a front row seat and the best view in the house. From here we had another long night drive to our campsite on the mainland. This night was to be much colder than the previous night.
The next morning we headed from our campsite in heavy morning fog to Wilson's Promentary National Park. Once inside the park we saw a Pregnant Koala, our first full-sized Kangaroo's and some Emu's. We also saw at least two more huge Kangaroo's run across the road as we drove down into the park. During our time in the park we Whiskey Bay & Lookout, Squeaky Beach, Norman's beach and Norman Lookout. From Norman's Beach we saw some red parrots in the visitor's car park. It was also nice to see that the National Park was free for day visitors. Next we left the national park on route to our campsite that night in Port Albert.
That night we stayed in Port Albert and were pleasantly surprised by the sunset view we had to enjoy with our bottle of wine. We couldn't think of a better way to spend a Saturday night. That next morning we left on route to the Gippsland Lakes.
We started our drive to the Gippsland Lakes by stopping at one of the beaches on the ninety mile long stretch known as Paradise Beach. We found the beach very nice with orangey-red sand, crystal clear water and intact shells littering the beach. From here we headed to the town of Metung and the Lakes Entrance. We then enjoyed many nice lake lookouts on route to our campsite for that night in the heart of the rain- forest.
Having already covered over 1,500km next we continued driving up the east coast of Australia into the Australian State of New South Wales.
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