I've met Tobie!!!!!

Oh yes, in true skanky backpacker style we had lunch at Fifteen yesterday! We were lucky to get in as it is booked up until April but we managed to get a last minute cancellation at delicious magazine's lunch there. It was 4 courses, all washed down with a recommended wine from a local vineyard. We started with a couple of glasses of champers and then went on to have a mozzarella, parma ham, rocket and mint starter washed down with a rosé. This was followed by an undercooked courgette risotto helped along by a nice crisp white. After this we were thoroughly disappointed by the tiniest portion of roast duck on lentils lubricated with a lovely pinot noir. The meal was finished off by divine roast peaches with amarreti biscuits, amaretto and marscapone topped off with several yummy glasses of a lovely sparkling rosé dessert wine. I got to meet Tobie, who also addressed the party and we got on famously with the company at our table - the hilariously adorable Lyn and Denise, ladies from the gold coast in town for a conference (I wonder if they made it to their cocktail party last night after all that we drank) and the lovely Mel, Em and Claire, who live in Melbourne and took us all under their wing following the meal to give us a tour of some bars in Melbourne that were very posh, filled with suits, outrageously expensive and totally not where I fitted in in my backpacker flip-flops. But it was such a good day - the hangover this morning hasn't been half as bad as we deserved!

So, what have we been up to since my last entry, apart from frequenting very trendy establishments here in the lovely Melbourne? Well, due to Tinks needing a new thermostat to help her keep her cool, we ended up staying in Adelaide for just over a week. We went on a wine tasting tour of the Barossa Valley which was marvellous (port tasting at 10:30am, anyone?) and we ended up buying several bottles of lovely red (none from Jacob's Creek though, as their tour was crap). One of the bottles accompanied us to a Chinese restaurant of considerable reputation in Adelaide - we were thoroughly disappointed with the food but our wine was so fab we decided to carry on in one of Adelaide's bars, where we ended up trying to make our noses smaller for photos. Don't ask. Apart from a pizza, we don't remember much else! We ended up going a little stir-crazy by the time we were able to leave Adelaide - the place is lovely but it's quite small. From Adelaide we headed into Victoria (hurrah!) home to Melbourne and the famous Great Ocean Road. We stopped off in a lovely forest for an evening where we built a fire over which we cooked roo steak, chickpea mash, sweetcorn and pepper sauce - a marvellous meal that we then enjoyed with another bottle of red whilst wrapped up by the roaring fire. That's what having the Tinks is all about, oh yes.




Before arriving in Melboure (from where I write this entry) we travelled along the Great Ocean Road which has stunning coastal scenery. There I also saw my first echidna (same family as my adored platypus, but looks like a hedgehog). It was walking across the road so we hopped out and said hello.












Then, when were looking out at the 12 Apostles, surrounded by tourists, we were treated to our second echidna sighting of the day and an amazing photo opportunity. This little guy just wasn't phased. It was sooooo fab.

We were ecstatic to arrve in Melbourne, even more ecstatic to discover that our chosen St Kilda hostel is a converted B&B that still feels like a B&B and is lovely and not full of 18 year olds. So much so that we have stayed there all week, despite our resolution to spend half the time in another district of Melbourne so that we could get a real feel for the city. St Kilda reminds me of Brighton and is home to a big chunk of Melbourne nightlife (that we enjoyed the other night). We may go to Luna Park tonight - a funfair that is in the style of Blackpool pleasure beach before it got more sophisticated rides. We have done our best to get a feel for Melbourne and we really like the city, so much so that we are pretty torn as to where to settle for the next couple of months. Current thinking is Sydney, as it has a wow factor that Melbourne doesn't have - the setting, the beaches and all that. In saying that, I could definitely see myself living in Melbourne, but maybe longer term. So tomorrow we head off towards Sydney (via Canberra) where we will find a place to stay, look for jobs and then put the lovely Tinks up for adoption. We will be heartbroken to see her go, but she deserves more adventures with people who love her as much as we do rather than sitting in the street outside our apartment (wherever that may be). Sniff sniff. Watch this space for more updates...

The south-west: trees; treats and tiring days

Hello from Adelaide, South Australia. Oh yes, we've finally made it out of the state of Western Australia and have made it back over this side of the continent. Hurrah. We got into Adelaide last night and were delighted to find that our caravan park is not only lovely but that it rents out TVs - so last night we were snug in ol' Tinksy watching crap Aussie TV and scoffing bacon sarnies. Bliss. First impressions of Adelaide: sunny, green and lovely.
We've taken a week to get here from Perth. We set off last Tuesday and headed to the Margaret River region in the south-west. This is a wine-growing region known for it's attraction to foodies, so we spent a day with me in my little element. We visited a cheese factory, a chocolate factory, a venison farm, an olive grove and a vineyard - with tastings at all! We picked ourselves up an award-winning shiraz that you can't get in the shops and various lovelinesses from the other places for a picnic lunch that we didn't scoff until the following day as we treated ourselves to a rather expensive lunch of fillet steak with blue cheese and caramelised onion tart followed by French blue cheese with pear and walnuts washed down with a nice red at the Voyager Estate. Thanks to my girlfriends from school for that treat (I spent two-thirds of my birthday cash from them on the meal - a marvellous birthday treat, I say). The rest of the cash is going on a wine-tour in the Barossa Valley whilst we're here, to stick to the theme!
Thoroughly stuffed we headed down to Cape Leeuwin - the south-westerly tip of Oz where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. There we waved goodbye to the Indian Ocean we'd met at Broome and started to finally head east.
The next day was tree-filled, visiting various karri and tingle forests filled with massive trees (you know how I like my trees). We climbed to the top of a 51m lookout tree using stakes hammered into the trunk and made sure we didn't look down on the journey back to earth! We also visited a tree-top walk 40m in the forest canopy and ooed and aahed at the baby kangaroos that had been rescued. Sweet!




That night we stopped at a lush free camp by the beach and then prepared ourselves for the long slog ahead of us. Oh yes, it was long. In 4 days we did over 2000km. We crossed the infamous (in Oz) Nullarbour (meaning no trees in latin) that straddles the WA-SA border and in doing so moved from one time zone into another. The days were long and pretty boring - apart from when the road moved close to the cliffs or a mad sign appeared warning you to look out for camels and wombats as well as the roos! When we arrived in Adelaide last night I was sooooooo happy. Final stretch now before we get jobs. I'm a bit saturated with doing the tourist thing in Oz now... Still, it's not work. Hahahahaha!