the grampians - in oz

think i forgot to mention this but we ad a few days in the grampians national park just outside adelaide - its very nice indeed and kind of similar to the scotish highlands in a few ways

We met up with clare and did a great walk on the first day for about 5 hours up to the top of a hill called Brigs Bluff (i think), and then checked out a few waterfalls the next day.

car started playin up on the way back, but nothing crazy - just a bit stoppy/surgy - so we'll have to get it checked for air leaks in the fuel injection again -

see yer

The march of the penguins

is a great film that we have just watched - its actually more documentary (narrated by morgan freeman) but its a fascinating story of the pengiuns who travel 70 miles to find a safe breeding ground, and then have to travel 70 miles back, just to get food to bring back to the chicks

defo recomended!

leavin melbourne

we actually didn't get a tram in the end, but they looked nice anyway - there is a free circular route one but we missed out on catching it

so we leave tomorrow, its been great few days - met a few of the melbourne crew - had a few good nights and days out - and today we got out to the CBD bars, such as E55 where juz used to work, St jeromes which is a lovely back street bar - and a great 'lab' themed bar called the croft institute - which was let down by a bit of a tosser bar manager!

we also checked out Black cat, the union bar , and the 'espy' down in st kilda

and for a bit of culture we checked out an exhibition at the ACMI (aus centre for moving images i think) celebrating 50 years of TV - funny though cos i think England got it in 1936, USA 1941, even ireland wasn't till 1951!! and thn oz in 1956

so now we leave, which is kinda good cos its a bit of an expenisive lifestyle (good fun though) - but we cant spend too much money here, so we got a few days in the before hitting sydney next week, hopefully for the parklife festival

have to avoid the bush fires thugh, which are apperently getting cose to sydney

great ocean road again,

most of the coast was like this stunning at every corner

great ocean road, and melbourne

Everton

are rockin at the moment, as pointed out by Jim - a win at spurs for the first time in 22 years, and beating liverpool 3-0 - brilliant!!!

perfect few days

CHEESEWORLD, LOADS OF KOALA'S, WHALES, GREAT OCEAN ROAD, AND BELLS SURFERS BEACH

talk about great times, we started off on the great ocean road and stopped at tower hill to look for Koala's - and there where loads, we saw them eating, and crawling along branches which u dont normally see

then we stopped at the whale look out and saw a couple of right whales (called so cos they where the right whales to kill - they where easy to catch and floated when dead) which pleased justine very much!!!

then we stopped at the campsite at kennet river and we saw so many koala's , we where about one meter away from a fully grown adult, eating away! and the camera had ran out of film - so gutted - but was cool to see

then we recreated a mezzo platter we had had in bellina - check this -

turkish bread
sun dried tomatoes
olives (not for me :-) )
feta cheese (marinated in chilli and garlic olive oil)
parma ham
chorizo
humous
pesto
pepper dip

absolute lunch heaven

... and that was after we had stopped at cheese world with free tasting! heaven or what

and then there was the great ocean road its self - amazing drive around the coast, its actually a memorial to the soldiers killed in the world wars - its beautiful and finishes up at bells beach where they filmed Point Break and all the surfers where there riding the massive waves!

oooh, another cool recipe which juz made, and is delicious

Pasta shells, or bows
olive oil
sliced almond nuts
avocado
black pepper
coriander
some grated ginger

cook pasta, add rest of ingredients, heat up - and then squeeze some lemon juice over it, and add some parmasan cheese

washed down with a sparkling pinot nior chardonnay

so now we are melbourne staying at tim and sams place which is lovely, we have just met my cousin , john paul for lunch, had a bottle of wine at clare's place and are just heading out to see sharon soon -

nice to have bed for a change too - !!!!

coffs harbour to adelaide

just so i remember the towns names, on the way to adelaide we passed through Dorigo, armidale, coonabarabran, forbes, dubbo, tamworth, hay, oxley nt park, barossa , adelaide

Wine wine wine!

so we headed to the barossa valley, home of many of australias best wines! ive not really done this before so was obviously a little shy of it

we checked into a lovely campsite for two days and then hit the town - first stop, Peter Lehman wines

as soon as we where through the door we where offered all sorts of wine. Basically you start with whites, then rose, then red, and maybe finish with some port ! its hilarious, thy are so pro and make you feel totally comfortable slugging away the wine

anyways, the followig day we hired bikes and toured the wineries and had the most perfect lnch at grant burge wines overlooking the hills with two free glasses of Rheisling

so, mainly for reasons of jouralism we managed to try about 5 billion wines, which are listed below and ones in caps are the ones we bought, and we've tried to list the year where we can rememeber it,

Peter Lehman
99 CAB FRANC - lovely !!!
02 shiraz muscadelle - ok
01 pinot noir - nice
04 cab merlot - lovely
98 black queen shiraz - gorge wine!
04 shiraz - lovely again

Langmeil
00 Hangin snake shiraz vognier (red/white) - very nice
04 SHIRAZ GREACHE MOUVERDERE (GSM) - lovely wine! purchased
96 port, gorge
01 port - good

Domain Barossa
choc liqueur - mmmmmmmm
04 rhesling - ok
?? chardonnay
deseert wine - sweet, not good
06 GSM - nice

Rockford wines
semillion white - nice
Rod and spur shiraz/cab
Rose - nice

Charles Melton
06 ROSE OF VIRGINIA gorge, and bought :-)
00 Laura shiraz - very nice indeed
04 shiraz - top notch this on
04 shiraz - very good

Kabminye (bit vague this one, can t remember much)
sparkling white pinot noir chardonnay - lovely
03 semmillion - nice
04 merlot
05 rheisling

Grant burge (great lunch stop)
sparkling pinot chardonay - lovely
03 semmillon
04 merlot - very nice
05 rheslig - ok

Bethany - lovely setting up on the hills
04 grenache - very nice
04 chardonnay - ok
02 SHIRAZ CABERNET - bought - soooooooo nice!
04 cab merlot - lovely too
03 shiraz - good

Stanley
semillon - nice
choc port - amazing !!! we met the women who made the recipe, so bloody nice!

Richmond grove
chardonnay pinot noir - lovely!
04 CAB MERLOT - bought, lovely
cab sav - nice

all in all a load of great wines, in great places and a top campsite - perfect couple of days really! 100% recomended to anyone

Astronomy

we are now fully qualified telescope geeks - we went to this thing called skywatch the other night in coonabarabran. Its mainly for tourists but is set up pretty well with a powerful telescope in one of those funny dome buildings, where the roof retracts and moves left and right

so we managed to see and learn a few things, namely

you can see jupiter most night, and through the telescope you can see its 5 moons (it actually has loads more too)

we saw a start cluster with about a million stars all packed closely together (i think it was called omega centurian)

our closest star which is the brightest is alpha centurian, which when viewed through the telescope is actually two stars very close together - nuts! Its also 4 light years away

we also looked closely at the moon and could see all the craters perfectly

Pluto is smaller than australia!

You can see the milky way clear here too, it forms a cloud like band right across the top of the sky at night

all in all a lovely night!

Adelaide

we've made it here - finally - and it looks lovely - lots of nice old buildings and funky bars - and there is even a birkenhead here too which we have to check out!

the last few days have been gorgeous, out in the middle of nowhere, just cruising through the changing country side. It started with the hills around dorigo, then ebor falls, then coonabarabran, and a few more places i cant remember the names of - and then last night was in the Barossa wine region, so we are gonna head back there for sure to do some tasting

Lennox head and , mmmmmmmm, chilllllii!

no way siddles, we where there a few times, just to escape byron - i forgot yer folks there, would have said hello! doh

anyways it was beautiful there, had one of the best sandwiches of my life there as well

As for the trip, we have cut inland at coffs harbour and are travelling along the waterfall way, and it is superb - we went to dorigo national park (see picture) and did a big walk which was great through the rainforest - and last night we stayed in a diff national park, and i cooked up a lovely chilli con carne on the fire, complete with rice and garlic bread! bloody lovely - washed down with a cask of merlot!

happy days!

change of plan

aquick change of plane, we are actually two days away from sydney, but we think we are gopnna cut inland, head through the outback, over to adelaide, melbourne, and then sydney

see how it goes i reckon, but sounds fun

see yer