Into The Bush!!!

Hello There,

Wednesday 1st February

We left Port Campbell early the next had brekky at 7am and left by 7.30 for a drive to Grampians National Park on the way we stopped at the 12 Apostles Lee took the optional Helicopter ride over the 12 apostles we have good photos of that will try and put some up asap he said it was amazing experience quite bumpy but you had amazing views of the Apostles from there we travelled along more of the Great Ocean Road stopping at more places for photos such as Loch Ard Gorge where we saw a brown snake one of the dangerous ones you ca find in Oz.

luckily it was a small one prob a baby one and it wasnt bothered about me and Lee we did get a photo!! and The London Bridge formation my opinion is it didnt look nothing like London
Bridge, from there we then travelled through country to Victoria on the way we had a quick stop at subway that was our lunch for today not bad especially as it was FREE the one good thing about this tour is the food included Breakfast Lunch and dinner!!! once we had arrived at
Grampians National Park we had two options available this afternoon a 2.5 ks up a mountain or the other option was 1km walk to a waterfall supposedly FLAT (my arse!!!!!) it was not flat and there were alot of rocks to climb over and at the end there was no waterfall more like a leaking tap!! but we did get to sit in the sun for alittle while and see a Porcupine on the way back which was cool.

we then headed to our motel in Halls Gap a place where the Grampians set Grampians is the National Park for the night dump bags and headed back to the hostel where the rest of the group were staying for dinner we had spag bol an it wasnt the best but it was hot and free !!!! after dinner we went back to the Motel opened a bottle of wine and sat out looking out to
all the Kangaroos they were so close to us it was unbelieveable and two of them starting bitch fighting very cool!!!

Thursday 2nd February

Leaving the Halls Gap breakfast at 7am and leaving at 7.30 to drive to Adelaide on the way we stop at MacKenzie Falls just a 20 min drive from Halls Gap the walk to the falls was hard work well going down was easy but coming back up was not so easy alot of steps it was a good work out for that time in the morning the falls were amazing !! after the falls we were back one
the road crossed over the broader from Victoria into South Australia we stop to look at White Western Grey Kangaroos basically Kangaroos that are white !!! we stopped for lunch about 2.5 hours from Adelaide.

it was a mini park area with swings and Slides very cool we were having you guess a BBQ burgers and salad mmmmm after lunch packed up and ended for Adelaide this is where the fun
starts well to be honest we have had problems with this tour since the beginning going back to when we first looked to booking a tour back home lee found one with a company
called Top Deck doing the same route as we are now he emailed them as there website stated an age limit which i wont mention but it did and Jane was over that age
they emailed lee back to stay no sorry the age is the age and they couldn't book her on no problem lee then found another company called Adventure Tours they had no age limit
and we booked on both tour companies doing the same tour route turning up at our pick up point in Melbourne Top Deck turned up the people wont let us book they have now joined in some way but they are in the transfer period of brill we thought at the time it was funny but along the way stopping at different places because we had paid to upgrade from hostel to
motel we kept asking the tour guide where are we staying then as she was only giving the run down of the hostel where everyone else was staying, going back to Adelaide we arrive after a long day of travelling.

we arrive there around 6.30pm they dropped us off at the YHA hostel in town telling us we were staying there as well even though we had booked upgrade we thought oh well as long as we have a private room its ok the guide dropped us all outside unloaded our bags a pissed off after waiting for about 15 mins the the Q for checking the guy told lee he had no booking and we would have to pay to stay there lee lost it a little and Jane went outside for a fag to calm down and i sat there counting to 10 i said to lee lets call the motel we had listed in our notes and see if they have a booking for us he asked the reception guy to find the telephone number for us and lee called and surprise surprise they had a booking it was about a 15 min walk away from where we were which wasn't to bad we checked dumped our bags and found the nearest bottle shop we needed a drink oh there was one next to our motel !!!

Friday 3rd February

Today we had a day tour first we went to Haighs Chocolate Factory it was ok they chowed you what they do but i wasn't interest in how its made just how nice it tasted and we got to taste a little not much but enough to go mmmmmmmmmm and a free coffee after we headed to Mount Lofty not sure what that was about but i did mange to buy a nice pair of earrings in the gift shop there so i didn't really see the view after there we went to Hahndorf i had some nice mini donuts they were nice apart from that it was just alittle town nothing special after lunch we then went on a WINE TASTING TOUR yey !!!!

we went to the Barossa Valley we went tot three different wineries cant tell you the names they weren't well known ones but the wines were good well the first one was shit they tried to go to much into the making of wine and all we wanted was to taste it and the little amount they gave us i count taste it but the other two were great we had a menu and could pick what we wanted to taste they kept puring we kept asking !! after three wineries we headed back to town early night as a early start the next day being picked up to start the next 7 days of our tour to Alice Springs.

Saturday 4th February

WE were advised that our pick up would be at 6.15 am outside our motel but before leaving the Hostel on the friday i swapped mobile number with a girl travelling with in case they didnt pick us up and yes you guess it they didnt she texted me at 6.25 saying on our way the guide said i had you down for staying at the YHA hostel and we told him the story about dropping us there and not being booked there etc Lee told him he had phoned the office and they confirmed the pick up time and place the guide asked who did you call lee said Adventure tours and the guide said oh you should have phoned Top deck thats why this happen by that point i had lost it i said to him in a stern voice but we dont have any details for Top Deck we booked with Adventure because top deck wouldnt take us !!! OMG starting to lose my sense of humour with this company big time!!!!....

So we drove for about 90 mins and then stopped off for brekky (coffee and toast). We were advised that we should buy some supplies as we wouldn't see a supermarket for a while, so we did the decent thing and bought a case of wine!!! We had another couple of stops and we got
to the town we are staying at for 2 nights called Quorn.. In the afternoon we had the choice of an 8ks hike or chilling out, so we chillled out lol.. It's a pretty small town we are staying in (population 1300).. Tonight we had a bbq for tea. We had Camel Sausages, Buffalo Burgers and Kangaroo steaks (with salad) it was lovely. Afterwards we had a couple of drinks at the local pub attached to our hotel and then called it a night