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You are browsing the archives of 2007 February.

I really wanted to go to Ramsay Street as all good university leavers do. It is something of a rite of passage that one watches Neighbours while at uni, and, when visiting Australia, must come back clutching a photo of themselves with some member of the Neighbours cast.
I had one of the finest moments of [...]

We saw much in Melbourne, as we were there sporadically over 2 months, and now I’ve had the time, I’ve compiled a few photos and a bit of info about the things we saw and did. There is also much more, which we’ve covered before, so look around the rest of the blog if you’re [...]

There’s a rock near Mebourne, on the Beaconsfield-Emerald Road, which is called “Elephant Rock”. This is because the rock looks like an elephant.
The obvious thing to do with a rock shaped like an elephant is to paint it. That is just what the local people do…
The design and message changes alomst daily, and the photo [...]

The recent lack in development of The Big Project, indeed of any posts to the blog has mainly been due to the remote locations we have been staying!
As mentioned in previous posts, for the past few days we have been staying in the Grampians National Park. The stay there consisted of a few days ‘bush [...]

Vineyards and Wineries in the Pyrenees
The Pyrenees are renowned for their great reds, the area around Ballaraat being better known for sparkling wines and whites.
We have so far visited Warrenmang Vineyard and Resort. We had a warm welcome from the friendly staff and were treated to enjoyable wine tasting session at the cellar door. Out [...]

As an aside, we found that the Visitor Information services at Dunkeld and Stawell were woefully inadequate. They had limited knowledge of the local area, fire ban details, closure of parts of the national park (since last January 2006!) or campsites within 5 miles. We advise all visitors to drop in at the Hall’s Gap Visitor Information Centre before camping out in the Grampians. They will tell you which campsites have reopened since last year’s fire, the latest weather reports and fire ban information. You can also access the internet at their cafe -though it is painfully slow.

One hint for outdoors enthusiasts is to climb Mount Difficult and Camp on the summit to complete the walk to Rose Gap next day. The view from the summit is stunning and the route is not so spoon-fed and crowded as many of the lookouts in the National Park. However, it lives up to its namesake and plenty of rests, water and food should be taken. It is a “strenuous walk” as all the signs indicate - they are not wrong!

Australian signs and posts should always be heeded as they are always accurate. We were driving along what we thought was the bumpiest road in the world when we saw an almost laughable sign saying “Rough Surface Ahead”. Sure enough, we went from bone rattling to bone shattering.

As we suspected, we suddenly changed our minds last night and decided we would not continue along the ocean to Adelaide and insteadc cut inland this morning towards the Grampians.
The Southern Ocean coastline visible from the Great Ocean Road is pretty spectacular, and the towns, restaraunts and shops are all worth visiting. However, having stayed [...]

I am using dial up internet at a campsite as i write this so I’ll keep things brief.
We set off today on an indefinite drive, and began with the Great Ocean Road. This is a road which we have heard a lot about from various people, including my mum and dad who travelled it last [...]

I have succumbed to the general will and am now accepting Paypal donations. This is mainly due to the number of requests I have had to use Paypal. So, if you want to give me some pounds or dollars, you can now do so using Paypal…
Click here to donate to Rob using Paypal.
I’ll get the [...]

We finally bought the car, and got it home, the Mitsubishi Pajero is ours!
Like everything in Australia “The Cheapest Cars in Town” in Ferntree Gully, Victoria, is aptly and very accurately named. As was the owner of the car yard: Shane.
Shane is a really nice guy, and an archetypal Australian to boot. Firstly, he very [...]