On the road in Oz

Tasmania is a tough act to follow. But we did our best by road tripping through Victoria and South Australia. The first few days we drove the great ocean road in Victoria, spending three nights in Apollo Bay - a classic tourist beach town where we surfed (sort of), attempted to hike (turns out most hikes are really short walks), saw koalas and aborted a visit to a "scenic lighthouse" because they wanted $20 each for the pleasure (we've already seen a few in Maine). To recover from our rigorous road trip, we spent three nights relaxing at a little studio apartment in the Barossa Valley - if you've never tried Air Bnb, we highly recommend it - and doing some serious wine tasting. Something like 20 vineyards in 4 days. It was rough.

Pictures can be found here: https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/5994629804271970657

After that, it was back to roughing it in South Australia, and some serious driving. It reminded us of driving through Kansas, except for the constant threat of a kangaroo or emu running into the road. We spent one night in the little (really little) town of Melrose, where there's the North Star hotel. The best pub we've been to so far, complete with endearing bartender, local drunk and a helpful local who invited us to camp on his farm on our way back to Melbourne. Then it was back to hiking: alligator gorge (no alligators, but the ever-present threat of snakes), Wilpena Pound, and Rawnsley's Bluff. Hundreds of annoying flies aside, it was beautiful country and a good lesson in geology. The rocks change color with the light, there are kangaroos, emus and goats everywhere, and we enjoyed a blissfully quiet, dark campsite at Wilpena (dark campsites being hard to find in Australia given the proclivity for streetlights in holiday parks, which are basically fields of RVs with our tiny tent in their midst). To top off our Aussie roadtrip, we stopped at our new friend's farm on the Murray River and enjoyed another quiet night of camping overlooking a beautiful river and its resident pelicans. Nevermind the "Danger Snakes" sign.

Pictures from South Australia can be found here: https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/5996138697562193313

And as an aside: internet in Australia is sparse and slow. And in New Zealand it's sparse, slow, and expensive (you pay by the megabyte, because NZ has a single internet cable to Australia and is otherwise cut off from the 21st century). So our posts may be a bit sporadic these next few months - bear with us. We promise it will be worth the wait...