This is Cape Schanck on the Mornington Peninsula which we explored after visiting Marc and Sam last weekend. They treated us to our first truly Aussie Barbecue and a wonderful piece of Lamb. Thanks Guys. This week has been very busy we have driven into Melbourne everyday so far. Monday we drove back from Mornington, Tuesday I had an interview with Verve followed by a property viewing in the area, Wednesday I went in for my second test with UA Creative, Thursday Karen had an interview with runproperty and I did my first bit of freelance Photography for ANCR on the Proximity development. Outcomes of interviews will have to wait until the next post.

We have left South Australia and followed the south coast into Victoria. This is London Bridge, or at least it was when a second arch connected it to the mainland. In 1990 it collapsed leaving a couple of tourists stranded on Australia‘s newest island. They were later rescued by helicopter.

We are now camped at the Avalon Rest Area which is a truck stop 50km from Melbourne and 20km from Geelong. It is the first free site we have stayed at with warm showers. Geelong faces Melbourne from the other side of the huge Port Phillip Bay. It is also where we have spent the last couple of days making use of the free internet in it’s libraries to look for work.

Melbourne is Australia‘s second largest city, although maybe not for much longer. It has grown by more than Sydney every year since the 2000 Olympics. It is also second only to London in the number of visitors to this blog so I feel duty bound to get some great shots of the city. If any Melburnians know of a good place we can park the Van while I photograph the city please leave a comment.

Since leaving Adelaide we have been exploring the Fleurieu Peninsula. This shot was taken at Goolwa Beach which is the location of Karen’s earliest memories. Her parents, Bob and Val, owned a beach house here 40 years ago. We visited Mannum yesterday and took a couple of ferries across the Murry River to reach our campsite at Narrung between Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. Next we head towards Mount Gambier.

This is the Adelaide Skyline looking across the River Torrens. This is similar to the first blog I posted in Australia of the Perth Skyline. We have decided to spend an extra week in Adelaide as the van needs some further maintenance and it makes sense to fix it while we are in a city. We are waiting for a new air in-take hose to arrive from Sydney and our 3 way fridge only seems to work on gas. 12v and 240v no longer chill so its more like a 1 way fridge at the moment. The weather is very warm too.

This is the River Torrens which flows past our campsite and all the way into central Adelaide. We walked into town last week following the river, and have visited the Museum and Gallery of Art with Blan, an old friend of Karen’s mum. It must be said Adelaide has an abundance of parkland. Even the city centre itself is circled twice by a figure eight of gardens. A green belt in the true sense of the word, although I am sure it is a lovely place to live, job opportunities here seem to be fairly limited. We have booked one more week in our current campsite as we still have a few things to see and do in the city. Unless we strike lucky with a job we will probably start down the Great Ocean Drive towards Melbourne at the end of the month.

Due to many recommendations we decided to follow the coast around the Eyre Peninsula rather than taking the direct route to Adelaide. The coast continues to provide spectacular views such as this Osprey nest. When taking this picture I was torn between the desire to get the right angle for the shot and the instinct of self preservation which kicks in being so close to the edge of a cliff. Even Karen got very close to the edge in order to see the nest on the monolith. We are currently in the fishing town of Port Lincoln and expect to reach Adealade in 3-4 days.

We drove out of Western Australia on the 1st of March. This is the view at the Head of the Great Australian Bight in South Australia. Between June and October large schools of Southern Wright Whales can be seen hear on their annual breeding migration. The ranger told us numbers seem to be on the rise although he was concerned about the effects of BP using explosives to search for oil off the coast this year. Some fisherman had seen changes in behaviour of other marine life since BP started working in the area. We discovered our vans 30 litre tank seems to leak water when we are on the move. It has not been much of a problem yet as we have 46 litres of bottled water on board. Although every roadhouse and campsite has signs up informing you not to even ask for water as it is in such short supply we have managed to fill our tank once on the roadside from conveniently located rain catchers. These are tennis court sized roofs with guttering leading to a storage tank with a tap on. We have made good progress. Often covering 350km a day. We still hope to be in Adelaide before the end of the Fringe Festival on the 18th March.

We have been packing our van all day and plan to hit the road again tomorrow morning. I have posted this old image as our first port of call will be the worlds only full size stone replica of Stonehenge. The Esperance Stonehenge may not be 4000 years old but it does have all the missing stones and you can walk among them. There may be no sense of history but it will doubtless look more like the original Stonehenge did when it was first built. Although opinions are varied I am curious about what a bran-new prehistoric calendar looks like.

Update: New Stonehenge

These are the Stirling Ranges which we drove through three months ago on our way to Hopetoun. Time has flown by here and we will soon be hitting the road again and heading for Adelaide. We estimate it will take us two weeks to drive there and we hope to arrive before the end of the Adelaide Fringe on the 18th March.

This is Twelve Mile Beach. It is the campsite we stayed at when we first arrived in Hopetoun. Like many places in Western Australia there are no free campsites within a certain distance of the town. Twelve Mile is far enough out of town that you can stay there for free. I had to wait a couple of weeks to get a shot of a full moon to composite in. As it is a local shot I may get it framed for The Deck Gallery but I do not know how well photoshop trickery sells in print. What do you think?