Eh!

Glasgow average annual rainfall - 889mm

Melbourne average annual rainfall - 650mm

Melbourne is a barren desert and Glasgow suffers an embarassment of riches.

Only explanation is that sometime in July, Melbourne will get floods of biblical proportions.

The Big Chill

Although its been Winter here for a few weeks, with the Solstice this is the first official day of Winter.

Melburnians have been complaining how cold its been here, one of the coldest Winters in years.

I've come out in Solidarity, and have taken to wearing a light jumper when I go out.

Great Ocean Road - The Trip Home

Port Fairy - from the sublime to the ridiculous. It used to be called Belfast, and presumably after the 8,000th tourist told them what the connotations were, they changed it - to Port Fairy!

The original name however was the give away, and this quaint fishing village by the Ocean was filled with raven haired, pale skinned people, with believe it or not, the smell of peat coming out the chimneys at night. Unfortunately it copped the rain big time, with the local supermarket seeming to be raining inside as well as out as staff run around with buckets.

We enjoyed our meal out the night before, despite the Irish theme continuing, with an absolutely plastered Irish couple at the table next to us. The girl spilled drinks over the table all night (clearly they'd been in the pub all day), and if the guy thought it was drink money well spent, I wish him luck, as he basically had to carry her out the restaurant.

We leave Port Fairy with 300k to go. Rather than the indulgence of wandering back down the Great Coast Road, we hit the A1 road straight through the countryside back to Geelong, and then the freeway to Melbourne.

Our one stop off is about 40k into the journey at Warrnambool. This is the home of Logan's Beach - one of the great Southern Right whale breeding grounds at this time of year. If you want the gory details they're called "right" whales because they're the right one's to kill. They're pretty slow, carry a lot of blubber, and float when they die - nice!

We saw nothing and just managed the dry 15 minutes between the Ocean squalls so left quickly.

Our one other stop in the 5 hour dash was in some bogan farming town for sandwiches and coffee. I'm sure I left just that little bit quicker than I arrived.

Looking back on the trip we enjoyed it despite the weather. It turned out to be so much more than a road drive though, and we missed so much: the Otway Fly Walk over the rain forest (sadly a bit like the walk over in "I'm a Celeb Get me Outta Here"), the Bay of Islands which we briefly passed, seeing endless sea stacks crammed in a bay, looking like a fleet of stone long ships, The Arch, what's left of London Bridge, and generally longer walks in the Otway National park.

Looks like we'll have to go back again and ignore the beaches.

Great Ocean Road - Day Two

We leave Apollo Bay in the morning, leaving the coast for a little while to go through the Otway National Park.

Bizzarely, in an area suffering from a 10 year drought, this is a rain forest. We randomly stop off at the Maits Rest car park and suddenly walk into a slightly cold and certainly damp rain forest environment. Ferns erupt everywhere, with the biggest Eucalyptus I've ever seen punching through the canopy way up into the sunlight. I guess with the moisture, it was no suprise to see some of the most stunning fungi.

We then head out of the rainforest back to the coast and down to the Cape Otway lighthouse. The whole Ocean Road coast is known as a bit of a shipwreck area, and is filled with lighthouses, with this one jutting out the furthest south.

On the way, we go through a landscape with signs saying look out for 'roos and Koala's. 'Roos proved elusive, but about 10 mins before the lighthouse, Caitlin spotted her first Koala. After nearly crashing (I swerved to the verge, slamming on the brakes when Caitlin shouted "Koala!") and narrowly avoiding the 3 cars behind us, we stop for photos.

Koala's are truly stoned on whatever they eat, and definitely meet the 18 hour sleep per day category. We shouted, we clapped, we waved, we contemplated throwing sticks but he wouldn't move.

On the way back to the car, knowing what to look for, we spot two other Koala. Similarly they wouldn't move, despite me climbing half way up one of their trees. During this 20 minute interlude we have about 15 Aussie cars wandering by, I imagine saying - "God - pommies taking pics of those Koala's again". I got my own back 10 mins later, by looking reasonably disinterested at what could have been one of hundreds of UK lighthouse sites, watching excited Aussies running around.

After the Cape we hit the Ocean road again, randomly stopping at another car park. This turned out to be Castle Cove. The view from the top looked promising, but after a surpisingly short walk to the beach (considering the height of the cliff) we end up watching some stunning surf. Similar to yesterday in Torquay with its reliability, but these are regulalry 8-10 foot waves. The roar as they hit every 10 seconds is awesome, and the sandy colour of the waves as they hit the beach shows how much they're chewing up the landscape. We had 20 mins being mesmerised by this before the weather, and a worry about children being swept away forced us to leave. Confusingly this means that stopping at every beach has its merits.

After the Cove, with deterioating weather we arrived at probably the most iconic part of the road - the 12 Apsotles. The weather was pretty grim, but we managed to get some pictures (despite driving rain splattered all over the camera lense), appreciated the view, and narrowly avoided deciding on the toursity helicopter trip. There were other sites near here including the Bay of Islands and the Loch Ard area, but the weather was grim and we had kilometeres to go.

At his point we had a fairly long way to our second night stop - Port Fairy. As the road went inland at this point, despite somewhat litiginiously still being called the Great Ocean Road, we went for getting the miles in rather than touristy wandering.

By this time it was absolutely chucking it down as only Austalia can. Like the the English with snow, Aussies can't drive in the rain for toffee. As a Scot however, I'm peculiarly trained for both, and we drove on at a suicidial pace, regularly passing the big multi cyclinder Ute's as they crawled (sensibly) along.

Finally we arrived at Port Fairy, the details of which I'll leave until the last day notes.

Great Ocean Road - Day One

So here we are, start of a long weekend or Bank Holiday. Bizzarely for a Country that really wants to become a Republic, this Long Weekend is in honour of the Queens birthday - which even Britain doesn't have a holiday for. Any excuse I suppose to find a break, and I'm not complaining.

We've decided to take a trip down that iconic road trip: the Great Ocean Road. Starting about 100k west of Melbourne and running (sort of) along the coast for the next 200 plus kilometres.

We leave Melbourne through the main toll roads, with me getting a little nervous again about whether I've registered properly. We then drive past the industrial super complex of Geelong - home to the all conquering footie team, the Geelong Cats. Any team that has won 53 out of its last 55 games is just to boring to be a fan of. Finally we arrive at Torquay (yup honest), official start of the road.

The warning here is to recognise the best is yet to come, and not stop off at every single beach you see . However you can see why this area is the surfing capital of Australia: from Torquay to Angelsea, Bells Beach etc we stop off at one beach after another, with endless Ocean rollers coming in. They're probably not huge, but they're just so predicatable. You can see these blue creases in the Ocean for hundreds of metres out, metronomically crashing into the beach one after another, with perfectly curling breaks on them.

After lunch we then take the trip through to Lorne and finishing off at Apollo Bay. The trip to Lorne is meant to be iconic Coast road, and certainly delivered. The beaches have disappeared, to be replaced by vertiginous green covered hillsides plunging to the sea, with the road weaving in and out and around, about 50 metres above the waves.

Being the driver is a nightmare, as you continually get ready to slap a cliff face or plunge off an edge as you're distracted by the scenery. Thrown into this is the Hollywood set of those houses on stilts. I've never driven the Big Sur in California, but from what I've read and seen in movies, this is redolent of that road. Huge holiday homes perched on the slopes above us held up by massive struts as they jut out into the sky - view must be amazing.

As we rolled though Lorne, with the sun setting, you could see what looked like a heavy mist hanging in the trees around a town that hung on to the slopes. It was all very atmospheric, but only closer inspection revealed what turned out to be vast amounts of smoke from people's chimney's hanging in the air. They're a mad Country: they worry about their water and then let all the rain water wash away, and have no desire to have water treatment plants. They're also such a green country but they're powered by brown coal, some of the dirtiest CO2 polluters in the world, and of course along the coast have no sense of smoke pollution.

It was nearly dark when we arrived at Apollo Bay. The final stop off was 6k short, where we weaved up into the hills to look at a recommended restaurant. High in the hills, looking over the bay, floor to ceiling windows. I felt a little like the Little Matchgirl peering through the window, but confirmed that a damask napkin service and what looked like 3 wine glasses per place meant with young children we'd have to pass.

We ended up in Apollo Bay in our surpisingly good, split level motel room having beers and pizza from the local Italian restaurant. Apollo Bay itself was a little "kiss me quickly" hats but the view ad general atmosphere fought through.

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.

In reality its probably not a scary figure, and I can imgaine many towns in the UK have a similar stat. However it was a bit worrying today to hear that Melbourne has 400 days supply of water. Bit scary in a City of nearly 4 million.

Ballarat - The Rich Seam

The scene is Sovereign Hill, Ballarat: a recreation of the 1850 gold rush, and history of the town that developed around it. The husband was stressed from a hard week at work, and was initially dubious after seeing the asylum like bunk beds he is expected to sleep in. Child 1 - could be anywhere, who cares so long as I get to stay up late, eat lots of sweets and play with other family's children. Child 2 - "I won't have to go on a roller coaster will I?" -Bless no Ciara, we won't send you on the Tower Of Terror like we did in Disney!

So after the bags were thrown quickly into the room, Grant's from the doorway, as after catching sight of the beds he isn't even gonna cross the threshold until he's had a stiff drink, we set off for the Village .

We entered through an 1850 Chinese Protector's house, lovingly recreated in every detail, as we stepped back in time to the Ballarat gold rush. What a strange experience to walk into a historically correct town complete with actors scurrying around in vintage costume carrying baskets as if on an errand, or chatting together in huddles on the street corners. Real fires were burning in all the hearths, and braziers lit outside (well they were right to warn us about the cold weather). The houses scattered around the impressively large site were filled with an array of Victorian furniture and memorabilia, although each had been done in a style to suit the person that had once lived in them. Sitting on a porch playing banjo, accordion and pipes were three elderly gentlemen, who wouldn't have looked out of place on a set for "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly", whilst a carriage drawn by a team of 4 horses transported baggage and tourists down the muddy dirt track of a high street. What a difference to Melbourne's CBD we'd left 2 hours previously.

Every building seemed to have some sort of entertainment in store for us all, and foolishly we started in the theatre where a small crowd were already seated and smiling at an elderly gentleman I mistook for the warm up act. I later find out that a lot of the people performing or walking around in costume, do this voluntarily and it immediately became obvious that this guy must be one of those volunteers, as the silence after his jokes was deafening and he floundered like a fish on a hook, desperately telling us historical facts, whilst attempting to do basic juggling and odd bits of magic . We are sure it's his wife who has volunteered him to come and entertain (mmm) the crowds. When his back was was turned to the organ to play a musical ditty we scarpered being one of only 5 left in the audience !

We are then joined thankfully by the Archard clan who proceeded to pull us down to the gold panning section, recreated around a fake creek in the tented section of town. It was at this point a strange transformation came over Mother Archard, as with a steely glint in her eye she pushed small children and Japanese tourists asunder as she searched for the perfect panning dish.

She then proceeded to teach the 6 assorted children the basics of finding gold, relaying previous adventures of her first forays to Oz when she spent a great deal of time on this very activity -along with looking for precious stones (odd as she was meant to be working!). The remaining adults watched in amusement as Bes found gold in the bottom of her pan and her zeal and enthusiasm caught in the group like swine Flu in Sunshine- sorry topical joke!

Now all the children were desperately panning, whilst Bes bought bottles of water to place their finds in, and we pondered as the kids become increasingly soaked as they waded further and further into the brook pouring murky water down themselves in their quest for riches. It took a further hour to pull the obsessed brood and mother from the waters and only a promise of food enticed them from their labours.

Fitting in a quick tea, we headed back in darkness for the Light Extravaganza 'Blood on The southern Cross.' We now witnessed a show worthy of Disney, and huge in its construction, as we were led around the hill, walking and on open coaches, to watch various recreations of the times and the story of the first Aussie uprising against the British army (mostly involving the Irish and Scots -so nothing changes there!!!) The evening show finished with an impressive finale involving burning down a hotel (unfortunately not ours) and it seemed so real I felt the need to have a drink to quieten my nerves from all the bloodshed . So a bottle of wine and a few wassabi peas later- the beds seem a godsend !

Day 2, and by now we are used to seeing the strange sites around town. We started the day with another visit to the gold panning -and even Grant and myself joined in this venture, after receiving some lucky origami stars from a Chinese interpreter we found hiding in one of the tents on last night's set! The stars are indeed fortuitous: we overtook Bes' meagre pickings in one pan load and must have found a rich seam or the spot where the staff had thrown the gold filings that morning.

We also summoned the courage to do the mine tour which involved going 60ft underground in pitch black, bar the kids mobile in the row behind, and for the first time in my life I experienced genuine claustrophobia. Not sure why it should strike at this particular time as I have been in many caves, but probably the first since seeing 'The Descent', so maybe therein lies the answer.
We went on to hear about the conditions the miners worked in, from the Thunderbox to the Widowmaker, a piece of machinery (and now I am about to become technical, so for all of you who just like a good yarn with no detail skip the next paragraph) that drills sections of rock at high speed, but at the same time causes silicates to fill the air. If you are the unlucky miner wielding the equipment these silicates are inhaled into your lungs, which is the equivalent of breathing in microscopic shards of glass. And so you die of silicosis which involves coughing up lumps of blood and lung usually by the age of 40. By the way mean life expectancy during the 1850's in Ballarat was 40 for men and 35 for women!! Still at least we wouldn't have to worry about a pension .

The next show involved the pouring of molten gold to form a bar. The gentleman who performed this feat kept us enthralled with the dangers of heating gold up to 1400 degrees Celsius, and what effects a single drop would have on us if he dropped the graphite container that held it. Once the bar was formed, he then doused it in cold water enabling it to be handled within a couple minutes, but as he put his hand into the container of water, let out a shriek - as did I!, and I jumped about a mile in the air waiting for the smell of incinerated flesh to invade my nostrils. As I opened my eyes I realised in fact it was part of the act,which everyone else had obviously seen before or so I told myself.

And now I shall quickly scan past the genuine bakery (although I did not and spent 45 minutes deciding which cake to eat before choosing a jumbo Chelsea bun the size of a football pitch), the candle makers shop where the kids dipped candles in a variety of dyes after hearing and watching old fashioned candle making, the photographer's shop where you could dress up in olden day costumes and have a family portrait done -(I was the only one keen), and a variety of other shops selling sweets, coffins and the likes, to finally get to the gold museum as we head out of town.

It is here I finish my tale as I read in awe about the 71kg nugget they pulled out from 2.5cm below the ground calling it the Welcome Stranger. It certainly would be welcome and I understand a little of what the people who were attracted to this godforsaken hell hole must have come for: a promise of a life of wealth far different from the ones they had left, but obtained on sheer luck and with no prior knowledge or abilities or connections and not recognising class or nationality.

Still don't think I would have been one of them unless of course we'd been discovering 71kg Chelsea buns!!