Sydney

From Melbourne we flew into Sydney to meet up with our moms! Lucky for us that meant a few nights in a HOTEL! If you have traveled and stayed in hostels for an extended period of time I'm sure you would understand how amazing a hotel was for us, and if not, trust us it was a treat! We even got to watch American Idol! The first night we went to a bar and actually won some money...on crabs! The bar had crab races where you bet on a crab and the first crab to run off the table is the winner. I think it was the crab painted with a Japanese flag that won it for us and our next round was free! Fun night! The next day we decided to head to Bondi Beach, such a beautiful spot! Had lunch at a restaurant hanging over the water! The rest of the time we explored the city, even took a harbor cruise around! (k not really, it was a ferry ride but still it was great!) It was so great being with the moms and sad to leave them (and the beautiful hotel!)

Melbourne & The Great Ocean Road

So we arrived in Melbourne after the mild climate of New Zealand to 110 degree weather. We checked into our hostel and found out that all our research to find a good one failed. It was a complete disaster and in our bedroom that night while we slept it was 94 degrees (at one in the morning). We tried to tour the city the next day, which was beautiful with all of the old buildings, but had to stop every 10 minutes to walk into a cold store or cafe.

After doing two nights in the horible hostel we headed out for the Great Ocean Road. We rented a car, which was an adventure at first driving on the left side of the road and on the right side of the car. It was so nice to be in a car and be able to do our own thing since it had been about 5 weeks of no driving! The drive is absolutely amazing, kind of like driving on PCH but 100 times better. We hadn't planned where we wanted to stay that night but when we got there we found a really funky hostel that was right on the beach. It was more like an old house converted into a hostel.

The next day on the way home we did most of the sight seeing. We stopped to see the 12 Apostles, the London Bridge, and some Arc that were all rock formations made by the ocean. We also veered a little off the actual road to drive through the rainforest and do a walk through it. The best part was definitely seeing koalas in the wild! We were on a stretch of road where we had been told we could spot them and Britt was searching in the trees to see them while Shanna was driving. Britt shouted "I SEE ONE! I SEE ONE" so Shanna veered off to the side of the road in what wasn't even a lane...it looked more like we had crashed into the forest. Up in the trees, so high you could hardly even see it was a koala. We were so excited when a guy driving by stopped to tell us that you could see more, much better around the corner (we felt kind of dumb!) Sure enough, we pulled over 5 minutes later and there was a koala so close on the tree branches and so low we could have touched it! Probably one of the high points of the trip!

After the Ocean Road we were happy to be checking into a new, and airconditioned hostel in St. Kilda, another part of Melbourne. It was a really cute beach area with a strand of little cafes and bars. Soooo much better than the first hostel! We didn't really luck out with weather considering in rained when we got to St. Kilda but it was still really fun to be there and so much better than the heat.

After St. Kilda we were headed to Sydney to meet our moms!