Melbourne & the Great Ocean Road - VIDEO

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Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road

Ready for a deja vu!? here we go. We arrived in Melbourne and were picked up from the airport by Sophie's friend from the Olympics, Alex and his fiance. From then on, we started discovering Melbourne:

Southbank Footbridge - Love is in the air.... in Melbourne!

InterContinental, The Rialto, everywhere... and this one is truly amazing!

Bridge view!

Meet up with Jade and Mary again: Thailand - Bali - Australia!

A little music... same concept of "Play Me" everywhere it seems, from London to Melbourne!

Music Festival in Melbourne, dance, music and good times!

What you say?

And then we started escaping to the GREAT OCEAN ROAD

TORQUAY

Our first stop was in Torquay, in OZ might I precise, not in GB, as there also exists a "Torquay" in UK! (Private joke, hey Sophie!). We decided to book an AirBnb and ended up in this amazing house with great hosts, British and living there since 10 yrs!

AirBnb is a great concept which consists in staying at someone's place, spare room and making use of all the facilities in the house. This is great for those who have become curios/nosy buggers over the years (NAT). You get to know all about someone's life and look in their kitchen cupboards, fridge etc.. 

Torquay was suppose to be the biggest town on our way, well, safe to say the ones coming were going to be tiny as Torquay's town centre was all but a couple of streets... slightly different from to Sydney.

Ready to go!

Driver: Sophie

Passenger & GPS Manager: Nat

Our AirBnb in Torquay 

Sophie at "Point Danger" in Torquay
From far

Lovely colours
Close up!

And Nat

Torquay Beach

Split Point Lighthouse

SUGARLOAF

Our second stop was located on the coast, 30km from Lorne. We stayed in a converted monastery with amazing views. Nathalie felt like she was at her British grandmother's place with cutlery, dishes and ovens from early 1900s. The only problem was the 40 degrees + that was filling the air and bringing with it these horrible and very annoying flies which made that it looked like everyone was walking around with Tourettes, trying to wack the flies away from their faces!.

The next morning, we headed for a day full of rainforest, beach beauty and cheese tasting =)

PROOF!

Maits Rest - Rainforest

Sophie posing

 Who can spot the Koalas? - There are 2

 Our attempt at taking a picture of the 12 Apostles Portrait or 'Selfie' (for those of you who know what this is), whilst those blooming flies were doing our heads in! really!

Hello ladies, say cheese... erm no, wait, thanks for the cheese

 Hmmm cheese & crackers!

PORT CAMPBELL

Our last night stay was booked in Port Campbell! A brand new Hostel with, as you can see on the picture an amazing invention, which you think to yourself, why is this concept not replicated everywhere else in the world? great way to save space! One think you cannot see on the picture is the sign above it saying 'Please use the sink in the wash room'..erm OK this maybe reveals that this is not such a great invention!!

On our way back towards Melbourne, we decided to stop off to pick strawberries. Our first attempt a few days before then was shattered by a sign which said "We are closed due to high bush fire risks". 

Strawberry picking

The strawberry picker!

 Result! 1kg worth of freshly picked strawberries. Well I say 'fresh', still under 40C+ heat!

Sydney Christmas and New Year !!!

We arrived in Sydney went to see Christina, one of Nat's ex London flatmate in who's flat we stayed for a couple of weeks! (amazing, thank you so much Christina!) and that same night went to one of Sophie's friend's house party which was a great start as we ended up with several tips on where to head!

We therefore discovered Sydney at our own pace, area by area, meeting up with several friends and spending a lot of time with them. Here are a few highlights.

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Des notre arrivee a Sydney, nous somme allees voir Christina, une ancienne colloc de Nat qui nous a prete son appartement pour 2 semaines ! (Trop de chance !!!). La meme apres-midi nous avons rejoint une amie de Sophie pour sa pendaison de cremaillere.

Pendant nos 2 semaines a Sydney, nous avons decouvert la ville quartier par quartier et passe du temps avec nos amis.

Voici quelques photos de nos aventures a Sydney:

Us in front of a few landmarks

The Harbour Bridge

London's one is much bigger though!

2 Umpa Lumpas infront of the Opera House LOL

No explanation needed

Xmas eve on Shark island indulging in lovely food and singing carols with candle light!

Secret Santa Style!

My secret santa present! a floating tea strainer! =)

A few furry ozzie friends..

Enjoying seafood @ Doyles take away Watson Bay & Manly Beach

An afternoon out sailing with friends...

Time spent @ The Colo River - in the Bush!

Cheese wine & crackers

Preparing to jump in the water at 7.30am

 

Sophie: cold, Nat: too lazy to dress!

Preparing for NY 2014 - getting our spot and waiting for 12 hours until the final countdown! A must do and I can now say worthwhile thing to do! 

We wern't the only ones waiting from 12 noon... as you can see! 

Sophie guarding our spot!

The 3 mins rain fall created panic amongst the long waiting crowd =)

And finally, the AMAZING Sydney firework display

And a little video to sum up the above - click here

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We also went on a lovely Lunch & Jazz cruise (thank you sis) and discovered a new way of advertising, not seen before in France nor UK (we can probably guess WHY in UK!!)

On the cruise

It ended up saying! "$30M Lotto Today"