From Sydney, we first headed to Mudgee. This was the place we had to take the car we bought. From there, there was a plan to continue to Melbourne. We also needed to rent a car for ourselves inorder to get from Mudgee to Melbourne. As a result of Jaanus’ good work, we found a rental car relocation offer that was perfect for us. When Jaanus went to pick up the rental car, a positive surprise awaited him again. An Estonian girl was working there. She offered Jaanus to choose whether he wants Subaru Forester instead of the Toyota Yaris we had booked. Of course, we chose a bigger car because a couple of nights we had to sleep in the car.
On the way to Mudgee, we also stopped at Blue Mountain. We wanted to go hiking in the mountains, but unfortunately, we were not lucky with the weather and we could hardly see anything. Even driving by car was difficult, not to mention the beautiful views of the mountains or the waterfalls. We made a short few kilometers walk to try to see something, but the pictures below say more than a thousand words.
We arrived in Mudgee in the evening and we were able to hand over the car. We stayed there for one night to try to get the car paperwork done the next day. However, it did not go so smoothly, as it turned out that it is necessary for the car to be inspected and new insurance to be able to register in another state. But doing it all in one day is quite difficult. We filled the car resale papers and left the rest of the management for the boys.
During the day we also went swimming in the nearby quarry. The boys, of course, enjoyed the jumps. We were too old with Jaanus for this: D We walked up the hill and were looking for kangaroos. In the end, one of the jumped out from the bushes and went away but unfortunately did not get the picture. We had a great time in Mudgee and it was nice to see relatives and get an idea of the life of Australian backpackers.
In the evening, however, we had to get on the road, because the rental car was entrusted to us only for a certain number of days, and we had to rush in order to reach Melbourne in time. The ride was quite boring and monotonous, and nothing exciting we saw on the road. We tried to avoid driving in the dark because the kangaroos tend to jump on the road more often. We saw so many dead kangaroos lying on the roads. However, luckily, we were able to hand over the car to Melbourne without any major accidents.
In Melbourne, we were hosted by Kert, a friend of a friend. It is nice to find Estonians everywhere in a wide world. We had one weekend in Melbourne, which Kert had helped us to plan. At Kert’s place, we had a company – Bella.
The first evening we went to a Thai restaurant and enjoyed Melbourne’s famous meals.
The next day we went for the ride with the Kert’s supercar on the mountain roads. These paths are as if designed to allow motorsports fans to test their cars there. So did we … In the evening, Jaanus cooked his famous mussels 😊
We managed to be in Melbourne exactly when F1 GP was there. So we spent Sunday on GP. When you look at the F1 on TV, you may get the impression that it’s just a few hours of racing. On the spot, however, a frantic show is taking place and visitors are offered a huge program. All kinds of luxury cars can be seen from Lamborgini to Aston Martini. Of course, the fastest rally cars are also on display. There are several more races going on before the F1 rally. Even military aircraft were introduced during the airshow. And finally, in the second half of the day, the world’s fastest cars are on focus.
Kert has been at this event many times and knew all the best places to watch the rally. We were delighted by the Mercedes team and the Finnish boy Bottas, who finally won the rally way ahead of everybody else. In the evening when we arrived home for we were tired and sunburned so we dropped to sleep soon.
On the last day in Auss we took the perhaps the sweetest part – The Great Ocean Road and 12 Apostles. The road from Melbourne was quite long – we drove for 5 hours along a beautiful coastline. We made a stop to see the koalas and parrots. The Great Ocean Road has one place where the koalas are, but they need to be carefully searched for. In the shade of trees, they tend to remain unnoticed. We found a bit of comfort taking pictured of the koalas because the kangaroos were still had not managed to record.
The apostles were undoubtedly worth of such a long journey. It was unclear to us that much of them have been left to date. But at the apostles, you must be ready to compete with the Chinese tourists. Fortunately, all three of us were much taller than any of them, and they didn’t interfere with our view. However, it was difficult to take the picture without some Chinese tourist on. But the pictures say more than a thousand words …
When Sydney made us fall in love with Australia, Melbourne did it even more. We are especially grateful to Kert, who prepared the whole program for us and offered the accommodation. The next morning, we already headed for paradise.
