We traveled to Australia this christmas!! We rented a car and for two weeks and drove along the southside of Australia, from Sydney to Melbourne to Adelaide. It was a fantastic trip and I am going to write several posts about it, but for now, I just want to quickly summarize our trip and show some of the highlights!

We landed in Sydney where Wards aunt awaited us and showed us around the city. The operahouse was very impressive!The next day, we went to the Blue Mountains, a beauuutiful nature area west of Sydney, with enormous canyons and rock formations. It was fantastic. After two days, it was time to pick up the car and start driving! We first drove to Canberra, through a massive thunderstorm. 

The next stop was the Snowy Mountains, where we would spend christmas. It was amazing!! Celebrating christmas with a beer in the sun is awesome, but even more awesome was the fact that we climbed Australia’s highest mountain! There was even still some snow on top so we had a white christmas haha. It was very stormy, and we were not sure we would make it, but we did it!

We spent two days in the mountains and then headed to Melbourne, with a stop along the way at a huge farm where we spent the night. They had found a baby kangaroo and were raising it, and I could give it a bottle of milk. Soooo cute!! The owners of the farm then showed us their lands and machinery, and I even got to drive a combine and harvest a field!! (really, not kidding!). 

After our lovely stay at the farm, we drove to Melbourne. I really enjoyed that city, especially its beautiful graffiti! 

We then drove to the Great Ocean Road, a famous scenic route that follows the southern coastline. The beaches are amazing and perfect for surfing!

We also hiked to a waterfall. 

We stayed halfway at a nice B&B in Apollo’s Bay, surrounded by kangaroos, koalas and kookaburra’s!

The next day we visited Australia’s oldest lighthouse,  made a walk through the jungle, and then visited the famous 12 apostles (of which only about 7 are left!). We spent the night in Warnambool. 

The next morning we visited a nature park that was formed around a volcanic crater. There we spotted our first Emu,  huge walking birds that look a bit like dinosaurs haha. 

We drove all the way to the north to Halls Gap, a village in the middle of the Grampians natural park, with stunning sandstone mountains.  We made a few hikes through the canyons!

We celebrated newyear there, watching the stars. 

The next day was a bit rainy so we decided to visit Australia’s most haunted place: The abandoned Aradale Mental Hospital. It really.. really was creepy. 

It was nice to come back to our mountain cabin with wallabies grazing in the fields. 

Then it was time to head to Adelaide! We dropped of our car there and walked around the city and its botanical garden.

The next morning, we were picked up for our tour to Kangaroo Island! We took a ferry and spent the first day visiting beaches and sandboarding! 

The next day, we went to the Remarkables, a set of very weirdly shaped volcanic stones. 

We made a stop at a nature park to spot some more koalas!

And at the end of the day, we headed back to Adelaide, where the next morning we would fly back to Japan. Oooo this trip was waaaay toooo shooooort!!! I want to go back to Australia and visit the outback, the north and eastcoast, definitely!

 

So this was just a summary of our trip, in the following weeks I will post more in depth about each area because we have some very cool photos to show!!!!

Next up will be the cities, Sydney Melbourne and Adelaide! Then: The Blue and Snowy Mountains with awesome photos of our hikes. Third: The Great Ocean Road! And a final seperate post dedicated to aaall the wildlife we have seen in Australia (a lot of cute koalas I can tell you haha)