Melbourne To Adelaide

From this point our journey gets "new wheels", a caravan! Actually it's called a Campervan. It's a Toyota van that has been modified so it has a sink with a tap, cooking stoves, cupboards, a table that covers to a bed and couches. The main reason why we choose to hire this kind of a car is because we didn't want to stay in hostels (the Australian hostels disappointed us) and still wanted the comfort of one (kitchen, bed, etc.). We hired the cheapest Campervan we found (from a company called Travellers Auto Barn), said goodbye to Melbourne and headed west to the scenic route called "The Great Ocean Road".
We spent our first night in our new caravan at a town called Geelong, In a parking lot near the beach, in the middle of the city. It wasn't a proper campsite but it has toilets and at the tourist information they told us we won't be fined for camping there.
The next morning we started the route (Geelong is it's one of the starting points). We drove along it and at noon we arrived to a town called Lorne. After a short break we started the car and wanted to continue the drive but we noticed that one of the lights on the dashboard is on (a sign that something is wrong with the car). We called the rental company and they said this light indicates that there are water missing. We told them we just filled up water and it's impossible. The answer we got was "keep going and keep monitoring water levels". That's what we did, but 5km after the car overheated and we had to pull over. 24h after we took the car it broke down... Roi hitchhiked back to Lorne and called Road Service, an hour later a mechanic came, checked the car and found out the radiator was completely dry. He asked us to stay in town and come back to his workshop the next morning for some tests.
We spent the night at nearby campsite. We noticed at night that the lights and the refrigerator are not working unless the engine is running. At the morning we went to the workshop. We told them about the new problem and they found out the battery was dead. After replacing the battery and radiator cap we could continue our holiday.

The next thing we did is to see Koala bear,



















and 12 apostles




























and spent the night at Port Campbell (at expensive holiday park). The day after we stop to see The Arch














and few more lookouts,














and headed to the Grampians national park. On the way there a small stone hit the windshield and made a massive chip in it. We called the rental company and they said that as long as we could see 70% of field of vision it is safe to continue and we don't need to replace the windshield. Since our insurance covers only one replacement we had been advised by them not to replace it.
We kept going, stayed the night in one of the park's campsite. Few minutes after we arrived Roi saw 2 Kangaroos not far from us. we were so excited - our first time to actually see this special animal. Sarit grabbed the camera and started taking thousands of photos.



















We noticed nobody around us cared about the animals. First it seemed strange. Few hours later we understood the reason - there were kangaroos everywhere, we just sat in our Campervan, ate our dinner and smiled every few seconds when a kangaroo hopped around our car.
Another animal that came to visit us -














Later we tried our first bush shower. It was a shower place where you need to fill water in a bucket. The bucket has a shower head in it's bottom. You hang the bucket above you and there you go - a shower :). The water was cold, but it was worth it.
At the morning we noticed that the chip in the windshield got bigger. There was another 10cm crack in addition to the chip. We quite panic, and decided to do only one short track in the park and keep driving to the closest town, so someone can check it and say if we need to replace the windshield or not.
We climbed mt. William - the highest peak in the park. It was a bit disappointing to find out we need to share the summit with few big antennas. The views were nice but not more than that.

We drove to a town called Horsham, a short look on the windshield and we've been told it will be a big mistake to replace it since we're going to travel for a long time and it will probably happen again during this time.
We continued our way, more relaxed, and spent the night on a rest area on the side of the highway - our last night in Victoria state.
The next day we crossed the border to South Australia state. In the border we saw the white kangaroos - it's a special kangaroo with white fur and red eyes, just like a white bunny.














A quick visit in a touristic town called Hahndorf and we finally arrived to Adelaide - the capital of South Australia. We arrived same night as the opening night of one of the festivals. There were lots of people in the streets and the special thing about this festival is that they light the old town's buildings in different colours. It creates new visual front to the building. The lights changes every couple of minutes.

Here is a poor attempt to catch the event on camera:

On our next blog we'll put some pictures of our dear Campervan from the inside, it will be easier for you to understand what it's like to live in such car.

We know that we're a bit late but - Happy Purim!