World famous views (lots of tourists) – Bay of Isles, Bay of Martyrs, London Bridge in Peterborough (!) (which has fallen down) and The Twelve Apostles (there are only seven).

The Adelaide end of the Great Ocean Road is less touristy but still beautiful, from salt lakes to beaches and the town voted “The worlds most liveable city”. We also stopped at Mount Gambia by the aptly named “blue lake”.

Before starting the Great Ocean Road drive to Melbourne, a short detour to the Barossa Valley was well worth the extra miles. We stayed in a beautiful hotel on a vineyard (The Louise) and had lunch at Maggie Beer’s Pheasant Farm (Maggie is the Australian Mary Berry, judging the Australian versions of Bake Off and Masterchef). It seems that Sarah and David showed an early interest in South Australian vineyards.

The Adelaide Festival Centre was built in 1973 and opened three months before the Sydney Opera House. First visited by the Shillingfords in 1975.

A highlight of our time in Adelaide was a tour of the oval, including its historic scoreboard which is still operated manually by between seven and ten men (no women as the toilets are too far away !). Although some time had passed, the scoreboard was still showing Australia’s ODI defeat of England.

Subsequent to the earlier post from Tasmania this photo of Daphne at Cataract Gorge in 1975 has been spotted.

To finish the Tasmanian blogs, a few observations on being on the road there – stops for food, fuel and road obstructions are different to what we are used to in the UK. That said, a lot of the place names are the same, such as Sheffield, Perth, Pontypool and Exeter; all in the wrong order (a bit like in Connecticut). Whilst there the temperature ranged from 25 to 35 degrees C; the day after we left it snowed !

A stop on the route from Launceston to Swansea at Bicheno for fish and chips, a look at the penguins and a walk on the beach; previously visited by the Shillingford family in the 70s.

Cataract Gorge in Launceston (pronounced Lon-cess-ton) and Wineglass Bay.

Two nights in a cabin at the Cradle Mountain National Park, arriving on Sarah’s birthday and leaving on Australia Day. Two big walks (yes, Tim included). Stunning scenery. Lots of wildlife, although sadly we saw more road-kill wombats on the route out of the park than we’d seen alive in the park.

Note to David (and Orla) – no rocks or cuddly toys in the rucksack…