Batemans Bay to Melbourne

After a lovely weekend with Fran, we carried on along the coast towards Melbourne. The weather had been beautiful all weekend, but almost as soon as we got to Batemans Bay on Sunday evening, where we stopped for the night, it rained really hard. We had been cooking while it was raining hardest and once it got a bit lighter we went back to our car only to find that we'd left the moonroof open and the car got soaked. Luckily our bedding was out of the way and the matress was lifted, so it was just the backseat that got very wet.
The next night we only drove a little further to Eden, but the sun came out a bit and our car dried in no time.
From there we headed to Lakes Entrance, it's a pretty location situated amongst lakes and lagoons. That night we found a massive spider on our car. Colin and I watched him for a bit trying to figure out what to do to get him away, and finally decided to throw water on him. After about 2 minutes he was back on the car and out to get us. I suggested Colin go for a drive, hoping he (the spider, not Colin) would fall off and land far away from our site. Colin came back not being able to see the spider anymore and feeling like a hero only for me to see him right on Colin's door. So I threw water on him again and he seemed to disappear behind the fence or at least we couldn't see him anymore and were able to sort out our car for sleeping. But not without being paranoid and constantly feeling like we had spiders creeping over us. It's a shame we had Lex Luthor rather than Spiderman's nemesis... maybe it would have made a difference.
The next 2 days weren't very exciting, as they were only on the way to Melbourne, although we did have a good game of tennis at one of the campsites.
On Friday we got to Melbourne and went to meet Marigold, for those who don't know her, a friend from London. We spent the day chatting and catching up and in the evening a few family and friends came over for a BBQ. Later we went for drinks and I'll have you know we were quite a hit at this house-conversion bar. We had our photo taken a few times and we were approached by the photographer, not the other way round.
On Saturday we had to check into our hostel in Melbourne city centre and then return Lex Luthor. We spent 5 weeks in the campervan and had such a good time travelling and camping like this that we're looking at doing the same in New Zealand - we'll let you know when we're there.
With Lex Luthor gone, we walked to Williamstown, about 4km away where we met Marigold and Tina. They were very good tour guides and told us a few interesting facts about the town and Melbourne. In the evening we went for Chinese near our hostel and got more of a tour round the city as we headed to the casino. I know this might not be the first time some of you would have heard me say that I feel lucky, but this time I really was hopeful that I was going to win the jackpot. I did not win the jackpot and instead managed to spend $25 in all of 3 minutes. And I was so sure I was going to win the money to pay for mine and Colin's trip and more... oh well!
Sunday morning we got up early and walked around the city to get a view of it during the day time. We went into the Parliament House, which was a beautiful building and quite interesting and also through the Victoria street market. After lunch we got on the tram to St Kilda to meet Marigold for the last time. We had drinks at a lovely bar on the beachfront, which had a live band and a good atmosphere. For dinner we had such nice pizza that was so loaded with toppings and of course farewell drinks with Marigold and her family. Before heading back we walked along the pier to see some penguins. They were hiding, so we only got to see a few, but we could hear them behind the rocks.
Once again we had a fantastic weekend and it was great to see Marigold, who spoilt us and really showed us a good time. Thank you Marigold and the rest of the family, we had a great weekend and would love to come back some day.
The next morning we flew to Sydney for our last few days in Australia.