On Sunday, February 1 we made our way to the Melbourne airport to pick up our rental car for our long road trip. Our first leg was to Apollo Bay with a few stops along the way. Our first stop was at Anglesea Golf Course to see kangaroos that populate the course. We saw them 16+ years ago and wanted to see if they were still hanging out there. And they were!

From there we drove to Teddy’s Lookout in Lorne where we hopped to spot a few koalas, but no luck. Instead, we got amazing views!

We then arrived in Apollo Bay and spent two nights at Apollo Bay Holiday Park in a very very small cabin. It was a short walk to the beach and the downtown area in village, had a great playground and little pool that the kids (especially Luisa) loved, so the small cabin was worth it!

On Tuesday February 3 we left Apollo Bay and drove to Mount Gambier. First we stopped for a picnic breakfast at Marengo beach. My kind of breakfast spot!

We then continued on our drive and came across a few tourists parked on the side of the road, starring at the trees. We figured they must have spotted some koalas so we got out to check it out. And there were three koalas in one tree and another in one across the street!! We stayed for a while, watching them eat, sleep, crawl around a bit. It was so cool!

From there, we made a quick stop to admire the beauty at Castle Cove lookout before continuing on to the main attraction, Twelve Apostles. It is quite a tourist attraction with a whole infrastructure for tourists so very crowded but also stunning.

We had one more stop before arriving in Mount Gambier: lunch at the beachfront part in the village of Port Fairy. Beautiful and calming.

We then arrived The Commodore‘s rental house in Mount Gambier where we spent two nights. The house was clean and spacious, but there isn’t much to say about the town itself. I did take a nice sunset run one evening, and one afternoon, Charlotte and I walked to Blue Lake. It really is blue!

On Thursday, February 5 we did our last drive of the first week, from Mount Gambier to Adelaide. This drive was mostly along Coorong National Park, an important wetland environment with many salt flats. It was hard to capture on camera and we didn’t go into the more remote areas of the park, but it was very interesting.

And that is the end of week one! We are, at heart, a road trip family, so it feels good to be back in our element. We have a mini-van with plenty of space, the girls are happy to watch the landscape change as the hours go by listening to music and chatting, and the roads are well-maintained and mostly empty. We feel very lucky to get to see so much of Australia!