We planned to go camping for a few days at Wilson's Promontory which is the southernmost point of Oz mainland and a popular holiday destination for the locals. So much so that lots are drawn in June for spaces over the Christmas holidays. Luckily they save a few spaces for overseas visitors on a first-come, first-serve basis and we nabbed the last of these on the day we arrived. The only place to stay in the national park is Tidal River which is a huge campsite/ caravan park/bunkhouse complex that is like a small village with its own power supply, sewage system, shop, police station and open-air cinema.
We were test driving Gillian's new tent and arrived to find the place heaving with ozzie families. There must have been over a thousand tents pitched - it was like a festival without the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. On our first afternoon we walked along a rocky headland and on to a gorgeous stretch of white sand surf beach. On the way we spotted a wallaby and when we got to there we were fascinated to see a huge dead seal lying on the beach. Darren was tempted to poke it with a stick but Angie thought better of it. Lots of the wildlife in the area have become pests because people insist on feeding them: Kookaburras, Crimson Rosellas, Wombats and the ubiquitous seagull. Wombats break into tents if food is left inside and have been known to get agressive, but we didn't get to see one.
In the evening we thought we'd check out the cinema which was showing Narnia. We battled for a good seat with the regulars and settled down for a relaxing evening's viewing, with Tilda Swinton's White Witch as the highlight. The next day we took a short bus ride halfway up Mount Oberon to do the hour walk to the summit. The area had been severely burnt the year before in a controlled bush fire that was extinguished but continued to spread underground in the peat and ignited 10 days later to destroy two thirds of the park. However, most of the native trees are fireproof and despite the dead blackened branches there was lots of new growth sprouting lower down. The views from the top over the peninsula and back up the coast towards Melbourne were so good that Angie made a special face (see photo)!
Driving out of the park we rounded a corner to see an Echidna crossing the road. These large hedgehog-like creatures are quite difficult to see in the wild so we felt honoured. Like the platypus, they are mammals that lay eggs - extraordinary!
We continued our journey hugging the picturesque coastline and exploring miles of inter-tidal rock platforms and pools at a marine park. Our next destination was Phillip Island. We made a quick visit to the humorously named Nobbies which are a cluster of rocky windswept outcrops. They are home to a huge seagull population and Australia's largest Fur Seal colony - there are apparently around 12000 but they are 2km offshore and the same colour as the rocks, so even through binoculars all you can see is the sun glinting off their backs.
Our reason for coming here though was to see the penguin parade. The whole of Phillip Island used to be home to thousands of Little Blue (or Fairy) Penguins but now they are reduced to one beach where they breed in the sand dunes. There is a visitor centre built there and people pay to watch them waddle ashore. As we approached, the queues of traffic and numerous flouro jacketed staff directing cars into parking bays made us marvel at the amount of money that these tiny sea birds must generate. The standard charge is quite hefty but you can also upgrade to VIP areas and sip champagne while watching the spectacle. It's all rather bizarre and we've heard quite a few people saying they can't work out what all the fuss is about.
The parade starts after sunset so we got our spaces on the roped-off section of beach with hundreds of other eager punters. We were about 30 feet from the water's edge and the penguins come ashore and head inland straight up the beach between the seating areas. As it got dark we began to see them swimming ashore. They are really tiny - no bigger than the seagulls. They are afraid of seagulls (and the exposed beach) and hesitate at the edge of the water while getting swept off their feet as the waves break. A large flock of gulls hang about menacingly on the beach, and the penguins wait until a large enough number of their own kind have gathered (about 8 or 10) before making the dash (or should that be waddle) to the safety of the sand dunes. More often than not a group would get halfway up the beach and the last few would lose their nerve and peg it back down to the water as fast as they could. Watching them trying to decide whether to keep going up the beach or bale out delighted the crowd. It was all much more entertaining than you would imagine!
After an hour about 500 of them had come ashore and headed into the bushes to their nesting holes. We watched them inland from raised walkways as they bumbled along, bold as brass and seemingly oblivious of the hundreds of people watching them. We saw some chicks which are actually fatter than the parents and have furry ruffs around their necks. We heard some pretty weird shrieking noises and worked out that some of them were mating. We didn't get back to Melbourne until past midnight, but it was worth it to get a close-up look at their eventful lives.
As a little treat, Gillian took Angie to Ramsay Street! It's a very typical cul-de-sac in a suburb and is much smaller than it looks on TV. Gillian feels quite guilty about her contribution to the loss of privacy of the real residents everytime she has guests to stay, so we just drove in and back out as if we'd made a wrong turn, but it was a Melbourne sight that couldn't be missed.
We visited a wildlife park with Gillian to have a good gawp at all the indigenous wildlife close up. Our favourite animal had to be the wombats which are much bigger than we expected, round and furry. Duck-billed platypuses (platypi?) are pretty cool too and much smaller than you'd think. The highlight though was a bird of prey display. We saw a wedge-tailed eagle that had a wingspan of two metres and swooped low over the audience. These eagles are one of the few birds to use tools - they pick up stones with their beaks to break open eggs - and we got a demonstration. We also saw a boomerang throwing display!
We flew the nest again for a couple of nights to drive along the Great Ocean Road. As luck would have it, Gillian's parents have an idyllic house right on the GOR and offered to put us up. They treated us fabulously and we were fed home-grown vegetables, home-made cake and eggs laid by their bantam hens.
On our first evening after dinner we drove out to Anglesea golf course to try to spot some of the kangaroos that graze there at dawn and dusk. Try to spot? You could hardly see the green for kangaroos and their droppings! We watched a group of about a dozen for ages. Darren got right in there as they munched away on the grass unperturbed. To move around slowly, they do so on all fours and use their tail as a kind of balancing anchor. Suddenly lots more kangaroos came bounding over to the group we were hanging around with and one of them had a large baby in her pouch. It must have been almost ready to come out as the pouch was stretched to the limit.
The next day we set off early along the GOR taking in the views of the rugged coastline. Our first stop was the beautiful Erskine falls set in a lush forested amphitheatre and tinkling down over a sheer rock-face. We saw another wallaby on the way, but we're quite blase about these now! On the way back to the GOR we stopped by some road-kill we'd seen on the way up. This, however, was the biggest we'd ever seen - a kangaroo. At the wildlife park we'd been told that many eagles get hit by cars when feeding on roadkill, so if you hit or drive past something you should move it off the road, so nature can recycle it without any further casualties. Darren was determined to follow the advice and exposed himself to the full gore and smell to save some feathered friends. What a hero!
The GOR is the world's largest war memorial and was built by returning WWI soldiers. When it was first opened it was one way traffic for 2 hours and then switched to the other way for the next 2 hours!
We detoured again to Cape Otway. Along the road we spotted wild koalas dotted among the gum trees and stopped to watch them. Koalas sleep for 80% of their lives so there is about the same level of excitement whether they are in the wild or in captivity, but it was nice to have seen them in their natural environment. We visited the Otway Lighthouse - it is in an exposed cliff-top position and from the top their are great views and a windspeed that takes your breath away. In the surrounding buildings there was some interesting stuff about the hundreds of shipwrecks along this coast. There was also a plaque commemorating a plane that disppeared a few miles offshore and was never found. The pilot's last radio communication was about an object hovering above him that was not an airplane. Stranger things have happened at sea...
Back on the GOR we turned inland, unfortunately missing the famous 12 apostles because of time constraints, telling ourselves they're only big rocks sticking out of the water after all. Instead we did a treetop walk (the longest and highest in the world since it opened in 2003 - sorry Simon D, trumped you!) and then drove back via the inland route taking in mile after mile of golden rolling farmland.
On our last night in Melbourne, Gillian took us out to a comedy night that a friend of hers was compereing. We saw 5 comedians that got better and better as the night went on and Darren got an unprecidented amount of attention. As the place was mainly patronised by locals, we were the only ones to put our hands up when the inevitable question - is there anyone here from overseas? - comes up. The audience got to laugh at our problems grasping Ozzie vocabularly (we had no idea what a dooner, eskie or a mole where when we arrived!) and we got introduced to the comedians afterwards and hung out with them in the bar.
Gillian generously suffered a tough early start the next morning to drop us off at the airport and Angie got pretty choked up saying goodbye to her for the next 18 months or so. We've had a really good time here - Melbourne gets a gold star!
On the plane, we braced for the heat at our next destination - Alice Springs.
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