Welcome to the land of Oz. We start our tour of Oz in Victoria. After landing at Melbourne we drove south to Point Leo on the Mornington Peninsula to stay with Murray, Carol, Liam and Poss (who doesn't really believe she's a dog). These are friends that again we met in the Galapagos and very kindly invited us to stay with them.
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| Murray, Liam, Carol, and of course "Poss" |
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| Taking Poss for a walk on the beach at Point Leo (Paul, Carol, Lilian and Murray) |
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| Point Leo |
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| Sunset at Point Leo |
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| ...the surfers have all gone home... |
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| ...has anyone seen Poss? |
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| ...we think Poss went that way... |
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| ...here I am...has anyone seen my ball? I dropped it somewhere on the beach! |
We took a drive around the beautiful Mornington Peninsula.
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| Back Beach near Sorrento |
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| Rock formations at Cape Schank |
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| Cape Schank Lighthouse |
Nearby is Pebble beech where we found some interesting things
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| Looking down towards Pebble Beach |
There are plenty of rockpools on the rocky shore below....
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| Sea Anemone, looks like a cherry... |
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| G'day...guess who? |
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| Rockpooling...hhmm you should be rockpooling not sitting down. |
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| Sponge |
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| Turbanshells |
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| world within a world |
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| ...Bull Kelp |
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| Sea Urchin or Starfish? |
There is also plenty of wildlife on the path back up...
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...does my bum look big in this? |
We also called in at Flinders, which has a quiet harbour.....
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| ...the view from Flinders |
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| theres a glof course here too at Flinders |
One evening we decided to go kangaroo spotting and we did see one hopping away, thanks to Liams eagle eyes....
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| ...but this is the only one we got a photo of... |
Another day at the beach - it's a hard life...we took Poss for a walk every morning...
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| Poss..."what ball, I'm chasing seagulls..." |
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| Murray, going for a swim - it was too cold for the rest of us. |
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| Siobhan, Carol and Poss |
One evening we went to "The Moonlit Sanctuary" to see some of the wildlife at night...
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| Moerpork, or Frogmouth |
Many of the animals have not survived on mainland Australia and now only exist in small populations on Tamania...like....
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| Tasmanian Devil...they really are ferocius when being fed...growling and hissing at each other... |
We saw squirrel gliders, Poteroos and Bettongs and Koala's
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| Kangaroo and Wallaby abound |
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| Eastern Grey Kangaroo |
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| Paul and friends, well only whilst he has food.... |
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| Feeding time |
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| Here's looking at you kid! Paul and Python |
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| Siobhan and a friend, looking quite devilish |
After spending a relaxing week with Murray, Carol, Liam and Poss we spent a few days travelling along the Great Ocean Road towards Adelaide. The road is a favourite of motorcyclists becuse of the many twists and turns. It was built by ex soldiers after the first world war.
We spotted our first Koala in the wild on the way to Cape Otway. This fella was in a euclypt right above the tarmac
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| Koala oblivious of traffic below |
We stayed in Apollo Bay and whilst calling in at the tourist info, we bumped into some fellow campers we met in New Zealand (Sharon and Rufus). we only met these guys for one evening in Bluff and caught the ferry to Stewart Island with them. This is the reason we have given up saying goodbye to people we meet; because we usually meet up with them again somewhere.
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| ...Myrtle beech big enough to live in..Maits track |
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| ...pristine rain forrest, a mixture of Eucalypts and myrtle beech |
The secenery along the Great Ocean Road is spectacular.
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| a boat was blown on shore here and several men died tryong to salvage goods in the 1880's |
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| view from the look out westwards towards Apollo Bay |
The land around Colac, leading into South Australia can be very flat with the occasional volcanic feature...
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| Mount Elephant, a volcanic cone |
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| Maar Pools near Alvie - remnants of past volcanic activity |
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| there are Sea stacks all along the coast |
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| Entrance to the Bay of Islands |
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| Bay of Islands on the way to Warrnambool |
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| Sea damage to rock, constant erosion shapes every feature of this coast |
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| The Grotto |
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| there is a turquoise pool at the Grotto |
There is also a feature called London bridge ...
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| ..that fell down in 1996, the gap between the mainland and the island was bridged before 1996 |
The coast has been sculpted by the action of the wind and surf coming in from the Southern Ocean.
If you look carefully you can see faces in the rock.
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| you'd never guess this is called .....The Arch |
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| The 12 Apostles...they are difficult to count |
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| They used to be called The Sow and the Piglets |
We had a few close encounters with wildlife.
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| Making friends |
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| Koala feeding on a very young eucalypt tree |
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| Australasian Magpie |
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| our first Kangaroo in the wild |
We stayed at Robe and saw...
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| Little Egret fishing in the estuary |
At Victor Harbour we saw....
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| .....some Australian Pelicans, taking a morning stroll on the beach |
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| Paperbark Tree imitating Edvard Munchs' "The Scream"...look below the fork for two eyes and a gaping mouth... |
Well we left Victor harbour behind and headed in land across the South Australia hinterland towards Horsham and Ballarat.
We stayed in Ballarat for a couple of days just resting after all the driving. It rained quite heavily and was very cold.
Heading back to Melbourne we picked up our Passports from the Indonesian Consulate, bit no visas, so we'll have to apply in Singapore. We returned to Murray and Carols for a couple of days to say goodbyes and catch our flight to Brisbane and our next camper van, Jucy Lucy; to begin the next leg of our Oz Odyssey, North to Queensland
