Would you have thought that Australia would smell like eucalyptus ? Well it sure does and I love it. These trees outline every road and park. They are not only the favourite trees that koalas sit in and eat from but they are also unique in the way their bark strips off of them. I catch myself singing "kookaburras sit in the old gum tree" numerous times a day and the funny thing is that I probably haven't sung that song since I was a very little girl in Explorers. Lol. I have a hard time believing it is politically correct these days.
We are making our way to the wine regions of Australia with a few stops in between. First we head to Apollo Bay but have to stop off in Torquay. This is a big surf town with dozens of surf shops and outlets. It is the surf headquarters of quicksilver, roxy and billabong. The boys really wanted some rashas to surf in next week. They got them (thanks Lynda and les for the Aussie money!!!). We continued along the great ocean road, admiring the stunning views of the coast. As we near our destination and I almost falling into a deep sleep, Derek pipes up and announced he thought he just saw a koala perched high above the road in a gum tree. Groggy as I was, I grabbed our camera and jumped out to see. How on earth did he spot this cute fur ball, we are not sure. But excited he did. I needed my big zoom lens to get a good look at it. That's how high up it was!
While in Apollo Bay, we were told that we must go to the Otway national park for its' picturesque drive and guaranteed sightings of wild koalas. We decided to hit the road one morning and drive along the infamous Lighthouse Road. The four of us stopped counting these adorable grey puff balls, aka koalas when we spotted our 37th koala. Most of these koalas were perched on branches and looked half asleep. Did you know that these creatures sleep about 20 hours a day? We saw two very active koalas jumping from limb to limb, climbing up and down tree trunks and thought they were truly putting on a show for us (feeling pretty privileged) but then... Out of no where there was one sitting happily on a lower branch eating the eucalyptus leaves at arms length to us. We could have reached out and held it but as I have said before, it is illegal to touch them and we wouldn't chance that. Instead we took many pics and sadly said good bye to him.
We made our way to the Apostles which are large rock formations pertruding out of the ocean. Originally there were 12 but due to erosion there are only eight left.
The boys are enjoying all of the playgrounds, pools, beaches and animals that we have seen so far. They hope to find more kangaroos in the upcoming days. Carter and I have a long list of animals that we want to see before heading home. Each of the boys bought a new book on Australian mammals (carter) and Australian birds (Braden). They carry them everywhere and tick off the ones we see. I think Braden is going to be the next David Attenborough. He says he is a bird whisperer and wants to go to Papua New Guinea to study the birds of paradise there. Carter wants to be like a vet who saves special or rare animals like Hope for Wildlife does, He wants to go to Nova Scotia to meet Hope to see what she does. This has all stemmed from the interest in the wildlife during our travels in NZ and AUS.
The wifi in Australia has been very touch and go, hence the slow posts. We will continue our blogging soon.
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