Great Ocean Road, Kangaroo Isand and PLATIPUS SIGHTING

We headed down to enjoy the drive along the Great Ocean Road - a beautful costal road winding around white sandy beaches and ecalyptus trees. It was magical camping next to the ocean, (the stars here seem brighter) and falling asleep to the sound of the waves! We stopped along to way to go for a bit of a hike and managed to spot 18 kaolas - it was incredible! They were everywhere and so cute! Our next stop was the 12 apostles (which actually number 7) - theses are rock formations just off the coast, a nice stop - but the flys there were kamakazi, I created a special "move" for keeping them away from my face (inquire later for a demonstration - pretty funny).

KANGAROO ISLAND

We loaded our lil' Britz and ourselves onto a ferry and off we all went to Kangaroo Island. An island that broke off from the mainland about 10,000 years ago, leaving the island relatively untouched for the animals, thriving, and evolving on thier own. Ahhh, what a amazing stop on our itinerary. An Australian wildneress wonderland!

Our first night we set off to enjoy the "Little Penquin Parade" at Pennshaw. Everynight little penguins waddle up on shore and find their nests, you can pay for a tour and an opportunity to go down on the boardwalk, in the middle of their rookery to see them in their "natural" habitat. A very special experience. We were really enjoying watching them and apparently had stayed past the second tour group, not noticing we were the last ones. Suddenly the lights (lighting up the rookery and boardwalk) went out and the gate was locked.
Hmm, we'd been locked in the rookery (no worries mate, we were able to hop the gate - but didn't do so for another hour). What luck! With the lights out, the penguins went wild, waddling about, making tons of ruckus, males fighting males for nest sights, mating (and lots of mating, it was breeding season), interestingly penguins mate for life - ahhhh- very sweet. What a treat to see these guys behaving as though no one was around, at times coming so close to us they were arms reach away. Once again, we felt pretty lucky.

Next day - we went off to see a colony of Austalian Seal Lions, so cute, we took a ranger quided tour along the beach which got us pretty close to these amazing creatures.

Our next stop was Flinders Chase National Park on the east side of the island. Here we spent 4 nights and 3 days - saw loads of wildlife - New Zealand fur seals, wallabies, Kangaroo Island Kangaroos (smaller and cuter than their mainland counterparts), brown koalas (bigger and furrier than the northern kaolas), goanas, a possum, "blond" echidnas - at every turn we were amazed by all the unique creatures on this island! But our mission became to try and catch a glimpse of the elusive Platipus. For 3 of those days, we hiked to/staked out various platipus watering holes. We had a good chance of a spotting because water levels were low due to the drought. Hours we would spend patienting waiting, plotting, binoculars poised, in hopes that we might see one. A ranger informed us that in the ten years he had been working at the park, he'd only just seen one.

Last day, last chance - we drove out the night before to camp next to a group of wateringholes, we set the alarm for 6 a.m. - and up before the sun and out into a light rain, we walked out to the location of the nearest hole. There we sat for a bit, but on a hunch and intuition, I said "Hey, lets go down to the one we were at yesterday" - we were not there for more the a few minutes - when Shell points frantically, there in the center of the pond was a platipus. UNBELIEVABLE. He went under and surfaced 3 more times - we couldn't believe what we were seeing. Our mouths were open. Still, I was not ready to move on, I was sure if we stayed longer we may spot him a few more times - and sure enough - we watched him appear on and off for the next 3 hours (thrilling everytime). It was a cloudy day which may be why this normally notural animal was out a bit longer. He was so cute! Just an amazing looking animal! (We now have seen, in the wild, the only 2 monotremes in the world!) A few people walked up during this time, also trying for their platipus sighting, but gave up waiting! even though we had just said we saw one in this pool! On perhaps his last adventure out, we snapped a few pictures, thanked him, and walked, beaming and elated, back to our van. WOW!
On the way out we watched an Australian Pelican feeding - beautiful birds (got smacked in the face by pelican wings as they fought for their portion of fish), but already on such a high from our platipus sighting, we loaded onto the ferry - and on with our adventure.

March 13th Barossa Valley . . . . then Blue Mountains . . .

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