Fond Farewells

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It really did take us ages to get going today, and we were really sad at the thought of leaving Jenny & Benny after what seems such a short visit. It really has been so lovely seeing them (and Hunter and Harley their dog and cat) - and we really can’t thank them enough for putting up with us and taking such good care of us.

But eventually we were off in the van again on our way to Sydney. It seemed to take ages to get away from Melbourne - mainly because, even though we were on a ‘highway’ there are traffic lights every 500m or so, and much to John’s chagrin, they are not co-ordinated to let the traffic keep moving. Hence, every time he gets the van up to speed, he has to keep stopping. Another annoyance is that there are roadworks everywhere - we passed through at least a dozen different sets today - normally heralded by someone standing with the stop/go sign (actually a stop/slow sign here), but very occasionally traffic lights - John isn’t a great fan!!

As J&B had raved about it, we thought we’d have a look at Phillip Island. It’s very reminiscent of the Isle of Wight - it has Cowes and Ventnor ... and instead of the Needles it has the Nobbies! The Nobbies has the biggest fur seal colony in Australia - which can’t be very big, as we didn’t actually see one. But what we did see were penguins - I’m in love with penguins! We were walking down the boardwalk to see the blow hole (in the hope that it would be blowing) and came across a couple of mums with their kids all looking through the wooden slats - there were 5 penguins underneath. In no time at all, we were taking it in turns to lay flat on the boardwalk with our heads dangling over the end to get a good view of the precious little things, whilst more discerning tourists walked over us!

We then drove round a very pretty coastline to Wilsons Promontory Nature Reserve where we’re staying the night in the hope of seeing some of Australia’s other indigenous animals ... for ages, all we’d managed was a sea gull but then came across some pretty amazing parrots - no koala, wombats, possums, or platypus though!

Here’s a thought. When we came over here, I was prepared to meet more than a smattering of Norms, Nevs, Shanes, Waynes & Bruces, and we have (well, actually, we haven’t met a single Bruce so far), but we weren’t prepared for how many Garys we’ve met - Aussie mothers must have had a temporary blip naming all boys Gary before moving on to Bretts, Dales and Deans.

Now one of the Garys that we’ve met was telling John a very interesting fact. 20 or so years ago, Australia had a serious fly problem that meant that you wouldn’t have been able to sit outside without being covered in flies. (They obviously still follow me around, but everyone else seems ok). Apparently a German bug expert suggested it was because we imported cows into Oz, but there was nothing to take care of their muck, hence the flies. By introducing the dung beetle, it has virtually resolved the fly problem. Unfortunately, somebody else suggested a particular toad be introduced to remove another pest, and now they have a serious problem with toads instead! Apparently, the same thing had happened in Hawaii but some bright spark figured it wouldn’t happen a second time - cheesh!)

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Comments

[Sarah]

Penguins!
So looking forward to seeing your Penguin inspired quilt, Val (Ref: Gail Lawther)