Great Ocean Road drive (Part 3)

Nelson was the end of the road really so we decided to return to (warmer!!!) Melbourne, inland via the Grampians. We stayed in a cabin at Dunkeld where Michelle's friend, Erin, ran a campsite at the foot of the hills. It was nature central - at sunset we came across wild kangaroos, emus and echidnas.

The next morning we went for a walk and saw ............. yes, birds

Rosella

A disguised rosella

A purple breasted swamphen

Superb Fairywren!

The female I assume? Yes

Coot

Masked Lapwing

Galahs

Grampians

Black swans

A bird of prey - name? Could be a Brown Falcon.

Well, I gave it my best shot at naming them, hopefully Mandy can fill in the gaps.

We decided that Melbourne was not the place to go to end our week away so headed to Queenscliff to get the ferry to Sorrento en route to Philip Island. We stayed over in a place near Sorrento called Blairgowrie. It was a warm sunny evening (I know, my cup runneth over) so we went for a walk along the beach - I lasted about 20 minutes, the flies were as bad as at Uluru and I didn't have my net with me. We were doomed!

The next day we arrived at Philip Island where we were going to see penguins and fur seals - hurrah. We checked out the penguin place first and I took some photos as we weren't allowed to do that for the penguin parade

The beach where they come in

The underground hideout where we would be watching

I found one little penguin bless it

Cape Barren Geese or Grey Goose

Wait for it.....a Willie-wagtail!

Philip Island is quite isolated so they have many birds and animals that are safe from preditors including the almost extinct bandicout (we did see one but it was dark so I photographed this video)

If you want to see the Penguin Parade there is plenty of videos on You Tube (here's an example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MchECDmC8EY )  - I thoroughly enjoyed it and saw hundreds of them (far more than in Tasmania)

In the afternoon we took a boat trip to see the 100's of fur seals on the Nobbies (islands off Philip Island)

I realised yesterday that I was a pair of pants short of a weeks holiday so I did a bit of washing and put them in the only warm place I could think of - in the window of Michelle's car! I'm such a slob! (it wasn't on the street I promise - and it did work)

On our last day I was rudely awoken at 6am by a Kookaburra competing in a 'who can sing the loudest' competition with magpies - it was blood curdling! By the time I had got over the shock and found my camera they had stopped, darn it! I was hoping to get a photo of the kookaburra as I haven't seen one yet. Can you believe that I didn't see Australia's iconic bird the whole time I have been here?

As it was a sunny day (what? I hear you say) we decided to relax on the beach (fully clothed - it wasn't that warm) to prepare for our journey back to Melbourne. I must say, Michelle did go for a swim after about an hour as the sea looked lovely.

We arrived in Melbourne late afternoon, had a relax (twice in one day!) and went out for our farewell meal to Borcsh, Vodka and Tears - the tears came after I had the lemon vodka shot, phew what a shocker! The food was excellent BTW and well worth going for those who find themselves in Melbourne

Today I am doing my washing (not sure how as the washing machine has broken down) and packing as tomorrow we are off to Thailand for another leg of our journey - hopefully we can avoid the Coronavirus and, yes, we will be careful (no masks - No good apparently, just hand gel)

I must say that Amy, Anne and Michelle have made my time in Melbourne a fantastic one and I feel blessed to have such good friends here in Australia - cheers girls, I hope I see you all again very soon ..............