Thursday 5th January 2017 - to Port Fairy
Before we left our super dooper accommodation I had the English Breakfast, (Janice had the Continental).
Whilst eating it I thought how tasty the food is compared with our food back home. The bacon was good, the egg was free range (they have their own hens), the tomatoes were tomatoey and the mushrooms were mushroomy. I have commented previously on how tasty the meat is. I can only surmise that in the UK we have bred out all the taste from our food. I can't remember the last time I had a tasty mushroom in England and even vine ripened tomatoes aren't what they used to be. Meat is often bland. We must be getting good looking cheap food at the expense of taste. Aussie food is good looking too but tastes better. I know the growing climate can have something to do with it but surely we can grow decent mushrooms and better quality meat if the Aussies can!
We had a walk to the Warrnambool Botanic Gardens. It was very pleasant in the morning sun.
We had been told to visit Tower Hill, which is a volcanic crater that is now a State Wildlife Reserve. We were amazed by the scale of it....
This picture doesn't show a quarter of it. The rim encircles this large lake which also (almost) encircles an island. You can drive over to the island and there are koalas, emus and kangaroo. We immediately found two koalas in trees next to the car park. Here's one....
Then we were almost accosted by about six emus.
We had a nice walk to a view point but we didn't see any kangaroos and we decided to come back later in the evening when we were more likely to see more.
We drove the relatively short distance to Port Fairy which was previously called Belfast. Our AirBnB was an old whalers cottage.
Well, we only had use of about a third of it. It was a strange layout but still ok, with a kitchen diner, a bedroom and a hallway into the bathroom. The ceiling was unusual as it was made of patterned metal. We are certainly staying in varied styles of accommodation, which is what we wanted. We had arrived a bit early and although we pick up the key from the 'secret' hiding place, otherwise known as the letterbox, the room wasn't cleaned and the 'Manchester' needed to be changed. I didn't know that Australians use the term 'Manchester' to refer to all bedding linen! I presume it's a reference to when Manchester was dominant in the cotton trade. I am getting very confused with all the place names....Tower Hill is in London, Manchester and Belfast. We could be anywhere tomorrow.
Port Fairy is known for its annual folk festival. It is a pleasant, small touristy town. The river Moyne meets the sea and there is a Fishermans Wharf.....
The wharf leads to Griffith Island with a lighthouse and some stunning beaches.
We made our own stir fry meal and returned to Tower Hill in search of kangaroos. I had a funny feeling that the Australian Tourist Board were over representing the number of kangaroos and koalas in the country for marketing purposes, a bit like saying there were twelve apostles when there were only eight really. I thought that in reality there were only a few kangaroos and koalas and they were moving them around in order to create an illusion that they were plentiful.
Tower Hill was much quieter in the evening and it was really pleasant to walk around without other people around. We found the same koalas and emu and stalked the area for kangaroos. I found another koala out in the bush. At the very end we saw two medium sized kangas but came away a little bit disappointed. My view of the kangaroo exaggeration seemed to be confirmed.
But.....as we drove out of the crater we saw.....
At least a couple of hundred kangaroos in some fields, I suppose it really constitutes a mob! All the little dots in the distance are all kangaroos! We were definitely looking in the wrong place earlier. It's funny that you see animals when you don't expect to. My kangaroo theory is in tatters.....I apologise to the Tourist Board for my libellous comments earlier and I withdraw them completely.
Also there were about 30 cockatoos outside the AirBnB when we got back making loads of noise too.
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