Mt Buller, 8th March catch up

Land of the flies
I was up and out early to get to Mt Buller before it got too hot, it was forecast high 30's in most places but would be cooler up the mountain. A nice summit walk took me up the peak next to a fire look out post where I sat for quite a while admiring the view and also enjoying not being bothered by flies. Flies. The tourist information should warn about the flies, I wish I had taken my fly net I used on the farm it would have made the walk almost infinitely more enjoyable. So I sat at the top for a bit, then the man in the look out tower came and said I was looking the wrong way and there were 2 wedge tailed eagles flying over massive and graceful. I was pleased about that, seeing something in the wild means you can properly say you spotted it. I had a look inside the fire tower and he explained how they use old school methods of working out where fires are. There are a network of towers and when a fire is spotted the near by towers take a bearing on the fire and plot it with a peice of string attached to a nut on the map, the other towers do the same and they radio through their bearings so these can be plotted on the map and where the lines meet is the location of the fire. Its very simple and requires no fancy technology.



Fire lookout tower, Mt Buller



Inside lookout



How fires are location from bearing from fire lookout towers

The walk unofficially continued along a ridge to some cairn stones, I walked as far as I go and then went back past the fire tower down to the main track. This part of the walk back down to the start is very picturesque and probably seems lovely in the photos, except the flies were maddening and it was getting hot - I ran down the rest of the way to get it over with and I thought - oh for the South Downs!
I really just wanted to get off the mountain asap after that, driving down the thermometer keep rising, to 98 degrees which is about 37 Celsius. Anything over 33 all seems to feel the same to me, thank goodness for air con. In Mansfield, the nearest town to Joys, I bought a cold juice and a cider, I drank all the juice and went back to the farm.

Joy was interested in my day and the walk, I had a relax for a while in the cool. Joy said she needed to check on the sheep and water hole levels and did I want to come, so off we went in the pick up with the 2 dogs in the back and inspected various fields for water and located the sheep which were all resting under the shade of trees. Some of them got up and had a bit of piss or a poo like sheep do when they're a bit scared, its all about getting rid of unnecessary weight if they have to run. Back at the farm house there was another group of sheep near the farm buildings, the Rams were in this group and their massive balls hung like udders, this group was a mix of breeds with some lambs but can you spot the odd one out?

 

From the coast to the mountains, 7th March catch up

I've been without internet so the next few entries are catch ups....

Foster to Mansfield.
I had 300kms to drive today so to break up the journey I stopped at Healesville animal sanctuary in the Dandenong ranges, at 2.30pm there was a bird show scheduled. It starts with a dreamtime legend about a bird, and I was thinking the narration would talk on for ages and my mind started to wander and right on cue as the narrator is talking about a bird circling overhead one of the bird performers appears overhead doing just that, from then on the show had my full attention. There were 2 bird handlers who would walk around the audience and the bird on display would fly on cue between them swooping low over the audience. The timing of handler and birds was incredible, they even had a wedged tail eagle, the biggest bird in Australia - a beast of a bird.

The road North

Wedged Tailed Eagle



Yes, the bird is flying straight at me!

 

Amongst the birds in the rest of the sanctuary was a Red-browed Finch and this was the bird I had seen  last month in the bush, I had made a sketch of it afterwards to record  the markings but didn't know until now what it was. I had tried looking for it in John B's What Bird is That? Illustrated bird book but there were several possibilities, it wasn't until I saw the actual bird again in this sanctuary I knew what is was. A red-browed Finch!

The day had started cool and wet was turning out quite hot so after witnessing all the animals and the bird show it was time to head off.


At around 7:30pm I arrived at my next airbnb on a sheep farm not far from mt Buller where I wanted to go hiking the next day. Two very enthusiastic working dogs greeted me, big proper dogs! Whisky and Spot. Joy's farmhouse was delightfully cool inside, straight away Joy was easy and fun to talk to. I even got to watch Downton Abby, a lovely evening and so to bed.


Joys airbnb near Mansfield





These little ones had an unusual way of looking at things



These were spendid



And a sleepy little bear.

Wilson's Promontory

I ended up giving Raquel and Lucas who were at the hostel a lift to Wilson's Promontory as they wanted to go camping. I knew I'd end up giving them a lift, before I arrived they had asked some other girls who were too self absorbed in their own bookcases* to really engage with anyone else. Dear Raquel is from Spain and staying with a family in Lorne on the Great Ocean Road who she opared for a few years ago, they had lent her camping bag, tent, sleeping mat, but somehow she also packed lots of other useless things and had way too much stuff, and even though she wanted to go camping, she lamented she would not be able to carry everything. Timo from Finland tried to council her to remove unnecessary items but alas everything was necessary. Earlier she had gone out to buy food for the trip, this included instant noodles even though she had no stove to cook them when camping, full loaves of bread, cup a soups etc, this was the result:

Raquel and Lucas ready for a 9km hike!

Raquel had met Lucas at the hostel and they decided to go camping together. Lucas had left some of his stuff and the hostel but still ended up carrying his shopping. Raquel had did manage to leave a bag at the visitors centre for safe keeping. Still I got them to their starting point and at least they won't go hungry. After seeing them off I had a walk over a peninsula to Squeaky Beach, because the sand so pure it squeaks, I looped back up over the peninsula for views over to a hill I was contemplating climbing, I sat down atop a big boulder and enjoyed the contemplation of the walk with dwindling intention of actually walking it. I was saved from any last desire to walk up hill by a family consisting of dad about 70+, daughter about my age and an aboriginal boy about 10. They weren't expecting to see anyone on the boulder and the first thing the dad said to me was then a person commits suicide they take their shoes off and take their watch off. I assured him my shoes and watch were still on. I thought he looked a bit like Clint Eastwood. Apparently they were going into a cave he had discovered through a tiny crack which lead under the next massive boulder. To get to the crack you had to shuffle along the side and not fall over the steep drop and then crawl in on your front, so I went inside a cave. Inside we found a cache like a time capsule someone had left and a note in a tin. We crawled further into the cave. I thought he was a very cool 70 something dad, after the cave and the scaring exit, which meant crawling head first on ones front out of the crack over the drop, I continued to walk with them back to Tidal River. He told me all about Simi, the boy and how they came to have him, he ran, surfed and was in a local athletics club, they lived in Franston which is further down from Mentone, near the Mornington Peninsular - a nice place to be. What a wonder encounter.

I went back to squeaky beach on the way back to Foster to collect some sand in a bottle. Back at the hostel there was a middle aged couple from Canada and John (why is everyone called John?) who was up to do some work, he also cooked a massive meal and I helped him eat it, so I had 2 dinners tonight. A longish day, tired but in a good way.

*Facebook

Squeaky Beach

Tidal River

colourful feed

Sitting on the access ledge next to the crack into the cave

Cool family, Simi is holding a torch for the cave

Lovely little YHA at Foster

The dorm room

A really lovely hostel.

The long and boring road to Foster

I don't have much news to report except I drove from Ballarat to Foster, it was long and boring. Highlights were a massive delay on the road to Melbourne, I managed to escape on the next off ramp skipping half of it.
Avoiding Toll Roads.
And trying to get into a retail park and getting frustrated and confused at the massive busy roads of Melbourne.

Eventually arriving at Foster tired and hungry. I had to go via Mentone to pick up my big bag and drop of Johns tent, I had just missed Josie who had flown over from Wellington as they had gone to a relatives. Then I had to get some things from a retail park and the drive took twice as long as I expected so I didn't eat lunch. I was proper hungry so I made my airbnb special and then ate the rest of a chocolate bar, only I wasn't staying at an airbnb, for the first time this trip I was staying at a backpackers, agh! I feel a hundred years old. That's ok, its a small hostel with 3 rooms next to a creek, its a nice place. It has wifi which works, that's good, but no bread board. I did more boring things like washing. Everyone else is about 22.

I don't have a book to read and there's no one to tell me a story. :(

The best part of the day was the morning, I had a lovely time at Kate's airbnb in Ballarat, we talked for hours last night, she is such a lovely person and very helpful this morning, and she put on an excellent breakfast, yoghurt, muesli, cereal, toast, spreads, seeds, fresh fruit salad! She really goes the extra mile, the extra Dolf and Francesca mile.

Airbnb

I love airbnb.
After yesterdays long drive it was only a short drive to Ballarat and my next stop, last night I had stayed in Wallace 10km south at the converted church owned by David, another lovely host. He recommended the art gallery, this was a good idea for today as it was too hot for much walking around outside. The art gallery was excellent, there was a showcase of student work which was very good, I wouldn't have known it was student work unless for a sign explaining it was a competition, the students were lucky to have an opportunity to showcase their work in a leading gallery.
After going round the ground floor I took a pit stop at the gallery café for coffee and cake, to my joy the cakey bit came with a little side of single cream. I dipped the cake into the cream and some of the cake dropped into the cream which left a blissful union of cake bits in cream to slurp. But I digress I was talking about art, after the pit stop I looked around the second floor, a good range of art from different periods was on show, I was nearing the end of the gallery and a man with a loud voice and a stick came booming in with a quiet man, he was a loud man, I wondered if someone with such a loud voice is able to whisper or if they just end up shouting. Anyway I had finished inspecting the artworks, it was indeed a fantastic gallery, I spent at least a few hours there.

After a quick look at the lake, which is lovely but it was too hot a day to enjoy it much, I found my next airbnb on the edge of town as recommended in Les's blog. Kate was warm and welcoming, we talked for hours in the evening and she reminded me of Linda in Geelong who I also talked for hours with until the wee hours. I had a good chat to David last night too when he got home from his function in town and he still had a sticky label on his shirt with 'David' on it. All these people are wonderful, Kate's a lovely person and I wished I was staying longer. Quite a lot of airbnb hosts apologise for untidiness, when the reality is I've never seen such clean, exquisite characterful dwellings! Linda's place had period light switch fittings and beautiful antique furniture and that little attic chalet room, plus a pool and the amusing dogs! David's converted church is such a unique space it makes more sense as a living space than most purpose built living spaces which are just boxes, the Apollo bay airbnb was like a retreat, the airbnbs in Adelaide were tastefully decorated, the second one had a vegetable garden and chickens, in Coogee bay I was welcomed with hearty sandwich, and Kate's place is simply beautiful, expansive and very well decorated - I can't imagine anyone not liking the décor here.

Airbnb. It's proper bo.



Kate's beautiful airbnb, there was even a cold bottle of water and a mini choc block.

The 12 Apostles sea cliffs

There's a ruckus outside! more about that later.

Continuing on from Apollo Bay after lots of wiggly winding roads I reached the sea cliffs called the 12 Apostles, I remember going here ages ago with Dave on a bus tour but we didn't have long at the Apostles made even less time because we took a scenic helicopter flights by which time we only had time to run down to the look out and run back to the coach. So I didn't realise there were many  lookouts along the stretch of coast to different sea stacks, some had holes, some bridges, some had fallen over, at some points there were beaches and some bits of the coast were becoming an island.

Some popular sights at the 12 Apostles:

Many of them had selfie sticks too, some selfie sticks had fablets in them, which is between a tablet and a phone. Most of the people were taking pictures of themselves, quite a lot had big SLR cameras but were mainly taking photos with their phones.

 

Here's the sort of thing they were taking pictures off except without anyone in the picture.

 

 

I camped last night at Port Campbell and tonight I'm back near Ballarat staying at an airbnb that used to be a church:

Outside causing the ruckus ..

Bella and Stella

Possibly chasing..


The wibbs

1st March. The Great Ocean Road to Apollo Bay.

Some say 'pinch punch first of the month', some say 'rabbits! rabbits! rabbits!' I had forgotten to say rabbits! rabbits! rabbits! on the first day of the month except this time - I remembered, apparently according to Les who I met at Francesca's and Dolf's in Wellington, to say this at the beginning of a month brings luck. So Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits! It's also the last month of these travels.

I overslept today, bother! I had wanted to be on the road early but didn't wake up till 9.36am, last night after watching Downton Abbey, I chatted with Linda for hours until is was past 1am, seemed like we have a lot in common, she made me laugh about her curiosity over small cubby holes and places you weren't necessarily meant to go into, oubliettes and so forth. Linda's husband John, made a delicious apple pie and then went out t buy cream! I was amazed, John is a Aussie as you get but there he was baking away a lovely apple pie, there was even a bit of cinnamon in there and some extra pastry decoration on the top. He didn't even eat any!

The Great Ocean Road is like Route 101 between San Francisco and LA except with shorter cliffs and more beaches. It also reminded me a bit of the road on the West side of Loch Ness. I stopped at Bells beach, went for a of a walk along the cliff and then along the beach and watched the surfers  and later at another nice quiet beach for an hour or so just enjoying not doing anything. Then of course I had to stop at the sign:

 

I arrived at my next airbnb which was attached to but separate from the families house, there were some chocolates on the bed which I ate straight away like a ravenous beast, tea facilities and cutlery and plates so I could make my airbnb salad special:

• 1/4 cucumber
• 1-2 biggish tomatoes
• 1/3 bag sugar snap peas
• 1 95g tin of flavoured tuna, this one was sweet seeded mustard
• 1/2 avocado
• Sicilian olives, lots.
• Extra virgin olive oil if available

The flavoured tuna acts as a salad dressing. A great camping recipe as it doesn't really need cold storage and can be cut up with camping utensils. Delicious. I didn't have any avocado or olives left so I had another tin of tuna instead. I have eaten this meal for the last 4 nights, and have had a different tuna flavour tin each time which keeps it interesting.

Winkipop dreams, who doesn't love a winkipop!



Great Ocean Road was work given to soldiers after the war to give them something to do. They did well.

Bells beach with route surfers use to get into the water

Another lovely airbnb, how cute are those cushions!