Take A Walk On The Wild Side

We are continuing to get plenty of exercise in with all the walking and cycling we’ve been doing.  Where there is an opportunity to take part in a Saturday morning Park Run we’ve also been doing that, especially since we haven’t found the time to do many runs independently.  We were a little concerned to see the following sign at the start of the Balyang Park Run and perhaps, unsurprisingly, both Mike and I achieved PBs (Personal Bests) despite not spotting any!

No wonder we both achieved PBs in the Geelong Park Run!

What we have seen this week in the wild are koalas – seven of them.  There was mention in one of our tourist guides that you were likely to spot them at Kenneth River on the Great Ocean Road.  My heart sunk when we pulled into the nearby car park and it was packed with tourist buses and loads of people milling around.  They were all crowded at the start of the Nature Reserve and were taking photos of the king parrots, cockatoos and there was one koala up a tree.  We decided to head up the road on foot and walked for about a mile seeing how many we could spot for ourselves.  Koalas are well camouflaged and quite sedentary so you need to peer hard but we were rewarded to spot six for ourselves and not another tourist in sight!!!

Koala in its natural setting

We took a wonderful windswept walk on the wild side of Great Ocean Road and the same day as we saw the koalas, I spotted a whale spouting off.  Wish I’d had the binoculars on me for a better view especially since Mike couldn’t see it.  Learning my lesson, I did take the binoculars the following day and was able to clearly see a large colony of seals basking out on the rocks but no more whales.  No photographs unfortunately of the seals, whale or the kangaroos that played peek-a-boo as we drove through the very picturesque Great Otway National Park – you’ll just have to take my word for it!!!

The weatherman promised us higher temperatures and so we’ve had jumpers off and the barbeque out again.  We enjoyed huge garlic prawns from the local fisherman’s Co-op one night and I also had local Portalington mussels another.  Before leaving Geelong we rewarded our new PBs with a rather posh lunch and locally produced Shiraz from Nicol’s Vineyard.  Tomorrow Mike will finally get to taste some Australian produced whisky when we visit the Timboon Railway Shed Distillery but at over $200 a bottle I don’t think we’ll be adding any to our mini-bar!

Delicious wine, gorgeous lunch – couldn’t ask of more at Nicol’s Paddock

The Great Ocean Road provides breath taking scenery at every turn and vantage point.  Here are a selection of my favourites with a few selfies thrown in for good measure!

A few of the remaining Twelve Apostles

An amazing sight to see

So happy we managed to get ourselves AND an apostle!!!

The Power of the Ocean

Spotted first whale in this bay!

Quite a climb, but worth it to see Great Ocean Road from another perspective.