We gave Jim his house back on Jan. 9th and headed east to the coast of New South Wales. Since then we've followed the coast from NSW, through Victoria, South Australia, across the Nullarbour Plains and into Western Australia all the way to Perth. It's strange but as we travel we find the days go by quickly and yet Jan. 9th seems months ago.
The first few days were as hot as the drive down the centre. Then on the 11th the temperature cooled to a comfortable, sleepable level and stayed that way almost all the way here. Now here in Perth it is up to the 35 degree range. Time again for pools and air conditioning.
In NSW we went to a whale museum in Eden and learned about an orca, Old Tom, who used to assist the local whale hunters in finding other whales, even sometimes taking their rope and pulling their boat in the right direction. The hunters would kill the whale and old Tom and his pod would eat the lips and tongue and the hunters would harvest the rest. Old Tom's skeleton is now in the museum after he washed up dead one day. The whales must have had a hit out on him.
Jim introduced us to Australia's fast food (besides MacDonalds etc): meat pies. We've now had meat pies all across the bottom half of this continent. We all go for that feast.
On Jan. 15th we found a parking spot downtown Melbourne, miraculously. We had take-away sushi and fries on the steps of federation square then walked up to China town and saw a dragon puppet dancing up the street. We were only there for 2 hours (our parking space limit) but we thought it was a happening city, a fun place to spend more time in.
That night we stayed at a free woods campground near Apollo Bay. As we were relaxing outside and the girls were playing with 2 sisters next to us I noticed a furry ball in a nearby tree. Was it? no. Yes, it really was, a koala. When we walked under it's tree it looked lazily down at us. Some campers showed us a mother and baby koala in a nearby tree. Then we found 2 more in another tree, all around us! We were quite excited, it's more rewarding finding them in their natural habitat rather than a zoo. We got to spend our evening watching them eat and look back at us. As it got dark the mother and baby came down. The baby rode on it's mom's back and they ambled across the camp sites, passing people by a few feet and climbed a new tree. What a wonderful treat.
The girls loved their new friends Zoey and Leah. Their parents invited Kevin and I over to enjoy their campfire. The next day we didn't leave until lunch time because we were all having fun with our new friends. The koalas had breakfast and were enjoying their morning naps, they sleep about 22 hours a day.
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