Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
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Afternoon all, it’s that time. Fantastic bottle of fizz opened, alpacas are sunbathing and the thunderstorms from this morning are gone and all is well with the world.
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Up close pic of said alpacas, they were very curious until they realised we didn’t have any food, then it was “pah, just another bunch of tourists that aren’t feeding us” and they were off.
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Local ‘roos, first we’ve seen in the bush, even though there were no bushes there.
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Now the Aussies love their rural post boxes. We’ve seen milk churns, beer barrels, one labelled “for bills” 3m in the air and even a microwave (fantastic idea, keep the post dry and the snakes out), but this one so far takes the prize. If Ned Kelly did steam punk, this would be it.
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That’s the good news, bad news is the bottle of fizz is finished and it’s not even 4pm!
Luckily a bottle of rosé and a bottle of white in the fridge.
23rd Mar 2023 4:49 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73089
And a few wildlife pics, update from Phillips Island. We did the standard tourist thing of heading to the Penguin Parade but did the Ultimate Trip where 10 peeps plus a guide went away from the masses and had NVGs to watch the little darlings come out the see and up the beach, their own little D-day landing, just nobody was shooting at them! Great experience, well recommended cf being with the masses and watching them under floodlights. Sadly pics of penguins are vorbotten and as we behave ourselves, we stuck to that, unlike some. Well recommended. Only downside is we had to drive to hotel in the dark, watching out for all things hopping looking to jump out in front of us.
Next day to the Koala Sanctuary. Now I’m pretty good at spotting Kangeroos, possums and echidnas, Mrs DSL is absolute spotting expert at seeing Koalas. Random assortment of pics, I know there is one above but they are simply too cute!
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Now this fella was loving playing to the audience, he was really strutting his stuff.
There was 4 females and one male in this large enclosure, had to be the male as he loved showing off.
23rd Mar 2023 5:10 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73089
Parky63 wrote:
Any plans to visit Healesville Sanctuary? Only 110 miles NNW of you current location.
Was there yesterday. It was included in the membership of the Sydney Taronga Zoo, and they were really happy to see out-of-staters!! We spent a good couple of hours there and really enjoyed it, so much so I didn’t take many pics!
Tree Kangeroo, this type native to PNG. Luckily made the “talk” on them but as it was SWMBO and I’ there, it was our own Q&A sesh.
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Seeing wombats in the wild last week was one of the highlights of our travelling, all of our travelling, and this one, in the sanctuary, had just returned from the dentist and was a bit peckish so didn’t hide in a burrow.
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We’d also seen echidnas in the wild in Tassie in 2020 so we have a bit of a soft spot for them. Sadly didn’t get a pic of them but did snap one of the Tassie Devils.
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No pics of the platipuses as they were in darkness and no harmful flash allowed, wouldn’t have down that anyway, so here’s anther pic of, you guessed it, a koala in the sanctuary.
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Back to the Big City tomorrow, Melbourne here we come. Just hope the weather is better than when we were there in 2020!
23rd Mar 2023 5:33 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73089
And view out the door a few minutes ago, deffo collective noun for alpacas is a queue of alpacas!! SWEEEEEEEEEET!!
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23rd Mar 2023 8:45 am
JordsDisco
Member Since: 22 May 2020
Location: Newcastle
Posts: 1616
I’d argue it’s herd, but each to their own.
23rd Mar 2023 8:55 am
Parky63
Member Since: 10 Apr 2017
Location: Hampshire
Posts: 409
Del,
Pleased you made to Healesville - spent a great day there a long time ago. IIRC we did get to see the Platypus. Do they still have the reptile house? Never seen so many things that can kill you in such a small place!!
I'd forgotten about the Fairy penguins on Phillip Island. Me and SWMBO spent the day at the race track watching the first touring car race at the circuit following a very long absence. The Holden/Ford battle was massive. Got to see the legend Dick Johnson compete. And then slipped down to the beach to watch the penguins. Remember a last minute influx of 3 bus loads of Japanese tourists and as you point out, the idiots taking flash photos
Looking forward to the rest of the trip!
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73089
And greetings from Melbourne Grand Prix! Well same place, just a minor matter of one week prem. Fair few F1 peeps in the hotel, most cursing at having just landed, got to the hotel, had breakie then straight out to work! Those in breakie yesterday were bit worse for wear having had a night out on the mean streets of Melbourne.
Not often you get to walk most of an F1 circuit without either getting run over or at least shouted at.
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Fastest thing on the circuit. Not saying if that’s the pic above or below!
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Lots and lots and lots of airfreight containers. Just love it when they pretend it’s a green sport!
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Local fire brigade has had a bit of an upgrade! One of the local contractors was commenting that the steering wheel was on the wrong side, pointed out that they weren’t alone as UK, along with Ireland & Cyprus, was a bastion of driving on the correct side in Euroland!
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And it was once we were 1/3 of the way walking round the track that we realised we were doing it backwards!! Most of what we saw would only be see by drivers going the wrong way, prob prior to crashing! This is looking the right way but going to be interesting if they forget to remove it.
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Not often my walk mapping app shows a race track. And no, we didn’t walk 11.04km, we were ~700m in when I remembered to hit the start button on my watch.
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26th Mar 2023 3:25 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73089
PS Forgot this fantastic mural on the side of a bottle shop on the route from CBD to Albert Park.
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And the internal view of our hotel. Bit like staying in Strangeways, I’d imagine as I’ve never stayed at his or her Maj’s pleasure. Not sure the Shiraz and nibbles are as good though.
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26th Mar 2023 7:23 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 73089
Parky63 wrote:
Del,
Pleased you made to Healesville - spent a great day there a long time ago. IIRC we did get to see the Platypus. Do they still have the reptile house? Never seen so many things that can kill you in such a small place!!
I'd forgotten about the Fairy penguins on Phillip Island. Me and SWMBO spent the day at the race track watching the first touring car race at the circuit following a very long absence. The Holden/Ford battle was massive. Got to see the legend Dick Johnson compete. And then slipped down to the beach to watch the penguins. Remember a last minute influx of 3 bus loads of Japanese tourists and as you point out, the idiots taking flash photos
Looking forward to the rest of the trip!
David
We did see some snakes, ISTR mostly pythons, in the zoo but nothing that wasn’t going to just give you a hug. It was a bit scary when we looked at where the various deadly snakes live and that’s all just where we are going, or were!
We passed the race track, it was all very quiet when we were there. The penguins were truely fab, plus seeing bandicoots and more possoms. We had something walking across our cabin’s roof that night so it was either something out of Mordor or a sweet possum. We’ve still to see Koalas in the wild but the quest goes on. One of the owners of the B&B we stayed in sent us a message of somewhere to go and see more Koalas than you can shake a stick at, but she typed the message and forgot to press the “send” button.
26th Mar 2023 7:35 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
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Oh and now officially on the hunt for Wombat t-shirts. So far these are standout faves, but mostly on t’interweb thingie but not physical stores.
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26th Mar 2023 7:44 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
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Sorry folks, been a bit quiet lately. Will update tonight, wine tasting in Coonawarra atm. Cheers all!
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And lunch has just arrived!
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Cheers all, again!
1st Apr 2023 2:35 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
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Right, where were we?
We were going to go the RAAF museum S of Melbourne but it’s closed for renovations until early April. We were able to get to the small museum and band of enthusiasts that are restoring an ex-RAAF Liberator. It was a case of going in, being told where we could and couldn’t go, then left to wander around. Great looking inside and outside the old girl, and seeing all the work that’s going into getting her taxi ready. Unfortunately taxing is no longer an option as the runway is now a housing estate.
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Headed S from there along this little road.
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Spectacular cliffs, lots of twisty roads and more surfing beaches than you can shake a stick at.
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Of course the 12, or is it 11 or 10, Apostles. First place we’ve seen for a while with lots of tourists.
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And hopefully all keeping to the tracks as we’re back to snake county, if we ever left.
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And to get away from the crowds a lovely tree fern rain forest walk, a bit of green ying to the beach’s yellow yang.
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Then, as in last post, up to Coonawarra for a few days wine tasting, hic. 4 wineries today, now flopped out watching TV and planning stuff for future trips. Oh and looks like it’s going to be a bit nippy tomorrow, down to +3c. Might have to dig out the gloves that we thought we’d have put away for the rest of the trip when we left SF for Hawaii!
Oh, and as a minor aside we stayed in a place called Apollo Bay and did a t’internet speed test on my phone, as you do. Was staggered to see this result, and it was the same on speedtest app and via fast.com. Not bad for a 4g phone!
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Last place has a starlink system but it was faster and more reliable just to use good old 4g.
1st Apr 2023 5:21 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
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OK, a few more pics from the last week or so. Now nicely tucked up in a nice hotel in Adelaide, avoiding the Easter traffic and just generally flopping.
The whole raisin d’etre for being in Coonawarra.
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Quite a man cave at one of the cellar doors. They spent A$2m on a new visitors centre, only to have it closed 11 days after opening due to that little Chinese bug.
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On one serious wine tasting day we needed a mildly serious lunch. These filled the void nicely.
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Now we’re not the peeps that taste all the wines, which were fantastic in Coonawarra, then stagger to the next cellar door and not buy anything. However we completely lost track of how long we’re in Aus and how much we had bought. I think we’ve over bought a little, but I’m sure it will get drunk.
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Non wine related near Coonawarra, IR cameras watching loads of bats in a cave. We weren’t in the cave, which wouldn’t have been a problem considering the amount of bat guano on the floor!
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The camera was good enough to see the fleas on the bats and their heart beat! More reason not to be UC&P.
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Loved Victor Harbor, nice little seaside place just S of Adelaide with nice walk around Granite Island.
As it says on the tin rock. Though said rock wasn't granite. No Little Penguins seen though.
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Raging bull rock, our name not theirs.
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They have an animal sanctuary there as well where. SWEEEEEEEEET koalas.
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And loved feeding the wallabies. They were so gentle it was untrue.
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Now the kangeroos were a different kettle of fish, most were quite gentle but one was very pushy and managed to draw quite a bit of blood from my arm. Sorry no pics but was busy fending them off.
And to Adelaide. Her Maj went back to Hertz. She was OK car to drive but deffo wouldn’t buy one. Too many quirks.
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Now this bad boy is going to need a big Lego box!
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And walk yesterday to Adelaide Zoo. Sweeeeeeeet Tapir.
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One of 2 pandas
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And one of 3 Sumatran Tigers that had just “met” the public for the first time a couple of days ago.
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And really primordial, lots of flying foxes.
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Few more days in Adelaide then picking up another car and heading into the bondu. So far SA is our fave state, ignoring the half hour time diff malarky.
9th Apr 2023 10:08 am
DG Site Moderator
Member Since: 12 Dec 2005
Location: The Gaff
Posts: 50978
Blimey Del, I close my eyes and you are on another flamin' trip of a lifetime.
Enjoy Adelaide, I was there in 1989 and saw the last Grand Prix there before they moved it to Melbourne. If you are popping out Henley Beach way at all have a pint in the Ramsgate Hotel for me 21 year LR veteran > D2 GS 2003 > D3 S 2006 > D3 HSE 2009 > D4 HSE 2013 > D4 HSE 2015 > D5 HSE 2018 > DS HSE R-Dynamic P300e 2021
9th Apr 2023 11:40 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
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That’s a long eye-close, been OTR since Jan!
Unfortunately not really heading out of Adelaide until we head to York Penuslar, if we see a sign for Heneley Beach will wave “hi” from you.
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Well recommended. Only downside is we had to drive to hotel in the dark, watching out for all things hopping looking to jump out in front of us. 
We were able to get to the small museum and band of enthusiasts that are restoring an ex-RAAF Liberator. It was a case of going in, being told where we could and couldn’t go, then left to wander around. Great looking inside and outside the old girl, and seeing all the work that’s going into getting her taxi ready. Unfortunately taxing is no longer an option as the runway is now a housing estate. 
