First Visitors

Last weekend, Nov. 24-25,  we had our first visitors from Canada. Lots of people have threatened to come visit but Jacques and Nathalie from Winnipeg were the first to deliver. We were actually a little surprised that they made it. We received an email on Monday saying that they would be arriving in Sydney on Wednesday morning and likely be at our place by late Friday afternoon. We thought that once they arrived in Australia they would realize how far away we were and decide to pare back their plans since they are only here for just over a week.

We should know better than to underestimate Jacques determination, low and behold, they were here for supper. We had an enjoyable meal and then took a short drive down towards the other end of town so they could get their first look at some kangaroos. We, like most of the people they had encountered, were flabbergasted that they hadn't spotted any yet in their travels. 40 or 50 roos later with a couple of emus to boot and they were kangaroo satiated. We also drove up to Boroka lookout to take in the view over Halls Gap.


They have set the bar high for visitors as they came bearing many gifts including hand made maple syrup, crab apple jelly and an assortment of treats they picked up along their travels. We had just been talking about missing good syrup, as all they seem to have here is corn syrup. We went to work on the syrup promptly the next morning over French toast before heading out for a day of exploring the Grampians. Since arriving, this has been Ruth and Aiden's first real chance to get out into the park. Our first stop was Reed Lookout. This gave us a magnificent view of the Victoria valley and in Aiden's top of the world pose you can see Wartook Lake and the Mt. Difficult Ranges. We walked up a little ways to the fire tower lookout and watched a police squad specializing in rescues, practice their climbing skills.

From there we headed to McKenzie falls. We walked to the lookout spot and had a nice view of the falls. When we arrived back at the Kiosk, Jacques and Natalie treated us to some lunch at the concession. We've found that mutton is more popular than beef in many products and Roo and Aiden have been trying to adapt to the new flavours. After a relaxing lunch we headed down the trail that took us to the base of the falls. It was quite a steep walk but was paved and had steps. The tough part was walking back up in the heat. The falls were quite pretty but not much water running over them. Aiden took off his socks and shoes and dipped is toes in the water while Sean, Jacques and Natalie searched for a geocache. Once it was found and signed, we made our journey back up to the top. Aiden made it most of the way on is own steam but had a meltdown about 100 m from the kiosk.


We next headed to the Wartook valley, where one of the park employees, Allan and his wife Victoria, run a wildlife rehabilitation centre. They had a baby tawny frogmouth there that Aiden was able to feed. We also saw

a kangaroo, named Peg, that we were able to pet. Also while we were there, Victoria brought in an 8 month old wallaby for feeding. We were able to watch the baby drink a bottle and then hop around the living room for a little bit before being tucked into a pillow case for a nap. We also learned a lot about kangaroos as Victoria had a video of a kangaroo being born and climbing up into her mother's pouch. They have three teats in their pouch and each joey has a specific teat they use. The joeys stay with their mom for 18 months so there is overlap between young of the year and young of last year and so the quality of milk is regulated to each teat based on the age of the young. Apparently from one mating, kangaroos can have three viable fertilized embryos with delayed implantation, and by regulating the temperature females can choose the sex of their young, often having a few females before bothering with any males. This of course explains why the big males are so protective of their harems as they don't necessarily get a lot of action.

Our next stop was Zumstein picnic area. We stopped and had a snack before going in search of Jacques 1600th geocache. It was up a hill on the other side of the road from the picnic site. Aiden was happy as there were toys to trade. There was a cool little lizard guarding the cache.


Sunday we headed out to see part of the Great Ocean Road. It was supposed to be a hotter day, a good day for the beach we thought, but once we reached the coast, there was cloud cover. We headed south through the Grampians to Dunkeld coming within a few metres of three black swamp wallabies (they are hard to see until you are right on top of them). Aiden had fallen asleep so we stopped at an old volcano called Rouse Mountain for a geocache. We had lunch by the ocean in Warrnambool. We took a picnic lunch and found a neat area near the breakwater. It was a fantastic lunch spot with the waves crashing over the
rocks. From there we carried on down to Great Ocean road. Stopped in at a number of the sites, including London Bridge. We finally found a beach at Port Campbell and ended up spending a good hour or two there playing in the sand and waves. Jacques and Aiden built a large sandcastle which they reinforced against the rising tide. None of us braved the cold water and went for a swim but Aiden might of well have since he was pretty much wet from head to toe. Some surfers were not put off by the temperature and were taking advantage of the the breaking surf out beyond the breakwater.

Walked across the street and had fish and chips for supper. After supper we said our goodbyes to Jacques and Nathalie. It was great to share the excitement of being in Australia with some other people and talk about all the similarities and differences in environment, culture and landscapes. They continued east along the Great Ocean road and we headed for home. It seemed like we took every little back road there was but in the end it was the shortest route home. Thanks Jacques and Nathalie for the adventures.