Koalas gone wild!

We were driving along and we’ve seen a sign saying that we should be careful about wild life in this piece of road.
We’ve seen loads of signs like this one before, but we didn’t see any animals (and no roadkill as we’ve seen in Tasmania). So we didn’t really care.
Pipa did mentioned that the Lonely Planet book said this road was a good one to see Koalas.
At a certain point we saw a car parked on the side of the road. i slowed down and there they were. The trees were infested with Koalas!
And they don’t look like the one we’ve seen at that weird zoo in Tasmania either!
Look at them!


(climbing koala)


(curled koala)


(koala observing its surroundings and looking for the next prey)


(cuddling koalas)


(wtf! koala)


(koala with the baby koala)

A bunch of them even had small ones with them!


(the same koala with the baby - I like the furry ears a lot!)


(now the koala with the baby is looking at me)


(sleepy koala)


(sleeping koala)

It was really cold… I can understand the feeling of this little guy!
It’s a shame the light wasn’t really right, otherwise the pictures would have been great! But one has to do with what one has… right?

The Great Ocean Road

We grabbed 5 other boys and girls from MBS, all exchange, and headed for the Great Ocean Road.


(entering the Great Ocean Road - it does look like entering the Jurassic park, right?)

Yes, we’re on the wrong side of the road, but it’s the way they do it around here. The road has a sign every 100 metres informing the tourists (I presume it’s for the tourists…) that in Australia they should keep left on the road…
The GOR is a costal road that goes from Melbourne (not really Melbourne, but I can’t remember the name of the place…) to Adelaide (or something). We only had time to drive a bit of it, but it is really worth it.
At some point we had to go back. There was this huge land slide (it missed us for a few minutes…)


(the avalanche)

As an alternative you can walk the “Great Ocean Walk”. I think it should be amazing!
Now… apart from the Koalas hanging from trees, and the red parrots that will land on your head, the whole landscape is “pretty much” the same as the one we have at Alentejo and the Lagos part of the Algarve coast line. I kept asking myself why no one back home does the same thing these guys here did!

Just check it out:


(the sea peppered with rocks - it should be great for spearfishing!)

Right?
Next:


(the sea breaking against the rocks)

I mean, if I told you that I had taken this photo at Guincho, Praia Grande or somewhere close to Lagos, in Algarve, who wouldn’t believe me!


(precarious sightseeing)

They have stories for the places, like this bay where a couple found refuge after a shipwreck… (in the 1800′s).


(the bay where a couple is supposed to have been shipwrecked)

If we look hard enough I’m sure we could find some interesting stories about some places of our shoreline… or we can make them up!
And they name everything… here’s the London Bridge!


(the london bridge)

And the 12 Apostles (and there are only 6 left!)


(the 6 apostles... sorry, the 12 apostles)

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, the road trip was awesome
We saw Koalas hanging from trees (actually almost all of them sleeping… but more on that on some other post).


(Koala on a tree)

And a bear…


(a rock that is supposed to look like a bear)

(the sensor in my camera is just fffffffff… full of crap! There isn’t one photo that I can use without photoshop…)
A Kangaroo farm: “Directly from Bells Beach to your plate! Enjoy”


(meat standing on two feet)

Yes, it’s a Kangaroo farm and the objective is to produce… kangaroo meat. This time we haven’t seen roadkill, but we found a place where they breed Kangaroo just to eat. Strange, but normal around here…
And some other strange animals


(black underwear)

(I can only wonder how that got there!)
That’s all for the moment. We’ll post something else about Koalas, because we have about 300 photos of these little critters as they call them here (some are quite cool, with baby Koalas and all that).
And this time we got them in the wild!

The great ocean road road trip - Intro

If you're in Melbourne, as I was, it is almost impossible to not go on a road trip along The Great Ocean Road!
When you ask someone they will always say you have to do it. And in fact, it would be really stupid not to. I would even say that, if you have the time, it is one of the great road trips you have in Australia.
We went with a lot of people, in two cars, and made it almost to Adelaide.
It was the only trip in which we saw actual Koalas in the wild. If you want to see the pictures just keep on reading the following posts.
For advice, I would say that you should buy a full insurance pack (as much as they offer you) and be very careful not to wreck or even scratch your car. The second car on our party got hit from behind and the rent a car just charged 5000 AUD from the credit card of the friend who had rented the car. She being German had full insurance bought from her insurance company from Germany, but the Australian rent a car just charged her anyway (even the fault not being hers).
That being said, full insurance is always a great idea in Australia.
Other than that, bring nice comfortable hiking shoes, and depending on the time of the year bring your bathing suit or your warmest jacket.