To the ocean and Melbourne

We spent three days touring the Blue Mountains and Canberra. then we headed towards the ocean. The temperature has been hovering around the 30 degree mark ever since we landed in Sydney. We are getting used to driving on the other side of the road but still need to pay attention when crossing streets.

This was our first view of the ocean as we came from Canberra.

We are table # 8. Where is table #9? In all small cafes, you
order and pay at the kitchen area, they give you a number and
then deliver the meal to you.

Mussels, anyone?

This is the front lobby of a small hotel we visited. It was originally
built as a house for a rich sawmill owner. He went broke and eventually, it
became a very posh hotel. They have a private beach and beautiful grounds.

Ever been doing something, and you have an audience
paying very close attention to what you do? The guys cleaning
the fish feel like they can't go fast enough to keep
the birds happy.

Saw this caravan parked by the pier. Had to take a picture:
Memorial colours, Eskimo colours and Australia colours.

This was our first close-up view of Kangaroos. It was on a golf course
at Mallacoota. As they were really close, somebody took
about 15 pictures. Here is one of them. Later, we came to the golf course
restaurant for dinner, and found almost 20 of them eating their
dinner on the fringe of the 18 th green. They are very used to
golfers and allowed us to walk to within ten feet of them. Greg took
a picture of us and it may soon appear as our new picture for the blog.

Then, we went to the docks and watched some sport fishermen
come in with their catch of 'flathead'. This is a very popular fish
for fish and chip dinners.


The next day, we went to an underground cave. Here are a couple of
pictures of that experience. The best thing was that the temperature
in the cave was around 15 degrees, not the 37 outside.

As we continued our drive towards Melbourne, we drove through some
farming area that reminded us of the Okanagan. Note how dry
the area is.

At Lakes Entrance, we visited the beach. Very few people at the beach.
This guy had been there with his two boys and their dog.

Our first view of a koala. We kept calling them koala bears.
They are not really appreciated too much by the people here
because they strip these gum trees of their leaves and can kill them.
They also get drunk from the eucalyptus oil and get noisy
and sometimes fall out of the trees. In order to help them from
falling out of the trees, they have very sharp claws in their paws
which they use to keep in contact with the tree. but, sometimes, they fall
asleep(get drunk) and fall out of the tree.


There...Have I spoiled your view of koala now?

This was one of our last stops before we arrived in Melbourne. We arrived in Berwick, Greg and Marilyn's subdivision, on February 6. We would spend a couple of days with them there, see some sights in the area and then head off to Tasmania. Were we in for a surprise.....