Gary, Kirsty and the lads rejoined us at Kennet River camp site where by all accounts it is one of the best surfing spots along the Great Ocean Road, and home to koalas and echidnas! Gaz and Archer were bursting to get on the waves on arrival.
The next day we headed to the beach in wetsuits armed with various sizes of surf board. Gaz with his experience was able to handle the really big waves with style and ease, whilst Archer made it look easy on some hefty looking waves too! Kirst also showed the surf who was boss and glided along the waves with expertise in horizontal mode on her boogie board. Wooz liked to have a go and kept to the frothy surf nearer the beach showing some great skill and balance as he steered his smaller board along. Nadan was quite happy to play in the sand.
Which brings it to the two of us – yes we also donned our wetsuits to join them to try our hand at surfing first time ever. Ha ha! Paul went first on the spare surf board (which was very slippery!) and after a brief lesson from Arch he paddled out to sea. After a few attempts and getting pretty battered by some big waves, and swallowing most of it, he headed up the beach and handed the board over to me saying go on you have a go…its fun! OMG it seemed a good idea at the time……… Gary got me to paddle out and wait for the right moment then pushed me along the wave – shouting go for it!!….aaagh….I got totally barrelled, and not only nutted by the board but given an underwater sand sandwich still under the wave at the same time. Then just as you think you are going to surface and take in air another wave crushes you and sea water forces its way up your nose so that you feel like your head is a gold fish bowl!. Right that’s enough of that I’ll stick to the boogie board to learn on! (luckily there is no photographic footage of our surfing attempts).
After that we stuck to exploring the hinterland and saw loads of koalas, some even walking on the ground during the day which was delightful to see….shattering the myth that they sleep in trees all day! About five or so lived in the trees within the campsite and at night would make grunting noises, wonder what they were up to!
One koala decided to take a walk and tried to climb a brick barbecue unit mistaking it for a eucalyptus tree trunk and ended up falling off – ouch too slippery!
We also saw an echidna which immediately curled up in a ball hoping we would go away, they try and dig themselves into a hole and display their spines – he had plenty of those. The lads also enjoyed feeding the many Parrots and Crimson Rosellas around the campsite – uh oh once one comes they all want a look in!
Is anyone in there - Echidna in defence mode!
Well hello there!
Koala taking a pose
Okay that's enough posing for now!
I'm off......
...up me tree!
Here come the birds
Arch showing his hand to a hungry Green Parrot
Wooz handles a friendly Green Parrot
Nadan tries out a different technique....
Uh oh Nadan you've gotta hope its digestive system is'nt working too quickly!!
We say our farewells once again to Gaz, Kirst, Arch, Wooz and Nadan as they stay at Kennet River for a few more days and then head to Kirsty’s parents for Christmas. The lads are all excited to be going to their Grandma and Pa’s. We have had great times with them, they are a fun family, full of life and now firm friends. We’ll meet them again in Melbourne before we go back to the UK.