Yesterday was essentially a commuting day, via the Queenscliff-Sorrento ferry, through West Gippsland to the farm in East Gippsland. Before embarking though, we explore KAO, a Japanese/Indian curios trading wholesaler store in Ocean Grove, selling fascinating and fabulous curios from $3 knick-knacks through to huge Indian doors worth thousands.
We arrive at Meerlieu to find lush, spring pastures, cows with calves and sheep with lambs
... so much excitement for a visitor! Add dinner at the 'local' country pub and a wood heater warming the shed and we are set for the night.
We wake after sleeping very well to find sunshine and blue skies today - so warm in fact that we set the deck chairs up outside for our morning coffee. An easy morning is followed by a drive to Paynesville for a pelican hunt.
Raymond Island just off Paynesville is home to a large koala colony, so we catch the ferry over the passage off Lake King. The ferry runs on a twenty minute cycle, free for foot passengers and cyclists and charged for vehicles according to size. There is a signed koala walk around the quiet streets of this island, occupied by some permanent residents and many holiday homes. It doesn't take us long to find koalas in the trees, quite a few balancing babes in the wind.
The search for an Australian pelican is fraught with angst
. There are a couple in the air and a couple in the distance at Eagle Point but nowhere near the numbers the locals assured us were around.
I redeem myself with an obliging wallaby and an echidna on the road home but excel when we visit out neighbour who has rescued a joey from a kangaroo hit and killed along the road. He stands around 50cm high and is estimated at four months of age, as judged by the length of his back legs. Yes, there's a table on the internet for that.
He sleeps most of the day in a pillow case, drinks his lactose-free milk from a little juice bottle and hops around the house behind Anne-Marie, calling for her when she disappears from sight. Without a mother to groom him, he gets a weekly bath. At night, he wears a disposable nappy - with a hole cut for his tail.
He is likely to be a twenty year commitment. Even when he is weaned on to grass, he'll spend his days around the house paddocks with her horses as there is no local animal refuge to take on the job.
Not surprisingly, he is the climax for what Catharine proclaims the 'premium package' tour!
Nothing more is needed today other than dinner!
We're Going On a Pelican Hunt...
Sunday, November 06, 2016
Meerlieu, Victoria, Australia
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2025-02-08