[Scott] We woke up this morning to rain in Foster. We got our stuff together quickly and hit the road. We stopped at a bakery in Foster for a quick breakfast. We got going toward Wilson’s Prom about 9:45, and encountered some downpours on the drive. Wilson’s Prom is the southern most point of Australia, and back in the day there was a land bridge connecting it to Tasmania. Wilson’s Prom is like a large peninsula jutting out into the ocean so it has an island feel to it – lush vegetation and an abundance of wildlife – much of it unique to the area. It is mountainous and very scenic. The rain cleared and we stopped at Squeaky Beach. As you walk through the sand you hear a very loud “squeak squeak”. Sounds silly, but it was pretty interesting. One of the signs said it does that because on this particular beach all of the sand particles are the same shape and behave like marbles rubbing against each other. So we walked around for a little while there and enjoyed the peacefulness of the spot…until a mob of about 40 school kids came running down onto the beach screaming their heads off. That was our cue to head on.
We stopped at the visitor’s center and talked to the ranger about which hike we should do. She thought hiking to the summit of their highest peak would be rather pointless today since the area was pretty socked in with clouds. She said the views from up there were spectacular on a clear day, but today wasn’t our lucky day so we instead decided on a hike along the coastline. It turned out to be a really nice hike. It was cloudy the whole time, but it didn’t rain and the temperature was around 70 so really it was a perfect day for hiking. The trail followed the coastline pretty closely and the views were nice. The wildlife highlight of the hike was when a snake slithered across the trail right in front of us. Right after we saw the snake, Stef thought it would be funny to tell me that there was a snake hanging from a tree right behind me. I thought she was pulling my leg but I couldn’t shake the thought and did take a leap forward and turned around. She couldn’t stop laughing. Okay very funny. So we continued hiking and I let a few painfully long minutes go by before I seized my opportunity for revenge. I mustered up my best hissing sound and sounded it out nice and loud. Stef jumped like her feet were on fire and landed awkwardly on the side of a rock and yelped out in pain. She had sprained her knee (which had been hurting for a few days already) and now instead of feeling like I got the last laugh, I felt really bad (or at least I couldn’t laugh out loud). You know what they say about paybacks! And don’t worry – I think her knee is fine now – she just kicked me with the same leg. We ate our lunch on the beach at Oberon Bay, and after eating we turned around and headed back to the car. I think the roundtrip distance for the hike was about 5 miles.
After the hike, before leaving Wilson’s Prom, we drove down a dirt road a few miles. We were told that this was one of the best chances at seeing some wildlife. We saw our first emu (like an ostrich), actually two of them together. We also saw a kangaroo or two along the side of the road lounging in the field. We get excited anytime we see any of these animals in their natural environment – kind of our own mini safari. I’m sure they’re not as excited to us, although maybe they get a good laugh. We were hoping to see a lot more, after being spoiled with our koala safari the other day. We left the park around 4pm and got on the road back toward Melbourne. We stopped for a quick bite at a KFC on the road – good ol’ American fast food available all over the world! We could tell right away it was the same recipe as we felt our arteries clog and our hearts started beating irregularly. On a similar note, one interesting discovery we’ve made is that Pepsi in Australia is definitely not the same recipe. Both of us prefer Pepsi over Coke…but not here. Coke tastes like Coke. Pepsi tastes like dirt. I think we gave up on Pepsi after three tries. We just think that’s weird and we wonder why.
We found a Comfort Inn to stay at right near the airport, so it would make it easier catching our early morning flight tomorrow. Finding the hotel was actually a little challenging since they are hosting the Grand Prix in Melbourne this weekend and very few hotels have vacancies. I dropped off the rental car tonight so we don’t have to deal with that tomorrow. By pure coincidence, our hotel happened to be right next to the building with the large Airport Parking sign on it, which I recognized immediately as Red Spot Rentals. That was nice not having to worry about getting a shuttle back to the hotel or anything after dropping off the car. The under carriage of the car did have a run-in with an already road-killed kangaroo the other day, sorry but it happens, so I was just hoping the guy didn’t look under the car. Kangaroos are a serious problem on the roads here, and we saw evidence of that many times here in Victoria. The rental guy did come back with a concerned look on his face, and I thought “oh no”, but he just asked if we had a flat because apparently one of the tires was a different brand or something. Not sure what that was about, but he said it was no trouble. We were up late doing laundry, which has become a tradition for us before early morning flights. Our logic is always that it will be nice to start off at our next place with everything clean, but we always get to the hotel too late…and it almost always takes two dryer cycles. Hopefully we’ll remember this next time we travel.
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