Kangaroos on the Great Ocean Road

Our flight from Sydney to Melbourne is quite uneventful. With Virgin Air, the flight takes about an hour and a half.

Once again, we are flying with a star from the music scene on the same plane. Two years ago or so, we flew from Miami to Frankfurt with Apache207 (without recognizing him, we only became aware when a few young people wanted to take pictures with him, and we thought: who is that?? Thorsten had already flown with Joey Heindle to Berlin years ago), this time we have an English singer/songwriter sitting in front of us with his crew. His name is Jamie Webster.

We only recognized him as a “star” because he had a music magazine with him, on which he was the cover star. His name was prominently featured on the cover, which is why we knew his name. The crew included about six other people. We then looked up who Jamie Webster is. He is English and has written and sung an “anthem” for FC Liverpool. Apparently, it was very successful. He seems to have some recognition in England (although we wondered in the plane why he wasn't sitting in the business section or why he was flying with a budget airline?). He made it into the Top 10 of the English charts with his first album in 2018 … and has since released three studio albums.

Music seems to be fun for him – flying certainly not. He appeared to be very nervous and had issues with cabin pressure. According to his website, he had various gigs in Australia and his last one today somewhere (I forgot).

Anyway – we were ultimately not convinced by his music and we do not regret not getting an autograph.

Back to our journey. We have landed and pick up our rental car. This time a Toyota RAV4 hybrid. It’s very nice to drive. And it’s energy-efficient because it operates both as a petrol engine and as an electric vehicle. Even though the trunk is finally large enough for our luggage, once again the trunk cover is missing, which would protect our belongings from prying eyes. It’s annoying on a road trip when everyone can see what’s in the car, but that seems to be standard in NZL and AUS... Therefore, we have to deal with it...

We head towards Torquay, the entry point to the Great Coast Road, along the southern coast of Victoria. A designated beautiful drive along the coast.

On the highway, there was a serious accident, resulting in a long stretch of the highway being closed, and we had to take quite a detour. That eats up time. Our end destination for today was Apollo Bay. On the way there, we coincidentally saw our first kangaroos on a meadow on the hillside. It’s a gamble to see them while passing by. When they are grazing, they look like small brown hills in the taller grass of the meadow.

We try to get a closer look with the optical tools we have. We succeed, but the image quality is just okay...

We continue driving and pass some lovely coastal towns. There are some really beautiful houses here. All facing the sea with lots of glass. We also see a house that we had previously seen in a TV report. The Pole House. It stands on a hillside at Fairhaven Beach and is built on a steel pole. Again, all around is glass, providing a 360-degree view. Just very cool. We later see that the Pole House can be rented through Airbnb. Daily rental, at least for Christmas, is 1500 AUD, about 1000 Euro. Could be worth it...

While we have now seen a kangaroo already, according to the travel guide, there is the Kennett River Nature Walk, from which one could optimally see kangaroos and koalas... We don’t need to be told twice and head straight there.

After a few meters, we indeed find a kangaroo in the meadow of a private property. It was a really strong animal. Its hind legs were so strong that one wouldn't want to know what happens when it kicks back...

But there are also a few kangaroos sitting on the meadow on the other bank of the Kennett River.

We watch the grazing animal in front of us for a while, continually looking around to see if we might catch sight of a koala. After all, there are quite a few eucalyptus trees here... and the little bears love their leaves...

We continue deeper into the forest, hoping to at least see a koala. After all, they spend their four hours of wakefulness happily eating in the trees. The remaining twenty hours they sleep...

We don’t spot a koala, but we do manage to get a few more kangaroos in front of the camera, which were also smaller than the ones we saw before. They’ve come to eat and hop around the forest. But one must always look closely to see the kangaroos. When grazing, they are not as easily spotted as when they are standing on their hind legs.

Here too, we happily observe everything we get to see today. Now we are just missing a koala. But no matter how much we stretch our heads up, which is giving us neck pain, we simply can’t see one.

In this sense, we leave the observation point Kennett River Walk and head to our accommodation at Beachcomber in Apollo Bay.

Along the way, we are again accompanied by the cockatoos. There are as many of them here as there are pigeons in Cologne (well, maybe not that many, but still a lot).

In Apollo Bay, we check into an apartment. We haven’t had such a large one in a long time. A bit old-fashioned, but it accommodates five people and has a nearly fully equipped kitchen and a bathroom with a whirlpool bathtub beside the shower. And all for 70 Euros a night! All done right!