14.02.2023 Bool Lagoon State Game Reserve to Coorong NP

It got cold yesterday evening and even at night under a clear sky, without being able to make a fire, it is too cold to sit outside. In the early morning we hike on a boardwalk to an observation hut. Normally, the entire area is up to 1 m below water, but here it is very dry and so we do not see the advertised water birds or the special water plants. Only 2 larger birds of prey are obviously feeding young in their nest. They could have been eagles.

Our tour guide recommends visiting the Fossil Centre in Naracoorte today. I have always been interested in fossils, so we visit the museum. Unfortunately, we are traveling without internet access and have not been able to gather enough information, as the fossil finds are shown in different caves, which can be booked on guided tours and are only offered again in the afternoon, tough luck, so we only look at a diorama exhibition with reconstructed landscapes and stuffed animals that lived here in prehistoric times. We know this today because many bones of these animals were found in the caves. For example, from a kangaroo that had only one toe on each leg and not 4 like today. Or from a marsupial lion, which is extinct, or a large koala bear. There is also said to have been an animal the size of a bear that resembled a wombat. It's good that the animals today are largely peaceful and much smaller. Except for the big gray kangaroo, which is still very large today, but peaceful.

We continue to Naracoorte and visit the World Wide Web at Mc Donald's to plan further, because camping sites in the NP must be booked online.

From Naracoorte we continue to Kingston SE and on the Princes Highway to Coorong NP. The special feature of this park are the dunes by the sea and the salt lakes behind them. There are many water birds here when the salt lakes have water, and kangaroos. Our campground is sheltered behind the dunes and since we still have time today, we hike from the campground through the dunes to the sea and back. 4 km almost only sand are really exhausting and so we have truly earned our dinner. The weather has noticeably improved today, the sun is shining, it is pleasant temperatures, but like yesterday evening, it gets cool when the sun has disappeared on the horizon.