Kangaroos, Koalas and everything else

I left Perth in the middle of the night on Monday- it isn't like I was run out of town or anything- honest- it is just when the plane goes. And can you believe that I was flying via Melbourne to Adelaide? If you don't know why that is weird then you will have to look at a map.

So I spent a couple of hours at Melbourne airport (a few years ago when I last came to Australia we also stopped at Melbourne airport. I can recommend the toilets and vending machines there) before arriving in Perth at 7.50- Melbourne is two hours ahead of Perth and Adelaide is half an hour behind Melbourne. So you can imagine how confused I am!!

But I had a reason to be in Adelaide.... I was met at the airport by Nigel, a mate from Korea (Neil and Annette and Margo, I was going to surprise you with a Nigel photo there but I have exceeded my monthly limit on Flickr so you will have to wait a couple of days.) We went back to his house and had some breakfast and then headed out of the city.

We went to Victor Harbour. Stopping in at the tourist information centre, we were told that the biggest tourist attraction in the area was the horse drawn tram- I wanted to cry- then they mentioned the whale and her calf that had been out in the bay for a few days. Fairly running out of the building we discovered that they weren't lying (not that I am in the habit of disbelieving these people but you never know...) as we watched the whales frolicking in the bay. There is only so much frolicking that you can cope with though so we drove around and saw some seals and watched the waves.

We came back to Victor Harbour and walked over to Granite Island- ignoring the top tourist attraction to get there- and waited for the Little/Fairy Penguins to come home to bed. Despite my cunning plan of singing lullabys, the penguins decided to stay out clubbing for the night or something, we only saw around ten. Sweet little things hauling themselves up the rocks and into their burrows under the watchful gaze of random tourists. For reasons unknown the penguin population has decreased rapidly in recent months but the stoic few remained, tightlipped as to where their mates where.

Collapsed into bed quite early after a long old day. I forgot to say that there had been a medical emergency on the plane, I think that someone fainted, so I got to hear the immortal words 'if there is a medical doctor or nurse on the plane, please make yourself known to the staff'. There wasn't but it was enough to wake everyone else up for a bloody good gawp.

Today we have done a bit of shopping and then fought our way through the fog to Cleland National Park, where it would seem that Nigel planted most of the trees(!) Saw EVERYTHING in the park, Tasmanian Devils, Dingoes, Wombats, Emus, Koalas, Ridiculous Amounts of kangaroos and wallabies (sorry, have no idea why I went all CAPITAL for a moment there) along with many birds and plants. It was very cool indeed. My hand got covered with kangaroo slobber as we fed them but I wiped it all off on the koala later when we were allowed to pet them. It was an excellent day despite the fog.

But it is getting too cold here for me. I know that I wanted a break from the cold after Vietnam but enough is enough now. So tomorrow I am flying up to Cairns, in search of sunshine. I am going via Sydney, of course, though I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been via Perth to be honest!

Wish me luck and, Queenslanders, I am on my way...