Quick Jump: Vereker Ridge | Airstrip (wildlife) | Squeaky Beach hike | Tidal River campground | Mt. Bishop | Standing Giant
Less than twelve hours after Jono dropped us off at our St. Kilda hostel at the end of our trip along the Great Ocean Road, he picked us up again for our second two-day trip with Bunyip Tours, this time to Wilson's Promontory National Park, south and a little east of Melbourne. This trip was quite different from the Great Ocean Road-- for one thing, Jono was our only guide this time, and there were eight or nine paying clients instead of just three. For another thing, the land we were visiting was quite a bit more "wild" and the hikes a little longer and a lot more uphill.
Our guide Jono did think it was funny that we had just heard most of his spiels about the mountain ashes and the sheoak trees in the past few days, so he referred to us this time as "guides in training." Since Jono and we had just come off a bushwalking tour and everyone else on the trip was fairly "fresh," the three of us tended to take the uphill hikes a little more calmly, which gave Chad and D even more extra opportunity to pick his brain about Australian flora and fauna and the unique ecosystems of the national park.
Wilson's Promontory is a large triangle/diamond of protected land that juts south out of Australia into the Bass Strait towards Tasmania. (In fact, the "prom" is different from the rest of the mainland in that it is part of the same slab of land as Tassie.) The park is almost completely surrounded by seawater-- only a narrow isthmus of land connects it to the mainland, and the northern side is separated from the Gippland region of Victoria by a large shallow bay called Corner Inlet (right).
Corner Inlet Marine National Park is actually a separate swath of protected wetlands, bordering Wilson's Prom but subject to some different regulations concerning fishing, diving, and recreational boating, as well as commercial activities. Our tour did not take us to the protected wetlands of Corner Inlet, but we did get a pretty good view of it from above on our first hike.
Out of Melbourne, we drove a few hours in the Bunyip van, then checked in at the park's ranger station. Once in, our first stop was the trailhead up Vereker Ridge to the outlook. Vereker Outlook is one of the four or five highest points in the Prom, so once we reached the top, we had a pretty good view of the land and water around us. The panoramic view to the northwest took in both the ridge we had just hiked along (the big bump near the center)and the 90o angle of the dirt road we had driven in (far left). Through the trees in the far right, you can just see the waters of Corner Inlet.
Behind us, to the south, stretched the bulk of the national park, so large that our two-day tour would barely cover a fraction of it. The whole southern half of the park is not serviced by roads, and the southernmost tip of the prom is the southernmost tip of mainland Australia.
As usual, we found that getting up above everything was a good introduction to the lat of the land where we would spend the next two days. Though the hike was not overly strenuous, the previous two days of walking on the GOR trip had worn us down a little. Still, it was refreshing to be surrounded by all this wilderness, a welcome change from the crowds of tourists along the Great Ocean Road.
After we came down from Vereker outlook, Jono promised that we'd get to see some real live wildlife in the park. And sure enough, fifteen minutes later, we met a mob of kangaroos at the airport.
Of course, by "airport" we mean "huge empty field of grass that is used as an emergency airstrip," and by "met" we mean "saw from a respectable distance, considering these animals were wild." 
Actually, our first clue that there were a good number of wild animals living on the airstrip is shown in the photos to the left (a kangaroo skull) and to the right (a wombat skull). The whole field was littered with bones, scattered and bleached by the sun-- evidence of the natural cycles of death and life that command the protected wildlife in the Prom.
Some of the bones we could recognize, but many were shattered beyond recognition. The leg bones of the kangaroos were particularly impressive-- huge, smooth, and incredibly strong to bear the force of the animal's hopping.
As fascinating as the bones were, though (and if you know D, you know how facinated she was by them), their living counterpart was even better.
Jono led us further into what seemed to be an empty field, until finally, we started to spot them-- a whole mob of roos, flocked in the far distance, barely discernible against the brownish grass and brush.
As a group, we quietly made our way towards the mob. Slowly, we noticed a few duos and trios scattered about the rest of field, aware of the mob but apart from it.
It was clear that some of these closer animals knew we were there, by the way they watched us warily and started to move away as we approached. Jono called us together and gave us some advice on how to get closer if we watned to-- stay quiet, take your time, crouch down low so you don't seem threatening. Then he turned us loose for our own roo-spotting adventures.
So D took the camera...
And while everyone else went towards the mob...
She went toward a lone kangaroo away from the others...
Very, v-e-r-y slowly...
...until suddenly, a second kangaroo popped his head up beside the first.
The second roo (on the right in the photo), while too old to be a joey, was clearly a young one, probably recently kicked out of the pouch but young enough to stick around mum for some extra protection and guidance.
The raising of kangaroo young is a facinating thing, from what we were told. A mother kangaroo actually has four nipples in her pouch. Live young are born as "pinkies," then they crawl up to the pouch and attach to their assigned nipple-- which is, we are told, actually assigned to them. In the pouch, they grow hair and become joeys. Joeys live both in and out of the pouch, learning the ropes of independent life, until Mum kicks them out to make room for another joey. But, like human children, young kangaroos will often hang around with their parent long after they are capable of living independently. Interestingly, the mother kangaroo can control which nipples are giving milk and what kind, so that a pinkie and an unweaned joey and a weaned joey all get the specific formulas that they need. (Also, Jono claimed that she can cut off milk and starve one of the young in case of a food shortage for the whole mob, thereby conserving her own energy and increasing the chances of survival for other, older offspring.) One more cool thing about kangaroo mums and babies-- the mum can "freeze" development of an embryo until conditions improve or an older offspring is more developed.
Pretty cool, yeah? We thought so!
D kept approaching the roo Mum and her little one for the next twenty minutes or so, never quite sure when the Mum would draw the line for this approaching stranger and hop off.
Ultimately, lunchtime called, both for us and for these fascinating animals, so we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.
We've all seen photos of kangaroos, but seeing them for real was, well, kind of unreal. One of the most facinating things about kangaroos (and their smaller cousins the wallabies) is the grace and efficiency with which they actually move. One of last year's Fulbrighters (in kinesiology) came to Australia to study kangaroos because the way they hop doesn't require any more energy when they are carrying their young than when they aren't.
But even with all the pictures we took, you don't get a sense of how they move from still shots. Though these short videos may take a long time to download, they are definitely worth watching:
Please note: these movies will open in a new full-size window. You must have an updated version of QuickTime to view!
Heading back towards the road, we walked back through the animal graveyard and even got to see a few more Australian creatures. The skink (photo left) took us by surprise, looking like a snake at first (the 10 most poisonous land snakes in the world are all native to Australia). We were late for our next stop at Squeaky Beach, but D was so giddy from her close encounter with the kangaroos, she didn't really care. If you want to read more about her wildlife adventure, check out her travel journal entry.
After lunch, Jono dropped us at the renowned "Squeaky Beach," so named for the sound the sand makes as you walk over it. Follow the trail, he told us, until you get to the Tidal River. Then walk along the beach to the fourth entrance to the campground, and our campsite will be just to the left on the right side of the road.
Both Squeaky Beach and the beach in front of Tidal River campground are accessible and popular beaches of the Prom, so both had a good crowd of swimmers, sunbathers, and hikers. The trail from one beach to the other more or less rose above the beach, with brush low enough that it afforded a good view of the shore most of the way.
The really stunning part, though, was the 360o view from the little side trail that ran out over the rocks that jutted into the water between Squeaky Beach (to the left, looking back at the shoreline) and Tidal River beach (to the right, looking back).
After hiking and chilling for a couple of hours along the coast hike, we made it to Tidal River and our campsite for the evening.
The cool and shallow water of the Tidal River was a welcome relief after all the hiking we'd done today. On the coast hike, D started feeling a pain in her ankle that increased as she walked. By the time we made it to the other end, she was limping and needing to rest it every few minutes.
After resting in the river for a bit, though, it was just a short hike along the beach to the campground-- although we did find that Jono's directions were not quite as clear as we had originally thought! Once we found it, though, we were free to settle in for the rest of the day, hanging out on the beach, helping Jono grill dinner, and generally chilling out. 
D took the opportunity to rest, ice, compress, and elevate her injured ankle, so as not to miss the wombat sightings that night, or the bushwalks scheduled for the next day.
Once darkness fell, Jono led us on a night walk around the huge campground, armed with a big floodlight. The goal of this walk was to spot wobats, another marsupial native to Australia. Like kangaroos and koalas, wombats are vegetarian and usually very gentle. And, like kangaroos and American raccoons, wombats can be a nuisance!
As Jono promised, they were indeed all over the campground after dark, seeking out food scraps wherever people congregated. During the day, the burrow underground in large tunnels, which we saw by the kangaroos on the airstrip. wombats are so commonplace in many parts of Australia that they garner little notice from the residents. Our group stopped outside a trailer for some time to observe the wombat in the photo above, and the guy from the trailer came out, watched us for five minutes or so before he asked, "What are you all looking at?" The wombat was less than two meters from him, illuminated by Jono's floodlight, and the guy was genuinely surprised when we pointed it out.
After one of the worst night's sleep while camping and with D's ankle still hurting in the morning, we broke camp after brekkie and set off for our major hike of the second day. The trail up to the summit of Mt. Bishop crossed through two ecosystems-- the ecucalypt forest and a temperate rainforest zone. The temperate rainforest zone included a boardwalk loop trail through LillyPully Gully (the LillyPully is a dominant tree in this type of rainforest), and this area of Wilson's Prom is the southernmost rainforest zone in the world.
With D's ankle continuing to hurt, we took it easy on the uphill hike, reserving the right to stop before reaching the top and call it a day. The fact that the rest of the group moved much more quickly meant that we had a much quieter hike-- and a quieter hike means a better chance of seeing wildlife.
Three or four times, we heard the telltale crashing through the brush that signalled a wallaby, and a couple of times we got to see them as they bolted away. (The photo, left, is the closest we came to getting a picture of one. I swear-- he was there a second ago!) At first, a wallaby looks like a miniature kangaroo, but on closer inspection (not that you get to inspect them all that closely in the wild) there are some significant physiological differences. A wallaby leans over more closely to the ground, and it's more likely to rest with its front legs on the ground. They also tend to live in more forested, brushy areas, while the kangaroos tend to keep to open, grassy fields.
Near the rainforest zone, we started hearing a huge racket in the trees above us that sounded for all the world like a bunch of monkeys at the zoo. Soon it grew so loud that Chad was thoroughly confused... It took D a few minutes to remember, but then it clicked, a memory from her trip to Sydney's Featherdale Wildlife Park in 2003. Laughing kookkaburras-- and their "laughter" is as contagious to them as human laughter can be for us. One starts and soon a whole mess of others are going at it, too!
Taking our time uphill, we decided to go as far as we could toward the summit. As we got closer, we hoped that we wouldn't meet the rest of the group on the way down-- not when we were so far along ourselves. Fortunately, around another bend, we came upon the summit.
An impressive view it was, and a good final perspective on Wilson's Promontory National Park. We could see Vereker Ridge to the north of us, the offshore islands out west, and the Tidal River campground where we had stayed the night down to the southwest of us (photo, above right.)
A fifteen minute rest, a little snack from Jono's pack, and it was time to head back down the mountain, pile into the van, and say goodbye to the Prom.
After leaving the park, we had one more stop on our way back to Melbourne. We drove through the Gippland region of southern Victoria, to an out-of-the-waystate park that housed a giant mountain ash tree.
This particular mountain ash has been dubbed the "Standing Giant" because it is one of the tallest of the tall mountain ash trees. Just two nights before, we had stood inside the shell of a dead mountain ash at Mait's Rest in the Otway Forest. This one, though, was still alive-- huge around the bottom, and very very tall.
Walking to and from the Standing Giant, Chad got another chance to enjoy one of his favorite plants from Victoria, the glorious King Ferns (photo, right). King Ferns grow at the incredible rate of two feet every hundred years, so do the math and get a sense of how long these particular ferns have been here!
Exhausted from four consecutive days of bushwalking tours, we happily fell asleep in the van back to Melbourne. We knew more than we ever thought we'd know about the trees, plants, and animals of Australia, and the soreness in our bodies proved how much we'd seen and done in such a short period of time.
In three days we would be on a plane back to Sydney, foregoing tourism for a few months in favor of getting into a routine of work, research, and exercise. But after all of our uprootedness of the previous few months-- moving out of apartments in Michigan and travelling all around for the holidays, not to mention preparing to move to Australia-- it was nice to do some actual travelling to places we'd never been before. This trip certainly filled the bill...
... but being "home" in Sydney and staying in one place for a while will be pretty nice too!
That's all for our February 2005 trip to the Capital region and Victoria!
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