Holy koala, a bird bit my ear!

I'll let the title hold you in suspense while I tell you about the boring part of my day first. We checked out of our airbnb this morning (I did finally meet our host, Tony, yesterday BTW). We caught the free tram downtown and picked up our rental car and hit the road.

We traveled south west out of Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road. The drive itself is awesome since it hugs the oceans and travels along the side of the seaside cliffs. It's beautiful and pictures don't really do it justice.

Our first stop looked unimpressive at first. It was a campsite just off the road where people had tents and camper vans set up. But boy, there was more than meets the eye at that place! We stopped there because I had just read an article that there was a chance you could see wild koalas there. So we parked our car and started walking around, constantly looking up in the trees. We didn't see any for awhile and I was starting to think it was a lost cause; the article I read was very informal and several years old anyway. But then we turned a corner and Matt pointed 'There!". And there it was, just sleeping peacefully in a tree right above our heads. It was so cute!!

We continued walking and saw several others but they were all higher than the first so I wasn't able to get great pictures of those. Although they are in the album if you want to check it out linked on the left. But can you believe it?! We just walked up and there were wild koalas! There were also a ton of birds there that looked almost like parrots but I'm not sure if that's what they were. But if you held you arm out they would just fly up and land right on your arm! I had two of them do that. I was so surprised the first time!

Then the next one came and landed right on my head! It just kept walking around up there, which for the most part felt good- almost like a head massage- until it nipped my ear. The first time felt like a playful nip but then it turned around and chomped on my other ear quite a bit harder! Matt shooed him off at that point. It didn't draw blood or anything. I was just thankful it didn't poop on my head. 

This was right after it bit my ear:

We continued on our journey soaking in the views. At one point we stopped and dipped our feet in the water for a couple of minutes. I had my eyes peeled the whole time we were driving hoping to spot a kangaroo. We kept passing signs that indicated "kangaroo crossing, beware" similar to how we have deer warning signs in the states. So I was hopeful but I never did spot one today. 

We made it to our next stop which is called the Twelve Apostles. It's this collection of huge rock formations out in the ocean that have been formed by millions of years of weather and ocean breaking it down and separating them from the cliff sides. We went to several similar sites as well, all with similar ideas, in the Port Campbell National Park area. I have a ton of pictures. To get to each viewing area we did short walks, and each of them had signs to look out for wildlife such as wallabies, which are small kangaroos, but we never saw any of those either. It sounds like they mostly come out at night.

This was the end of the Great Ocean Road for us so we turned around and headed back the way we came. We had booked an airbnb along the way about an hour from the end so we were trying to make it back there before dark and also get in a quick hike along the way. So we stopped in Melba Gully and did Madsen's track, which was just a quick 30 minute walk through the rain forest. It was a pleasant track and very rainforesty. I got annoyed with the signage, or lack thereof. At one point there was a fork in the road and it pointed to two different things but didn't indicate how far each was and which one kept us on the track. So we followed the sign to the "Big tree", which was a ton of uphill steps and rather a disappointment when we got there because apparently the tree fell back in 2009. Pretty unimpressive. So we turned back around to see what was the other way and turns out it was only about 50 meters further and it was a dead end at a small water area called "Anne's Cascades". So then we had to turn back around and climb all of the steps to the "Big tree" again in order to continue on the track. But anyway, we still made it back before it got dark so it was all good.

We continued on towards our airbnb that was near the town of Apollo Bay. First we made another quick pit stop to get a sunset picture along the way.

Then we finally made it to our airbnb right as night was falling. Guys, we're sleeping in a teepee tonight. I'm not really sure how this happened; Matt found it on airbnb. But it's an actual teepee in a campground. So this will be an adventure! I'll report back tomorrow (with a picture!) on how this goes.