Mornington peninsula

South west from Melbourne there is a peninsula with little beach sheds, vanilla slices, wineries and musicians who sell surfboards.

Cape Schank. My had was blown away by the wind.

Sometime huge waves can wash people of the shore.

On the other side of peninsula – calm and quiet. Sheds worth 200K dollars. As they show in advertisements – you can keep your surfboard here. What? There are no waves on this side!

Another day we went to a maze.

Sleepy beauty.

Bath tub in lavender fields.

And some farm.

A little town of Sorento. Italiano!

For me it was strange to see old stone houses, tiny streets. I said – italiano!

The thing on the right – a giant dried seaweed which looks like a piece of big tyre.

  

Melbourne far away.

 

Gulls are everywhere the same – angry and proud.

Kangaroo island

We haven’t been posting here for a while, because my mother is visiting us right now. We enjoy time together instead of sitting at the computer.

When we came to Adelaide, we asked locals where to go, what to see. A lot of them recommended Kangaroo Island.

So here we are on the ferry to KI.

Some sort of Australian Scandinavia.

It was getting dark very fast, and those signs and dead kangaroos by the road didn’t encourage to hurry.

We decided to take a shortcut. Well… not sure did we save any time…

In the camp ground we were alone. Just kangaroos wandering around. And I haven’t seen so many stars in the sky before.

We visited a lake near by.

On Laurius’ birthday we went to the post office where they sold binoculars. So now we have them 🙂

What?

Red-capped plovers by the lake.

The famous Seal Bay.

For a half an hour we were observing the sea lions on the beach with a guide.

When it’s cold sea lions come to the dunes to hide from the wind. Sometimes they even come to the visitor center. Once one sea lion was blocking the entrance to the toilet. It was very inconvenient, the guide said.

On the left – a skeleton of the whale.

Lonely Planet suggested to have some fish burgers in this shop.

Someone stole the crab family. It’s terrible.

We walked some track that leads to the ocean. Really nice place.

But swimming here is really scary.

A chance to have some fun.

Next day we visited one of the famous places in KI. It seams like S. Dali created all this.

No, we are not crazy, it’s modern art.

New Zealand fur seals having fun.

Or sleeping.

Here the seals were lying in the shade.

We visited some little town that was totally empty. Just some lions in the playground.

The town.

Pelicans.

Gulls.

Blue-eyed cormorants.

While waiting for the ferry Laurius hunted this huge gull.

Monarto

The second day of Christmas started with flat tyre.

Christmas holidays and summer holidays come at the same time in Australia, so noone is working, except the big safari like zoo.

Please do not touch the Giraffes.

Very shy.

Warren Conservation Park

Once we realised, that whenever we are going somewhere, we usually go South or East from Adelaide, but rarely North. So we took a map and pointed to the first park up from Adelaide. It was Warren Conservation Park.

It’s spring – everything is green and bloom.

Cuckoo is looking for a nest to lay her eggs.

Disturbed lizard rushes to the bushes.

First wild echidna we ever met. But it was very shy and was hiding under the tree.

Pardalote is cheering us with the song.

And nearly idyllic Australian view.