Mt Defiance lookout
The rugged splendour of the Great Ocean Road was not dimmed by today's wet and wild conditions. In fact, to see the raging Southern Ocean on a day like today was nothing short of spectacular!
After yesterday's marathon effort in the car, we decided to be kind to ourselves and turn off the highway after only 70 kms. The boys were disappointed as this meant that Harry Potter would not be making an appearance today.
Their disappointment soon turned to fascination, however, when we encountered this sign on the way to our campsite at Cape Otway.
The camp ground we were headed to is called Bimbi Park - Camping Under the Koalas. Sounded pretty enticing, but I've got to admit to being a little cynical, having already visited a few places on this trip that didn't quite live up to their name! In this case, however, they were right on the money. We hadn't even got partway down the Otway Lighthouse Road before we came across the first traffic jam. Cars and caravans and whiz bangs and Winnabagos were haphazardly pulled over on the road side, with people of all nationalities spilling out all over the road.
There were koalas EVERYWHERE! If Wilson's Promontory was wombat country then surely we'd just arrived in koala country!!
Tourists? Where?
Just yesterday at Lake Elizabeth, we spotted our third koala in the wild, since commencing on the johnstonstouraus. At the time we commented on the fact that we were pretty lucky, and thought ourselves just a little bit clever! Little did we know that today we would be seeing dozens of them - adults, babies, big, small, fat, active, sleepy but all sooooooooo cute and fluffy!
We tore ourselves away from the koalas for long enough to head into Bimbi Park and set up camp. The boys hoed into some noodles and checked out the awesome camp kitchen before we headed out for some more koala spotting.
So as it turns out, Cape Otway has a large and thriving population of koalas, largely because of their love of the Manna Gum woodland. The local koala population in the area took a bit of a hit in the early years due to hunting, land clearance, bush fires and disease pressure. Then in 1981, 75 koalas were reintroduced to Cape Otway from French Island (60 kms south east of Melbourne). With the favourable diet and climatic conditions, a high koala fertility rate and the absence of predators, the population went nuts!
A sustainable koala density in Victoria is considered to be less than one koala per hectare in most native forest and woodlands. Currently, koala densities at Cape Otway are as high as 17 per hectare! Practically plague proportions! While people like me firmly believe the world could never have too many koalas, populations higher than sustainable levels cause over-browsing and defoliation of favoured food species, leading to starvation and ultimately death.
They are so much cuter than a plague of locusts but even I have to admit the results are similar! It's pretty clear that the local Manna Gum trees have taken a bit of a beating!
I was sad to learn that the koala population density here reached such an unsustainable level a couple of years ago that almost 1000 koalas were euthanased. But still the koala population density remains too high.
In order to continue the management of the overabundant local population, wildlife officers and vets this week began translocating up to 600 koalas to a site north of Lorne in the Great Otway National Park. I can't help feeling a little sad for all the healthy females that will be sterilised before transportation (to avoid further overpopulation).
Eventually the boys dragged me and my camera away. To be honest, they had lost interest in the koalas some time ago, about the time they found a smashed mobile phone on the road that still had a little battery life in it. It was randomly speaking to them in Japanese and they found it hilarious!
Later we had plenty of time for monopoly, table soccer, hacky sack and music around the campfire.
As the sun went down and we wandered through the adjacent bushland, we were mesmerised by the sounds of koalas calling for mates. It is hard to believe that such an ugly noise can come out of such an endearing animal. The boys likened the koala bellow to a cross between the bark of a bullfrog and one of Bruce's loudest burps. Check it out on YouTube!
We ended this very memorable day by the camp fire, sharing a bowl of popcorn while listening to the cacophony of kookaburras and watching the possums play.
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Just moments before bed, while munching on a carrot, Jarrah successfully extracts yet another tooth!
Woohoo!!
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