Portland to Apollo Bay-The Great Ocean Rd

Well Guys I've been a bit slack and haven't done any work on my blog ,but in my defence I've been busy having fun.....

We are now in Apollo Bay ,well actually it's our last day here after 10 days of mixed weather.

We have had a day of 80km hr winds all day,or 42knots. But that day was warm, we have had rain but only light and we have had nice sunshine with a cold wind chill.

I have managed to log a few hours of flying which I have filmed some of so stay tuned to more boring air footage ,i will try and add some good chilled music so you can fall asleep easier :).

Xmas Day was fantastic great weather hell I even got wet up to my shorts teaching Emily to Surf (Vid to come) . After the pressie thing and a huge feed of pancakes and ice cream and chocolate almonds to many coffees I ran up the hill and had a great 1hr flight, back home for light rest a couple of ales then down to the beach for the surfing lessons.

The kids got spoilt as usual but it was so good to actually be home for Xmas as last year I was offshore getting ready for a cyclone, in fact it was this day(Boxing Day) I tore my tendons in my shoulder.

So it has been a whole year since I last worked.......fan bloody tastic!

OK Mt Gambier was our next spot after Tunkililla then onto Portland. Had a great bush camp there and did some mountain biking as there was a race track around our campsite, then it was a long drive to Apollo Bay where we have been based ever since.

We have been on some rain forest walks,Koala spotting,paragliding,fishing(no luck) and just relaxing.

A highlight has been the platypus that lives in the creek right in front of our tent as this is the first one we have ever seen and managed a couple of photos last night after trying all week., boy there weird.

I'm not looking forward to packing up and leaving but we must and am keen to get to the warm weather. So it's off to Torquay near Melbourne tomorrow and the rest of the Great Ocean Rd which is truly and awesome drive and scenery is well scenic.

Galvo

The Big Crayfish

Mt Gambier Sink Hole

Blue Lake Mt Gambier

Sink Hole -Mt Gambier

On the Ground -Greys Rd Kennet River - Great Ocean Rd

King Parrot - Great Ocean Rd

Koala- Greys

Apollo Bay- Flying

Strong Wind Apollo Bay - Using car as wind block???

Grace- Cute As

Lucy- Gorgeous

Emily & Grace

Cape Otway Lighthouse

Otway Nat Park- Triplet Falls

Triplet Falls

Mountain Ash - Largest Eucalypt

The Otway Fly-I hate manmade structures and get scared of heights on them, Funny really??

From The top of tower - Otway Fly

rainforest Walk-Otway Nat Park

Run

Oops

Xmas

The Look Says It All

Water Rat

Platypus
Platypus-Weird huh

The End to a Great Day

For more adventures and pictures go here to the kids own blog, see Emily Surf the huge waves, Hear ferocious koalas it's all there.

http://littleaussieadventures.blogspot.com/

Steve

My Photo Album

http://picasaweb.google.com/Galvo703/GalvoSLife#
http://picasaweb.google.com/Galvo703/FlyingPics#
Links will take you directly to the photo Album.
Sorry about the previous link.
Galvo

My You Tube Page

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=OhJ5wrxrEkY&feature=channel_page

Adelaide and Kangaroo Is

Well we have left Kangaroo Is after nine days of blustery conditions and rain :(. We still managed to have some fun though and I even caught a couple of fish and some Marron and Yabbies so we ate well one night...

We managed to see some koalas but not as many kangaroos as we thought and really most of the animals were dead on the side of the road....
There was so much road kill it was hard to believe really so there must be plenty of wildlife around just that we didn't see a lot . Although we did see heaps of seals and we met some funny Italian campers as well who thought like us that Australia was warm in the summer and had no warm clothes so all there photos for the last month they were wearing exactly the same clothes
We only stayed in Adelaide for a couple of days , and a place called Rapid Bay on the Flieuier Peninsula for one night before KI.

After KI we raced to a spot called Tunkillilla which happens to be a good flying spot and as we pulled in there were two gliders in the air so I quickly launched and got a nice 1.5hr flight in.

We saw from the hill heaps of dolphins surfing the waves ,kangaroos and managed to export to Victor Harbour heaps of earwigs that moved in with us...

Victor Harbour was great for a shower as we hadn't had a proper one for ten days so was well appreciated by us and anyone that came into contact with us.
We are now in Mt Gambier after a long drive and it's bloody freezing here too.

Galvo

Rapid Bay

Our only wild Koala

Passion

While these two duked it out the above male got the glory.

Cape Borda Lighthouse

Cape Borda Museum

Yacca's - After The Bushfires the Grass Trees were all in flower and the biggest Flower stalks I have ever seen.

Dinner - Australian Salmon -Marron and Yabbies mmmmm

Stokes Bay

The Remarkable Rocks -And there pretty remarkable.

Tunkillilla - Flieuier Peninsular

Tunk - SunsetDolphins At Play

Hotham Downhill

Hi all this is just a test to see how some editing software for my bullet camera works as windows won't work with the M-peg 2 and I can't seem to get a codec patch. The writing in the middle of the video is because I haven't given them any coin yet.
I got to speeds of 59km on my mountain bike and you will notice that on the last corner before i stopped and Debs came screeching to a halt that I got major speed wobbles and nearly lost it due to a weight on my wheel for speed readings I have removed it so should look forward to more speed soon. camera mounted on handlebars it was actually better after this but I ran out of batteries.
Don't criticise to much it's my first attempt and I am just testing
Galvo

Naracoorte

Hi again I have finally caught up:)

Well I am writing this post from Naracoorte after a hard days caving :).

It has been a really interesting little stop especially since the kids are doing prehistoric stuff with there schooling and learning about extinct animals and how they can become this way.

Well as I said earlier Naracoorte is South Australia's only world heritage listed spot and it is due to the amount of mega fauna fossils found in the limestone caves.

The most abundant find was in A fossil cave where they believe 95% of the skeletons found were trapped here by falling into what they call pit traps (a hole in the ground leading into a chamber). These pit traps collected animals over thousands of years and usually closed up after the it filled with animals debri and dirt washed in to the hole. As the case with Fossil cave there were nine pit traps over a short space opening and closing at different times so a broad range of species have been found.

It was fully closed off and the paleontologists actually dug there way in.

They believe there is about 5000-9000t of dirt and bones in one area of the cave which they are still working on today.

they have stopped digging up other caves as much of the material showing up is the same stuff.

They have found Tasmanian Tigers, Tassie Devils,Giant tree eating kangaroos, a type of snake that had signs of hip bones, and a mega fauna lion type marsupial plus heaps of animals around today like possums,echidnas,snakes and kangaroos.

They have a really good discovery centre where they have made the animals as they believe they would've looked like although they don't know what colour they would've been.

They come to life and growl hiss and all the rest plus move around a bit which was all to much for little Lucy who lasted about 30sec and had to wait outside with Mum until I could do a swap with her.

Anyway it's been a great adventure and to top it off the kids found a piece of rock with a fossilised shell in it to take home.

Enjoy the pics.

Galvo

It's ok Lucy he eats trees)The weid tree eating kangarooSome Big Old megafauna thingamebob thing?

The Aussie Lion That was at the entrance to the Display growling and moving it's head,lucy had no chance really.

Tassie Tigers proof that Tassie was joined to the mainland.Skeleton of the Lion (I just love the shadows)Some of the bones At the dig. These are preserved bones not fossilised.Megafauna BonesCave Formations

The Tree Eating Kangaroo. Long Front Legs,And only a Single Toe to Stand Higher.Long Straws Visitor to our Campsite - Blue Wren