Day 34 – October 4 2012

Another perfect morning in paradise, sunshine, blue sky, warm & windless, just right for the Discovery Walk where we discovered that we could not find one single thing we were supposed to. We then tried our luck with the Platypus Waterholes Walk starting from the visitor centre in Flinders Chase National Park.  Our walk took us across the Black Swamp, no water but lots of Cape Barren geese, some with goslings feeding alongside.  The walk took us around 2 km to the waterholes in the Rocky River, through lots of flowering wildflowers.  There is such a variety of flowers, so many different shapes & colours, a lot of the plants we have not seen before.  Some plants are soft to the touch, lots of plants are very prickly.  The plant flowering best at the moment is the prickly wattle, very pretty yellow flowers all over them, growing a bit over head height mostly, but so many sharp thorns.  There are lots of different birds calling & flitting between the bushes, we met a few people on the walk that seemed keen bird-watchers.  The Platypus Waterholes look very pretty, have plenty of large marron (freshwater crayfish) in them, but we didn’t see any platypus.  The walk was very pleasant nonetheless, quietness (apart from the birds) & lots of wildflowers.

After the walk we stopped at the Flinders Chase visitor centre café for lunch.  The fresh garfish & whiting with fresh salad was absolutely delicious, it was so good we may go back there again just for the fish & the freshest salad.

Our next destination was Hanson Bay, a small sheltered beach with a few fishing cabins & not much else.  We had a quick walk on the beach, admired the views of the waves & the different colours of the waters.  We then drove to Vivonne Bay once more, this time along the Jetty Road & stopped at the jetty for a look & walk along (of course).  The jetty is used by the crayfish boats during crayfishing season & is in need of repair.  We met & had a chat to a couple of government engineers surveying the jetty for repair works.  The colours of the water in Vivonne Bay are all different shades of blue & look great contrasting against the white sand.  We wandered up to the small low headland where a safety beacon is located & had great views both east & west along the coast.

Back to camp & we located 3 koalas in different trees in the campground, right amongst the tents & caravans, they don’t seem to mind people at all.  Two of the koalas were actively feeding & the third had a baby koala nestled in its arms & was asleep.  All very cute.