Thursday March 27, 2014

A late start this morning and it was raining.  The first time we have had to fold up the tent in the rain.  We had decided to stop at the Koala Conservation Centre.  It had stopped raining when we got there so we stopped and spent about an hour and a half looking for koalas.  The Conservation Centre is a managed area where the koalas are allowed to do what koalas do, which is not very much.  They sleep 20 hours a day, then eat and groom for the remaining hours.  The centre has put up boardwalks and information signs near where they think the koalas might be.

We saw about 20 and Ralf got a good \”movie\” of one that had just woken up,  she had a little scratch of her backside yawned, then went back to sleep.  It is exhausting being a Koala. They were so cute.

We also saw a couple of black-faced wallabies.

We left Phillip’s Island across the bridge at San Remo and had lunch at about 12:30.  The route to Inverloch was quite pretty, undulating with the best kind of hills, go down one side and get up the other side without having to pedal very much.

We arrived in Inverloch at about 2:30.  The Information Centre was very helpful and centrally located.  As we were checking the map for the camp site we got chatting to a fella who told us about the Victorian Bike Ride that happens in November every year and we told him about GOBA.  Two very similar bike rides.  He went straight home and checked on GOBA and is going to sign up for next years ride.  He also came out to the camp site to tell us about a rail trail we could take which would keep us off the main Gippsland Highway and avoid the hills.

While we were setting up the tent there were a group of campers opposite who invited us over for tea, coffee and cookies.  They were a church group who got together twice a year at various campgrounds around the Melbourne area.  This time there were 46 couples getting together.  We were also invited over for dinner, but I needed to give Joy and Dad a call.

Ralf once again went into Town to get the meal for the evening.

Inverloch is a very nice seaside area with really nice friendly people.