[07 May 07]
We awoke the next beautiful morning to the sound of kukkaburras cackling, natures alarm clock. But when i ventured outside i could not see them. But seizing the opportunity of morning light i grabbed my camera and walked down to the lake, getting some great shots of the area. Best of all the one from the jetty toward the beach.
On my return from the jetty i remembered that kangaroos live in the area & that they are active in the morning, so i scanned area & what do you know, a mother with young. They were not bothered as there was at least a 50m gap between us, and they headed down toward the lake. Knowing Rhony would love this i called over to the tent for her & soon she was at my side. We headed quietly toward where the roos went down a slope to the lake, hoping to get a shot of them drinking. But just as our heads popped over the ledge we noticed they hopped in for a swim. This was an amazing sight, one not often observed.
The mother swam strong & steady, the young one tried to copy but was obviously an amateur & it was comical to watch it swim wobbling side to side as the mother went in a straight line. They were in no rush & did not look back once. When they reached the other side they just casualy hopped out & off into the bush.
Many people are surprised to know that macropods (ie: kangaroo's, wallabies and wallaroo's) are actually very good swimmers, and they can sometimes be seen swimming between the mainland and islands off the coast. Eastern Grey Kangaroo's have also been known to lure marauding dogs into dams, etc. When on land, macropods often have very little chance of out running or out maneuvering predators such as the domestic dog. However if a dog is silly enough to follow the kangaroo into water it can then overpower the dog - and drownings have often occurred. It's amazing what our native animals can do when their survival instincts kick in. Wombats, wallabies and even echidnas are better swimmers than you
might think. Echidna’s use their snouts as a snorkel, & there have even been sightings of "wombats body surfing". It is believed marsupials take to the waves not just for the thrill of carving up a barrel, but also to rid themselves of parasites, like lice and ticks that live on the skin.
Hoping we might find some kangaroos grazing in the open fields we headed off down a nearby dirt road, low-n-behold a mob of kangaroos, and 8 in total at that. We were quite excited & stayed a while to observe these cute creatures, taking many photos. The dew was heavy on the long grass & i am sure they choose to eat in the morning for this reason.
Once returned to our campsite to have breakfast we noticed we had an admirer, a kukkaburra had come to try its luck, waiting for us to throw it a morsel, but it is not right to feed wild animals. After breakfast we headed down to the beach, on our way to explore Red Cliff. We headed to where the lake nearly reaches the sea & found a few pairs of roo prints. One in particular was very good, obviously fresh & very distinct, it was made by two roos hopping along side by side.
We did not have to go far to get to the start of the cliffs, it was a rocky accent from the beach, but once up top one could see very clearly how it got its name.
The cliff was reasonably high, and had a skinny beach running along its sea edge. It was odd though, that only one part of the cliff was a strong red (due to high iron levels in the soil), as 90% was dull gray. Once you were walking along the top of the cliff you had a spectacular view of the surrounding area. The rocky coastline infront provided a fair show with waves crashing on rocks, and it was obvious where red boulders had fallen that the sea was reclaiming the land.
There were many beautiful wild flowers in bloom, pretty yellow ones & tiny white ones, but i really liked the hot pink ones produced by the succelent, 'pigs face'. It has plump long triangular leafs, often with red tips, and can be used, i heard, like the aleo vera can, to sooth sun burn & insect bites.
To the South one could see the town of Brooms Head, surely a nice quiet place to live, small & reasonably secluded. But to the North the great beaches we had crossed the day before were visible, & were a spectacular sight (the photo at the head of this article). We stayed a while up top, admiring the view, and then slowly headed back to camp to packup & head home.
