The Great Ocean Highway



This morning we set out west of Melbourne on the Great Ocean Highway. It is kind of like the route 1 running along the coast.  We decided to take a hike at High Tower, a large refuge and we were greeted with these two emus that are very curious and were looking into peoples car windows.  They are curious in that the male does all the child rearing in this couple. He makes a nest and struts around it till the female decides to lay an egg or two in it.  Then the females work is done  The males doesn’t eat or leave the nest till the chicks hatch and then he stays with them for one year till they are grown.

I saw this big grey kangaroo on the trail. They are the second biggest of the Roos . The biggest is the “big red”.  They are called a “mob” in a group and the young are called joeys.  The females have two nipples for the young in her pouch , one for high fat milk and the other for collagen.  They can arrest the development of an embryo in the pouch if for instance there is a catastrophic event like a bush fire and restart the process to up to a year later!

The next stop was the sunset walk on the beach. It was very windy and the ripples are witness to the wind.

These coast were the sites of many ship wrecks because of all the rigged cliffs and the hidden rocks.
The red pebbles are iron rich like most of the earth in Australia.


 

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