Kangaroo hunting

By Friday, March 28th, Rob was most distressed that we had been in Australia for two weeks and had yet to see a kangaroo.

I quizzed all the swim moms and received a lot of advice on where to go. The four of us set out after swim practice, bound and determined to find some native wildlife...

The first place we hit was the Briars, an historic homestead that also has a beautiful bushwalk. The chatty lady at the information centre assured us that there were koala, kangaroos, wallabys and emus, just begging to be spotted. 

Not so.

We spent an hour prowling through the paths, our eyes on stalks, searching for any hint of movement. I saw a 2 inch ant and a flicker of a snake's tale, but no furry woodland creatures.

We gave up, and on our way out to the gate, a wallaby practically came up and tapped Rob on the shoulder. Seriously. He was 2 feet off the trail and didn't blink an eye when, after getting over the initial shock, Sophie jumped up and down to try and get him to hop away. Nope. He just sat and stared at us:

Rob declared that this animal sighting didn't count so we headed up to Arthur's Seat. We had been assured that there was no way that we could fail to see kangaroos here. This is the same place we had gone last weekend and saw some 'roo poo, but no trace of the animals who left it.

But finally, success.

They are about 4-6 feet when standing on their hind legs and cluster in groups of three or four. We saw about 15 all together but they didn't hang around long.

On Saturday, still on a buzz from our close animal encounter, we went to Cape Schank where, we had again be assured, kangaroos would practically be swarming the car.
Nope.
But we did see some awfully pretty coastline:

Rob gave up on marsupials and we set our sights on Portsea, because he had read that you can find seadragons along the pier.

Mighty Hunter, preparing to snorkel

Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the seadragon hunt was unsuccessful.
Sophie threw some snags on the barbie (they have BBQs, fuel and all, in practically every park) for our picnic lunch.

Before heading home for the day, we drove out to Point Nepean, at the very tip of the Mornington Peninsula where we came across this:

No, not sharks. A pod of dolphins chasing fish about 10 feet off shore. Rob was a happy camper.