the rest of easter break (the family car camping part)

Yup, just backpacking wasn't enough "outdoor family time" for my parents, so we had to go camping an extra 5 days!
3/30-We washed up at Tidal River after Wilson's Prom, then went to look at the beach there. It has a river flowing into the beach (i.e. tidal river) and the waves were HUGE pounding into the cliffs across the way! it was pretty awesome! The we drove to Port Albert to have supposedly the best fish and chips in all of Victoria (the state we're in), but they actually weren't that great. Then we drove to Reeves Beach Reserve, some random, teeny camping place in the middle of nowhere, to camp for the night. I was really happy to discover there weren't any possums there, so I slept really well.
3/31- In the morning we went for a (of course) 2 hr walk on the stormy 90 mile beach (the picture). Yes, the whole beach is 90 miles, but luckily my maniactive parents only had us walk for a couple hrs, not the whole 90 miles ;) The whole beach looked exactly the same the whole way, not very wide, with a bank and ugly scrubby stuff. There were tons of little centipedes all over the beach, which we thought was wierd. Dad told Leah that they eat human skin, so she decided not to collect them! After the walk we drove 3 hrs to Cape Conran, also some small campsite out in the bush. This was a tramatic evening for me because as soon as it got dark, we heard POSSUMS!!!!! And right as I was freaking out about possums, I felt something crawling up my leg. I unconciously tried to brush it off and realized it was A MILLAPEDE!!!!!!! The freakiest part is it bit/stung me!!!!!!!! I was freaking out, and my dad didn't believe me when I said: 1st- it bit/stung me, and 2nd-my leg around the sting was tingling!!!!! So then I was sitting on top of the picnic table, and I looked over into a tree by our tents, and I saw a pair of glowing eyes!!!!! I HATE POSSUMS!!!! So I went to bed, and in the middle of the night I heard a funny noise. At first I couldn't tell if it was my mom snoring, but then I realised it was the possum!!!! So I yelled for my dad and made him make it be quiet!!!!
4/1-Since it was very nice and sunny, it meant more walking.(pic is a controll burn seen from S.G.)

In the campsite we heard whip birds and were watched by a cookabara. First we went to Yeeung Beach, where my mom and sister walked along a river, and my dad and I walked along the beach and lazied about for a bit. Then we went over to a beach called Sailor's Grave(S.G.) (eek name, but very pretty) where it stank like rotton eggs, and walked along a board walk and rocks to West Cape, then back along a nature trail, where there were nests with...POSSUMS, which the aboriginis called "blang" (yes, that is my nature walk knowledge). So we also read that if you shake the trees with the nests, they come out! So, my always joking father decided to shake a tree with a nest (picture- scrubby thing is nest), and guess what!? A blang came out! But, I've decided that blang are the cute possums, they are way smaller, and less "bossy" compated to the other possums. So it is official that I like blang! Then we drove up into the hills, right past a huge controll burn, to some other campground down an 1 1/2 hr dirt road called Thurra River Campsite. After dinner we went for a beach walk. When we came back, I was freaking out, because there were tons of blang nests, but I didn't know then that they were harmless, then I discovered it when I slept and wasn't disterbed by blood chilling cries.
4/2-After breakfast my dad was coming back from the outhouse when he spotted a male and female lyre birds. Supposedly they copy noises they hear like chain saws, cameras and stuff, but they didn't make any noises when we were taking pictures of them. Then we went for a walk up to some sand dunes! That was pretty fun, though they weren't quite as cool as the ones in Colorado! They looked really awesome against the stormy, dark sky. Then we hurried back down so we could have lunch and leave before the forcasted bad storm was gunna come. While we were eating lunch, we had another staring cucabura. When all of our attention was turned away from the food, the cucabura swooped down and grabbed all four big pieces of cheese right off the table! My mom was angry. Before we could drive back up the treachorus dirt road, my mom wanted to walk out to a lighthouse. Leah, Dad, and I stayed behind and explored some pretty good tidal pools, only to run into the car out of the rain. We turned on the radio to hear the latest forcast on the huge storm, and found out that the winds were the worst in six years, causing all the trees to fall down and make road blocks and danger. We found out later that Melbourne was hectic, and some places didn't have power for a week! Luckily our place was ok. So we zoomed up the dirt road and to a town called Mallacoota to wait out the storm. Since the weather was actually pleasant that evening, we had to camp once again. The winds hit in the middle of the night, and boy were they HOWLING! But I didn't mind because they sounded better than the possums I heard before I went to sleep. No damage from the winds in Mallacoota.
4/3-Of course, we couldn't go home yet, so we had to drive to another small camping place, this one with only 5 campsites, called Shipwreck Creek. We went for a walk to Seal Cove, which looks exactly the same as Shipwreck Creek. Then after dinner, the local possum came out, and I ran into the car to hide. My dad made me come out and look at it, and I decided they would be cute if they weren't sooo anoying and noisey. Then since I came out, my dad did a favor for me and chased the possum away from our campsite.
4/4-We packed up and drove to Quarry Beach to explore some caves in the cliffs, but my parents didn't realize that you have to climb over some rocks to get there, and they decided it wasn't a good idea (for once in their lives). Then we dropped Leah and Mom off at Davis Creek Beach, and met them at Bastion Point. Then we walked around Mallacoota Inlet and couldn't decide whether we should boogie board or not, but we decided not to because it was a little chilly and we wanted to get to the Buchan Caves up in the Snowy Mountains (haha funny name, ain't no snow there). At the caves campsite there was a kangaroo, which some kids named Skippy, and she was sooo used to humans you could pet her! Dad and Leah did, but I was too lazy/nervous that she'd bite me to pet her. I was really happy for it to be the last night, but I wanted to be back in Brighton as soon as I discovered the possums here were too friendly and used to people, so friendly that my dad pet one! So I woke up in the middle of the night to p-p-p-possum noises, but there were also tons of other critters walking/hopping around out there, and I couldn't sleep for an hour.
4/5- We got to have a tour in the Royal Cave with some odd-humoured, old man tour guide. The cave itself was amazing! it was sooo pretty!!!! It looked fake!!! After the cave tour we went for a little walk up a hill to another cave (we couldn't go in cuz u had to hav a guide). There were tons of kangaroos bounding all around, and some had joeys!!!!
We then drove to a pretty tourist town called Lakes Entrance, where we had the BEST fish in chips in the world!!!! They were sooo good!!! We walked around town and on the beach, and then we FINALLY drove 3 1/2 hrs home!!! This was a pretty good trip, but I really hate possums!!!

yeah, and ya know what, possums are stalking me!!!! I went into a bookstore, and what did I see? A possum on a gift certificate, then I looked up, and there was a possum on a book! I went to bed and there was a picture of a possum in my bed!!! I went to school and my friend told me to look at an awesome picture she sent me through email, but I had to save it first, otherwise it won't open, and I opened it, and there was a vicious possum!!!! AAAAACK!!!!!!!!!

^^
>'.'<
☻Kelly