Healesville - Xmas 2021 - Page 1

Terrifying emu.

My camera is again the Ricoh GRIII, which I broke last year in Beechworth but have since replaced. It has no zoom, so its useless for photos of birds in zoos, so here are crops of photos of birds in zoos.

This is an Echidna, years ago I saw one in the wild at Phillip Island, also at Xmas time.

Koala from afar. They eat meat. I have seen photos.

Plain old kangaroo. This place is for native animal conservation and research, so no ligers.

Wombat as big as a bus. They really used to be as big as a bus. I saw no real wombats today, just this giant statue.

A nice creek.

The platypus tanks. It was much darker in here than the picture suggests. You could see shadowy outlines of Platypii darting about.

Might be the best photo, no animals, just a water tower.

Rare doves. Everything here was rare apparently.

A blue Kingfisher, undoubtedly bird of the day.

Pelicans. Filthy things.

Squint and you will see a Tawny frog mouth. So called because they often have a frog hanging out of their mouth.

Without a zoom, giant sculptures are often better photos.

The zookeeper guy told me off for getting too close because these birds attack cameras.

Final pic, indoor rainforest path.

Here is the very impressive dam. Specifically Maroondah dam. It is large. The gate to get in to look at the dam closes at 8pm, so it was a bit of a mad rush to see the dam.

There is a good hill to run up. Dams are always much bigger than they look in photos.

More dam from near the top of the dam.

Good news, once you get up the hill you can walk along the top of the dam.

And enjoy the view over the other side of the dam. If the dam breaks I am in trouble.

I went all the way to the other side of course.

And looked back along the dam wall.

Ok one more damn photo. First time I did that joke with this dam.

After the dam, it was time to go gawk at some old trains. I was amazed you can just climb all over them and yet they are not completed covered in graffiti.

This is the Yarra Valley tourist railway, although none of these trains or carriages operate the very short journey. It seems to only run on Sundays.

More trains. I like trains.

Good light for these sort of photos.

And the last photo of a big day of gawking at stuff.

Almost all mountain shots today, but on the way there, a visit to Marysville, a town completely destroyed (over 90% of all buildings) in 2009, with 45 people dying in the small town. Lots of money has been spent on rebuilding the town. It is a very nice place now.

This is the bushfire memorial. I expected something much bigger. The police station, community hall and various hotels that got rebuilt all look like palaces.

Now for lots of boring mountain shots. As you can see, this area was also burnt.

Apparently on a clear day you can see the Eureka tower in Melbourne from here, we are really only just over 60km away.

More hills covered in regrowth. Lots of birds.

And so, some dead trees on their own.

Now for some view.

And more view, believe it or not, this is looking in a different direction from a different location compared to the previous photo.

The paths around this mountain are for cross country skiing in winter, and mountain biking in summer, the network is extensive and well maintained, and very wide. Despite all that and the very cool for summer weather today, I did not see a single other person on the 10km or so loop I took.

Final pic, the ski lodge, cafe and mountain bike hire centre. Most guys on bikes went the other direction, but still, there should be hundreds of people here on a day like this, not 10.

First stop of the day, the almost completely un sign posted Wirrawilla rainforest walk. No expense spared on the boardwalk, which makes it all the more strange that theres no signs pointing to it. There was no one else here, but there was a phone and a cup of coffee left on a park bench, no idea where the owner of the phone and coffee had gone.

There are lots of criss crossing little creeks in the rainforest walk area.

Stop 2, another bushfire destroyed town. This time Kinglake. There was no lake? There was not much of anything, I could not find the bushfire memorial, but many people died here in 2009.

Last stop of the morning, the Wilhelmina waterfall walk. Lots of camping areas around here. Path well maintained but its very far to the waterfall. Did not make it to the waterfall today.

There are a number of bridges like the one above crossing the river. Very nice area if you are into camping. I am not.

And if you squint, that is the waterfall. It looks like there is a suspended sky walking platform across it. Hmm, maybe I should have kept going to find that spot.

They do seem to make everything on site. There is a similar place owned by the same company somewhere along the Great Ocean Road.

There is a big cafe behind the sales area if you want some chips with your chocolate.

The surrounding gardens are a nice place to wander around in the late afternoon sun.

Mount St Leonard was first, 1010 metres. You can drive most of the way and walk the last km, so its nothing strenuous. The path was full of birds and kangaroos, and there was of course, no one else there.

5g signal was good from the top.

View shot. Melbourne is down there.

For the journey back down, a less defined steeper path, but it was fine.

Part 2, a visit to the Badger weir picnic area, without a picnic. Everywhere around here has public toilets. I take photos of them always.

The scenery on the walk to the weir was nice, but there was a snake! It slithered off after nearly being stepped on.

The actual weir is not particularly impressive. This is all connected to the giant dam photographed on day one.

Activity 3 of the day, the TarraWarra Museum of Art. Probably the poster child of activities to do around here. It is small. Currently it has Sidney Nolan drawings of men and horses, merged into one somehow. Also swans.

Once again, the gardens are nice. They must spend a lot on water.

The building is very nice, but a bit hard to photograph to convey its size.

And possibly the final photo of this trip, a 3/4 scale re creation of an aritsts family home in afghanistan after it was bombed.