Roadkill safari (Apr. 19/09 - Narooma, Australia, mileage 405km)

The kangaroos were out in droves when we hit the road first thing this morning, as we counted at least 25 of them before reaching the paved road we turned off of yesterday. We followed the Abercrombie Highway south for a couple hundred kilometers, which traversed the hummocky highlands, giving us the feeling that we were driving across the top of the world. You could see hills and stormy weather way off in the distance, and most of the land bordering the road was forested or cleared for herds of sheep and cattle. Much more sheep than cattle in fact - thousands of them!

Our roadkill safari started with a large brown furry blob on the side of the road that we eventually figured was a wombat - the first one we had seen. A while later there was another one (also dead), then another (dead)... and no less than eleven dead wombats by the end of the day. They must be nocturnal and abundant to have odds that bad of making it across the road. Too bad we haven't seen a live one yet!

At one spot on the road, there was a field with a patch so full of white cockatoos that it looked like an isolated patch of squawking snow. We tried to get closer for a better look, but they few at the first sense of us, making a white noisy cloud that simply transferred to the nearby trees. After a few minutes, they returned to eat grass in the next field, and repeated this pattern with our next (apparently less stealthy) attempt. We guessed that there were at least 300 of them - surprising, considering how cold the weather was up there. Who knew cockatoos hung out in areas that could have snow in a month or two!

Part four of our wildlife-spotting day came when an odd looking creature amidst a field of grazing sheep turned out to be an emu! Another score on the Aussie critters list. It looked a lot like an ostrich, but with a small head and shaggy feathers. But when it saw us and took off running, it totally looked like an ostrich. Later, two massive hawks flew out of the grass by the road, bringing our wildlife total for the day to about 313!

Without many wide spots to pull over on the road, we eventually borrowed a wide driveway entrance to whip up some sandwiches. No sooner had we pulled out our chairs, an old guy in a pick-up pulled in and parked beside us. We thought he was going to give us hell for parking there, but instead he wanted to know how we liked our van since he has a similar one (pointing down the driveway). He told us all the good camping spots down the road, which scenic routes to take, and even invited us in for tea and to camp in his driveway! Talk about friendly! And we thought we were in trouble.

Wanting to get to the coast and away from the cold autumn weather, we drove through a few quiet little country towns lined with coloured oak trees and full of old stone buildings, each with the requisite pub, hardware store, and horse racing track. At the highway junction, we were only about an hour's drive from Canberra (Australia's capital), but opted to see the beach over the chilly capital. The rain persisted all the way to the coast, where we turned south and bee-lined it for the town of Narooma, hoping to make it before dark. Pastures dotted with cows, horses, and llamas were glowing in the pretty late afternoon sun, and after passing lakes full of prawn farms and show grounds full of jump courses, we made it to our campground of choice just in time for sunset. It's definitely much warmer down here than it was up at 1200m, and here's hoping that the rain showers lift in the morning since we have a beach to explore!