After a late night we all slept in until around 9 when we woke up and had breakfast. The day was quite mild and we decided to go for a walk around the local heath. The route took us through a ti-tree forest, the trunks of the trees are very twisted and stretched up above my head before fanning out into a green hat. The large number of trees meant that the cover above us was very thick and walking in any other direction would be impossible because of the density of tree trunks. For the first 10 minutes we wandered through these ti-tree, cathedral-like structures before it broke out into an area of land which was much more recognisable as heathland.
The aim was to search for more Australian wildlife and plant life. The weather was quite cloudy and a little chilly, I was wearing a jumper and trousers for the first time, so the likelihood of seeing any large animals was limited. however, we did see a number of different birds and found quite a few orchids growing. On our return we discovered that they were mainly Hyacinth Orchids which had bright pink flowers and a thin red tongue. We also found a number of grass trees, one had completely disintegrated quite recently and there was only a pile of its scales to show for its existence.
On the way back we saw a large bank of cloud forming in front of us, it appeared to be a very long tube and at a different height to the rest of the clouds much higher over it. Over a short period of time it rolled up into a long tube which stretched out in a very straight line for a very long distance. These clouds are called ‘roll clouds’ and are extremely rare. Unfortunately there was a lot of cloud over it, as when they form in the sunlight they are really spectacular. Even so I took several pictures and managed to make a stop frame animation on the camera from them which make it look like the clouds are swallowing us up! Once the cloud had passed overhead the rain started to fall. I think this is the first rain since being in Australia.
For lunch Luciano cooked spaghetti in a pesto sauce, the sauce was very chunky with large bits of pine nuts in it which made it very different to the pesto in the UK that I’ve tasted. We ate whilst the wind picked up around us. The day was going to be fairly cool so having decided the beach wasn’t going to be the best idea we drove into Wonthaggi to do some shopping. Wonthaggi has quite a small high street with not many very useful shops on, but has a nice feel about it. The supermarket was just behind the high street and had a large car park where we were able to find a space.
Once we had completed the shopping we made our way to the Homebase type store Mitre10 as we needed a new inspection tube cover for the septic tank.
On our return to the house we realised that it was getting quite late and so Luciano cooked another delicious tomato sauce with pasta which was typically delicious again. We had bought icecream in the supermarket to enjoy some of Ruth’s Youngberry and Strawberry sauces on. The freezer in the house wasn’t working very well so the icecream was very runny. This only meant that it needed eating quickly!
We managed to fit in two games of Scrabble to the evening I didn’t do so well in the grand scheme of things, but did manage to score over 30 for putting a single letter down!
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