Because I am on holiday and therefore cannot not do anything, after a very short nap I decided to go exploring and leave Glen to sleep a bit more. I headed out to Woody Lake Nature Reserve in hopes of finding a wetland system bursting with birdlife.

Kepwari Walk Trail

Woody Lake Nature Reserve (and the Kepwari Walk Trail) are about 15 minutes out of Esperance. It’s mostly unsealed road, which I was a little concerned about as I’m in a 2WD, but the Mazda held up. The signage in the area isn’t the greatest so while you know there’s a walk trail (a big sign saying ‘Kepwari Walk Trail’) there isn’t a map to give you an overall view.

I knew there were a couple of hides built into the side of the lakes but couldn’t see them clearly from either end of the trail. I eventually stopped at the farthest end and went walking. Frequently I would be startled by the sound of rustling in the undergrowth.

After that morning’s brush with death, I wasn’t keen to have another snake launch itself from the bushes and attack (not that this happened at all and I’m actually quite fascinated by snakes). I distracted myself by looking at the beautiful in-bloom banksias and trying to spot birds (though should really have kept my eye on the ground…but more on that later).

Eventually I spotted, in the distance, one of the bird hides so continued walking in the golden late afternoon light. Once I reached the spot on the edge of the lake, I went in and looked out and was treated to sightings of not one, but two, TWO, ducks on the water.

I think one of them was a Pacific Black Duck, while the other was a Musk Duck (which are pretty cool). They have this big round waddle thing under their bill.

I didn’t expect to see much else so after about ten minutes I returned to the car, again looking for more birds (spotting some Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes, Spinifex Pigeons, and Honeyeaters) and again not looking where I was going.

It was only as I was within about a metre and a half of the Tiger Snake that I actually spotted it. Clearly it had heard me thundering along the path a while back and was leisurely taking its time to slide off into the bush. I was still able to see its head and the rest of its body. Boy, was it a beauty! Though I admit my heart rate did shoot up and I was not keen to stick around. I gave it a wide berth and beat a hasty exit to the car.

Great Ocean Drive

I called Glen on my way back to town to see if he wanted to join me on a trip out to Twilight Beach. By then he was out catching Pokemon so I picked up at the whale tail sculpture on the Esplanade and drove us out onto the Great Ocean Drive.

Twilight Beach was about ten minutes out of town and one of numerous beaches along the coast, each one having something special to offer, but all beautiful. We stopped at the beach and went for a walk, the highlight for me being the many dogs sprinting all around, just exuding joy wherever they went.

After our walk, we got back in the car and I took us clockwise around the Great Ocean Drive, which takes you along the coast where you can go swimming at multiple beaches or take photos from multiple vantage points, then to the wind farm (which we didn’t stop at) and along the edge of (No Longer) Pink Lake.

It’s a great drive, though the only problem was we did it in completely the wrong direction.

First up, the time of day in which we did it was perfect as the light was golden but the problem was we were driving into the sun, which would be hard at the best of times but our windscreen was absolutely caked with the dried corpses of the many insects we’d smashed into so it was almost impossible to see out at times. This is not great when going along a winding road.

Secondly, you get the best views of the coast, beaches, bay and islands when going counter-clockwise. We didn’t do that so missed out on a lot of beauty.

(I did the drive again the next day going counter-clockwise and it was infinitely better. I’d also cleaned the windshield by then.)

So we stopped at a few lookouts along the way and continued on, doing the full circuit and getting back into town where we got changed for dinner and walked down to Loose Goose Bar & Restaurant. We stuffed ourselves on their food and waddled home for an early night (with an even worse sleep than the night before).

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