Mar 14, Marysville, Healesville

We drove down to Marysville, a town that was almost destroyed by a bush fire in 2009. A lot of rebuilding had gone on and it had the look of a Colorado ski resort, all angular, alpine-looking buildings with brown wooden exteriors. We walked to the base of Steavenson Falls, a lovely cascade, then hiked to the lookout on top of the falls.
From there we took the Maroondah Hwy through yarra Ranges Natl Park. It was spectacular scenery; tall, tall eucalyptus trees formed the canopy of the forest and tree ferns grew in abundance underneath. It looked like something prehistoric that could include dinosaurs.
In Healesville we went to the Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary because they had platypus and Tasmanian devils there. We looked at the wallabys and kangaroos sleeping in the shade, saw many birds, and made our way to the devils.
There were 2 young ones (2 yr olds) asleep in a glassed case, all cuddled together. One of the sanctuary interpreters gave atalk about them. In Tasmania the devils have a type of contagious facial cancer that has been decimating the population, so for several years healthy ones were sent to the mainland for breeding. That's what they did there. Baby Tasmanian devils are the size of a grain of rice and live in their mother's pouch until they learn to live on their own. Usually only 4 babies out of 40 per birth survive. And they have been introducing them back into the wild in Tasmania.
After the keeper threw some food out, the devils came out of their case to fit over the pieces and eat. At the sanctuary they try to replicate the diet of the wild and only feed them every few days. They were pretty cute, like little black bears with long tails and pinkish ears.
Then we worked our way to the platypus display. It was set up so that we could watch the platypus swim under water and go up for air. They are nocturnal, so the display was kept fairly dark with just a few lights. So we were excited when one swam by a light and we could see it clearly. One man watching them said he has a big one by his house that he sees occasionally, but this was the first time he had seen one under water.
We watched a flight show with a kite, a cockatoo, a buzzard, a barn owl and a wedge tailed eagle, the largest bird of prey in Australia - huge wing span. The dingoes were also sleeping in the shade.
From there we drove down to the Dandenong Mts and took the road through them. There were houses perched all along the narrow road and the traffic was busy because we were mayb an hour north of Melbourne. Pretty, but too crowded.
Out of the mountains we ran into bad 5 o'clock traffic. Once out of that we stopped at the little town of Koo Wee Rup and bought a pizza. We got the vegetarian; tomatoes, capsicum (green peppers), onions, olives and pineapple. The owner of the shop told us about a free camping spot nearby so we took our pizza there. The pizza was really good, or we were really hungry.
The camping spot was a rest area and there were 4 campers there when we arrived. We set up camp, then Samson was talking to another camper who invited us over for a drink 'after tea'. So we sat out with Jan & Ed from Eden NSW and two other campers, Simon & Louise, a young couple from the UK. Jan & Ed were retired and had just started out on a month long ramble. Simon & Louise were on a one year work visa. They had bought a camper van and were going to travel until the money got low and then find work. They thought they could last until Perth. Both interesting and both extremely nice. While we were out, some ring tailed possums appeared in the trees. They're much cuter than our possums, brown with long dar furry tails and a bit of a dark mask on their faces.