Mr Hoot

Tuesday 5th May.  ‘Twas a lovely day and so I decided to go a little further afield to do some birdwatching.  I headed for the Whipstick Forest about 20kms away from home.  The GPS didn’t help at all and in fact got me misplaced (note: not lost).  Just as I was going to give up and go home I spied a sign pointing to Bridgewater – 28 kms it said.  That’s not far I said to myself, so I headed onwards.
Bridgewater on Loddon (to give its full name) was nothing special.  The riverside parkland was quite nice but they were doing some beautification work and access was a bit restricted.  So after a few quick photos, I decided to head off in the direction of Inglewood.  It wasn’t far and I found a lovely little town with old historic buildings.  The main road was a little surprising as it was quite narrow unlike most of the other towns with their wide town centre streets.  Inglewood’s local Historical Society had been busy with blue plaques on all the old buildings, describing their stories and all about the Great Fire of Inglewood on December 3rd, 1862.  It is a sleepy little town with 2 pubs and an air of better days.  There were quite a few ramshackle shops waiting to either be leased or fall down.

From Inglewood I went on towards a place I remembered I had been before a long time ago – Melville Caves.  I drove onwards towards Kooyoora State Park where the caves are supposed to be.  There weren’t a lot of signs around and I decided that I would head for home if I didn’t find any sign of it in the next 10 minutes.  5 minutes later I found a sign and in another 5 minutes I was at the caves.
Let me say from the start, they’re not really caves; just crevices between large rounded rocks. This didn’t take away from the beauty of the area though. The land around is flat and the small ‘mountain’ where the caves are stands out prominently above the forest and fields surrounding it. I spent a lovely half an hour wandering around in the sunshine photographing the boulders. I would recommend a visit here, it’s lovely.

Then homeward along country roads stopping to take photos of a Shingleback Lizard by the side of the road.  A great day just rambling around. More photos and information about Melville Caves on Flickr