Coolart Wetlands is a large park and wetlands run by Parks Victoria located on the other side of the peninsula, opposite site to the more well known tourist destinations of Dromana, Arthurs Seat etc. Parks Victoria ran guided tours to some of its parks and this was one we had never been to or known about so we decided to take advantage of a guided tour.
The tours were ran by two 'friends of the park' who are both very knowledgeable and despite being much older than us, walked quickly and surely through the paths both beaten and unbeaten, of the park. We were told little tid bits of information about the occupants of the wetlands, observed the many types of wildlife and birds in one of the hides (structure with slits for windows to watch birds) and enjoyed our walk to a secluded beach. Overall it was an easy walk with plenty of interesting sights.
I tasted New Zealand spinach (thick, not as silky as English spinach) and heard pobblebonk frogs (they sound almost like swarms of bees, but what a cute name!!)
We saw the endangered blue billed duck (below) swimming and diving for food.
Two birds that flew straight into the hide where we were observing their kind. Instead of building their nest in the outdoors, they had the brilliant idea of building it in the hide. A ready made 'nest'!
There is a homestead on the property, but a pity it was closed for renovations until further notice. It was built in 1895 and changed hands in 1937 whereupon it was declared a sanctuary for wildlife. There is a lovely garden near the homestead, where one can picnic on the lawns on a sunny day like the one we had when we were there. It was such a change from the La Nina weather we had been having.
After lunch, we went to the Hastings beach foreshore where we found this (below), a Port Jackson shark egg. It looks like a screw made of seaweed. The mother shark picks it up with its mouth and screws it into the crevices of rocks so that it will be wedged safe and sound until the baby shark hatches. Isn't that amazing? Only a few types of sharks lay eggs and I had the privilege of seeing an empty shark egg casing that day to learn something new.
There were some some pelicans on the foreshore hoping for fish meat from people who were filleting the fish they caught out in the sea.
Colourful gerberas growing on the beach at Hastings. I don't think they're wild flowers, but they look magical, like something out of a fairy tale.
Somers and Hastings is just about an hour and a half from Melbourne and is well worth the visit.
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