Port Fairy Chillaxin' & Griffiths Island

Port Fairy is so pleasant, we decide to stay another night here. It has rained all day but I don't mind. A rainy day is an excellent reason to be lazy after moving from place to place. Given a snowy day, I might feel trapped and annoyed. But a summer rain is welcome. I can keep my window open and listen to its soft rhythm. I can pull on my rainjacket, walk three minutes to the bookshop, and be ensconced in a duvet moments later reading a new story while eating Tim Tams. (Tim Tams, by the way, are chocolate covered biscuit cookies--my favortite Australian treat!) Laura and I often comment how we fall asleep as soon as our head hits the pillow. Why are we so tired? We aren't running marathons here. However, we are walking alot most days and I think I continually underestimate how that combined with the stimulation of new places all the time can be exhausting--not that I'm complaining--it's a "good" tired!

In the evening, the rain subsides and I emerge to explore nearby Griffiths island. "A yankee are ya?" a local fisherman named Trevor replies when I introduce myself. Apparently my American accent is as amusing to the locals as their Australian English is to me! Trevor explains that the many burrows surrounding us are inhabited by shearwaters, also known as mutton birds. I see no live birds but several, headless dead ones--victims of the islands fox population. I meander to past rocks that look like large pieces of coal and rubbery strips of seaweed toward the blinking lighthouse. I hear a steady hum of chirping that seems to be emanating from under the ground. Alison, the hostel manager, later informs me these are baby mutton birds awaiting their parents return with dinner for them. Standing at the base of the lighthouse, I watch the sunset. The cloudy sky is pewter streaked with marigold. Rounding the opposite side of the island, I see swamp wallabies! A wallaby is a smaller, darker version of a kangaroo. I tiptoe near one; close enough to observe the rust red flecks of hair on it's belly. There are ten adult wallabies in all and a baby no bigger than a chihauhau. I feel so lucky to have seen so much wildlife in the past 72 hours! By the time I circumnavigate Griffiths Island, dusk has progressed to darkness. I follow the orange glow of streetlamps back to the hostel, giddy from a satisfying day.