Suzie Eisfelder
January 1, 2014

I’ve barely finished writing about America and we go away again…being fair to myself, America was a big trip and it took me a long time to write about most things we did. This time we only spent a week in Portland so I should be able to finish writing about it fairly quickly.

Portland….Victoria, not Portland, Oregon. It’s a lovely seaside resort with the most amazing history. It is the oldest European settlement in the state so has the oldest buildings and the oldest history…well, duh. I do have photos of some of these buildings and some stories. This article is the brief overview before I head on into some detail. Here is what I plan on writing about:

  • History of Portland
  • Whaling in Portland (I’m not condoning the action as I think it’s barbaric but things were different back then)
  • Shipwrecks in Portland and surviving them
  • Animals in Portland
  • Mary MacKillop…in Portland
  • Bookshops in Portland
  • A brief stop in Tower Hill on the way to Portland

I’ll leave you with Tower Hill and a photo or two.

Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve is an old, extinct crater with wildlife teeming its way through the day and night. It’s a short drive from Warrnambool and well worth the trip. We had lunch there some years ago with the kids and found out Emus walk away when confronted by someone tall, if you’re short like me, I suggest you stand on the seat when they come to eat your food. This stop was just to have a look see.

Emu Tower Hill

This is one of the emus that walked around us. They weren’t interested in us as they could see we didn’t have food. I didn’t cut its head off on purpose, it was just so close and so fast.

 

 

Emu Poo Tower Hill

 

This is something you don’t want to step in. My youngest stepped in a fresh one of these one day at Healesville Sanctuary and it took forever to clean it off her shoe. I’m sure she doesn’t want reminding of it as she was very small at the time. Anyway, it’s quite big and there are many scattered throughout the reserve. We also saw a couple of koalas but I’m not giving you a photo today.

One last emu story for today. Many, many years ago when I was young and charming! Healesville Sanctuary is a wonderful place full of flora and fauna from Australia. We’d all gone there for the day, my memory tells me I was in my pram (told you it was a long time ago) and the top was shielding me from the sun. There was a paper bag full of peanuts on the top and I remember an emu coming along and eating some of those peanuts…I never saw it eating them but I did see it reaching down. I’ve had this memory verified by someone older so I’m sure it’s true. Isn’t it funny what we remember?

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}