The Edge of a Continent
Many are the times I have stood on the New England coast and looked out over the ocean; but for all those times it never felt like I was standing on the edge of a continent. Here in Australia, looking out over enormous limestone cliffs, it does.
The Victoria coastline here is abrupt. It feels as if the ground has grown straight up from the water. The road in the distance looks like it ends at the edge of the earth. Giant Southern Ocean waves are slapping the sands of Point Hesse and creations of wind and water and time stand licked by the sea. Before I left on this trip I had thought of Australia as wide-open spans of desert and outback. Instead, I see magnificent diversity.
In many ways Australia reminds me of the United States, a comparison based in part on the similarity of size and shape, but even more from the feeling I get while traveling down the Australian roads, camping in the National Parks, stopping to buy groceries, do laundry and have lunch in the cities and towns. I were again in my 1986 VW Vanagon camper, I could almost be convinced I was in another part of America.
Almost, but not quite! Wildlife here is like none other - Koalas sleep in eucalyptus trees, kangaroos bounce across tall grasses, emus take giant, hesitant steps across the road and Royal Spoonbill Ducks share the waters with Long-necked Tortoises, Black Swans and Magpie Geese.
We've seen all this at Tower Hill, a state game reserve and an extinct volcano that last erupted over 18,000 years ago. It is one of the most incredible places we have been so far.
The history of Tower Hill is one of remarkable re-birth. Declared a National Park in 1892 in an attempt to halt the decline of the once majestic volcano, it still succumbed to the problems of over-grazing, over-planting, quarrying and dumping. By the 1950's the area was barren and devoid of wildlife.
Finally in the late 1950s restoration began in earnest. Early re-vegetation was based on the 1855 painting of the area by Eugene Von Guerard, so detailed that from it individual plant species could be identified. In 1961 Tower Hill was declared a State Game Reserve and it has since seen the planting of over 250,000 trees and the placing of numerous bird houses. Here has been created a new habitat for koalas, emus, kangaroos, wallabies, Cape Barren Geese, echidnas, possums and a huge array of water-birds.
We are awestruck by our first glimpses of Australia. We have eaten dinner at a picnic table while we watched koalas run down one tree and up the next with babies clinging to their backs, had eye-to-eye contact with an emu that stuck its head in the driver's window, and watched grey kangaroos bounce everywhere. I could get used to this.
