Finally saw a koala!!!

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Thurs., Feb 3rd Woke up this morning around 7 am - still now power.   Cool and cloudy today with light drizzle.  Eugene has a sore throat now so he's going to start taking the extra anti-biotic refill that I got.  The radio is reporting that of the approx 3600 customers without power yesterday about 1800 customers are still without power and it should be on by 6 pm today.  We also learned that the Princes Hwy opened at 6pm last night.  We left by 8:30 am and we only have 1/4 tank of diesel so hopefully we reach a town with power and diesel soon.  The neighbours at the park (from Queensland) were also stranded here by the road closure and offered to follow us when we left to ensure we got to a fuel stop OK.   We saw some of the devastation from the fires ....

We stopped in Lakes Entrance for fuel-$92 to fill.  Relief!!!  So that works out to about 13 litres per hundred, not bad for a VW motor home with 165K on it.  Also it's a V6 with a 6 speed auto!!   We stopped at the tourist info in Bairnsdale and the lady recommended  a trip to Raymond Island.      We took the pedestrain ferry across for $0.  There we went on the Koala Walk.  We walked about 2 minutes and spotted one of those cute creatures sitting in a tree about 1 metre  off the ground.

They live freely in the trees amongst the neighbourhood ... very cool.  Spotted several others on our walk including a baby but they were all very high up in the trees.
We also saw a lot of parrots and cockatoos....beautiful.  We had a  wonderful mixed curry lunch (lamb & chicken) in Paynesville after we got off the ferry on the mainland.  It`s sunny and warm (30C) .... life is good.   We continued our journey to Traralgon where we will spend the night at Park Lane Tourist Park .... very nice and clean - not like the one yesterday thank goodness!