We arrived in Latrobe at approximately 1300 hours and drove immediately to the visitor centre to book a platypus tour - this is marketed as the Platypus capital and why I put it on our itinerary. We found that they did evening and morning tours but we were advised that the morning was the best - so that's what we booked - it's a 6am start and we meet back at the visitor centre tomorrow morning.
We then had an iced coffee at the cafe before making our way to Sherwood accommodation which was about 4km outside the town but beautifully positioned on top of a hill. The place looked deserted except for some other guests who were going out as we arrived. We sat and waited for 30 minutes just in case the proprietors were out - as John was getting rightly impatient I decided to call only to find they didn't have our booking! Due to a system change some bookings had been lost, and as they weren't expecting anymore guests they had gone off for a 24hour break. Heck! Luckily no problem - we were told to go to room 2 - everything was ready for the next guests - it was great accommodation - kitchen, lounge/bedroom and a large shower room - and not long after the son in law appeared with some milk! Tea made - we relaxed outside in the sun before going into town for supper at the local hotel and as it was a beautiful warm summers evening we decided to drive to Warraree Forest Reserve to see if we could find our own platypus. We had a lovely walk around the ponds but no luck - we did however see today's photograph - a young kookaburra with his parents sitting and flying between the trees - we also saw lots of pacific black headed ducks and black swans swimming on the largest pond. The whole reserve is a community forest which has been reclaimed from gravel pits with the River Mersey running through the middle - it's impressive what they have developed and achieved since it started in 1991.
On our return trip we were just outside the reserve when John saw people standing along the edge of the river - there was also a Landcare reserve truck parked by the roadside - so we decided to see what they were looking at - and yes we saw some platypi leaving their burrows and going out for their night foraging. Clearly the small family group was the night platypus tour - as it finished Phil the guy in charge came to show us the Platypus......it was brilliant watching them but the light was deteriorating and photographs were difficult. We asked Phil if he was taking tomorrow's tour - he was and we were the only ones on it - so we said we would see him again tomorrow at 6am.
We returned for an earlyish night and after our taster we were really looking forward to the morning tour - so I happily set the alarm for 0445am.