16 July - Sam the Koala, Mirboo Nth

 Many of you who follow my blog regularly will know that many of my rides take me to or through a little village called Mirboo North. MB is located in the Strzelecki Hills to the South of my home and as well as lying on the main road to a lot of mountain and coastal locations, it also features a couple of my favourite cafes. Today was one of those still, mild and sunny days that makes me want to meander slowly through some of this wonderful countryside and so I took the Honda Cruiser and rode slowly to Mirboo North, not wanting to go much further. I don't think my speed exceeded 80 km/h and with almost no traffic on the roads this led to a wonderfully relaxing ride. My destination was Nanna's Kitchen and so when I arrived and took an outside table I was able to kick back, watching the locals and waiting for my BLT and cafe latte.

Lunch duly arrived and was fantastic as usual. One of the nice things about being in a relaxed frame of mind is that you actually notice things you usually miss. As I sat there enjoying lunch and looked across the road, I noticed a large commemorative plaque I had not seen before and so I wandered over to check it out.

This and other regions of Victoria suffered devastating bushfires in February 2009, with great loss of life and damage to property.

At the time a photo circulated showing a scene of utter, charred devastation, and a fire fighter feeding a bottle of water to a schorched koala which had somehow survived. The commemorative plaque is dedicated to the victims and firefighters of that event and the plaque reproduces the theme of that famous photo. This is the famous news photo of Sam the koala,

and here is the plaque now standing in Mirboo Nth.

Unfortunately Sam has since passed away but he will always be world famous.


Total Distance 110km