Advertisement
Published: October 12th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Ooops!
Melbourne library sinks! So Wednesday we left Brisbane & the sun to return to Melbourne & the winter cold & rain...
Flew into Avalon airport as was cheaper flights - won't try that again, it's miles from the city!!! Got bus to town & paid the extra to be dropped off at the hostel as it was getting late. Stayed in North Melbourne this time at YHA hostel. Nice place, bit old & drab but two decent kitchen & twin rooms!!! This last was brilliant! Especially after the chaos of Brisbane hostel! lol.
That first night we found out from reception where we could find food then set off in search of it. & it started to rain, heavily. So first pub we find with food we duck inside to find a table. & there's a pub quiz going the first question of which we hear is "What is the ice planet at the begining of The Empire Strikes Back?" Good start... Nice food, nice cider (Mercury - from Tasmania!) & we got to laugh at the bubble-blowing competition in the quiz!
Thursday we were booked on a day tour to Phillip Island. Pickup was 10.55 so we had plenty of time
to go & buy sandwiches to take with us for lunch & be lazy in getting up! So first stop was Moonlit Wildlife Conservation Park where we saw more koalas, dingos, wombats & owls. We also got to hand feed Tamar Wallabys - they are soooo cute!!!!! Next we stopped on Churchill Island Heritage Farm where besides the animals & olde cottages we saw a whip cracking & boomerang throwing demo - I failed to crack the whip & Dawn failed to throw the boomerang! Amusingly one of the demo people got a boomerang stuck in a tree!!! We then wandered around another Koala Sanctuary - spotted many koalas, several superb fairy wrens but no copperhead snakes (the only snakes on Phillip Island) 😞 There was also an included pizza supper but as some greedy people stole all the nice veggie pizza I was left with a few slices of margarita so our lovely tour guide got me a tasty pasta salad at a later stop! We then headed out to the Nobbies (no idea why they are so called!) & saw lots of nesting gulls & chicks before finally headed over to the Penguin Parade - one of Australia's
biggest tourist attractions! Hundreds of Little Penguins come out of the sea, up accross the beach in groups before separating as they climb up to their burrows. We splashed out on upgrade tickets & got to sit in a smaller viewing area nearer where most of the penguins come up & also to wander up & down a boardwalk next to the returning penguins. It was great to see so many so close! Plus we got free hot chocolate! 😉 Typically we were the last to get dropped off that evening!
Friday we got up, Dawn packed & left her stuff in my room whilst she checked out & we got a tram into town to explore central Melbourne & for Dawn to get gifts to take home. We rode the free tram & shuttle bus, had tasty mini cup cakes, wandered around the botanical gardens & war memorial. Finally the afternoon was drawing towards evening & after a final cup of tea Dawn headed to the airport for her flight home 😞
I stayed up a little late chatting to some guys at the hostel & using up the last of my paid for internet time! Got
Gimme food!
They really do hang on to you! to bed at 23:30 with my alarm set for 4am to get a taxi into town to catch the bus to the airport!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.046s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0257s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb