Melbourne - Flying visit down under

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Across the continent now into Melbourne, only a flying visit to drop in on Jon's cousin, as you do. Only here for a few days but literally having got ourself from the airport to our hostel, we took ourself out on a day trip to see fairy penguins (miss walker you should have been there).
The day tour took in a few of the touristy things starting the day with a wine tour, lovely. We then went onto a small zoo where Jacky found another animal she did not even realise she had a fascination with....the wombat (wilma) as round as a weeble and as cute as can be. We also got friendly with a few of the other animals native to Oz as you can see from the pictures, koala's, wallaby's, roo's and ponies for all those pony lovers out there (you know who you are!!!)

But back to the star attraction of the day, the penguins, the little fella's are no more than 1kg in weight and only around 41 cm height. They come to land once every few days early evening when predators can't see them so well and perform this comedic "should I, shouldn't I" dance up the beach. They are so protected in Australia that the island that they are found ion is closed off for part of the night to allow them to move around freely..... so you think they would get the hang of this and do it well, but no. You sit there in the freezing cold (jacky had socks on her hands) watching these indecisive half pints dither on their own & in groups while you take sweep stakes on how may goes it takes to cross a 10 meter stretch of sand.

Spent rest of the time mooching around Melbourne shopping for warm clothes and sampling the fine array of coffee shops from the kooky area of Brunswick street all the way to the twee seaside town of St Kilda's, what can we say, Melbourne does good coffee. Got an early flight in the morning off to New Zealand for a couple of days around Christchurch before we pick up our mobile home for the next few weeks, can't wait!

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Photos

Can you see what it is yet ?
who said wallaby baiting couldn't be fun !

The fear ....
Jacky, about to be mugged by a roo for food !

Why did the penguin not cross the road ?
Not every day you see a picture like this. This was a penguin crossing area and "just in case" the little fella's strayed we had to check under our vehicles - hence the photo opportunity.

Comments

[stella&tony]

fantastic
thanks for letting us all share your fantastic honeymoon trip............ has us itching to get out there and see more of this world out east. Have a great time in N.Z.

[Claire]

I wanna see the fairy penguins!!

[muireann]

ponies
yaaay!! ponies at last! and not just penguins but FAIRY penguins!! You've made one little girl very happy! Were any of them called Tink by any chance? See ye soon xxxxx