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Well I left home on Saturday and after a very long and cramped 24 hours in the air (with an hour stop in Hong Kong, which looks great, am very excited to stop there on the way home!) touched down in Melbourne on Monday morning at 6.20am. And of course like many the traveller before me I arrived with all my preconceptions of a nation of beer swilling, crocodile wrestling, Neighbours loving beings - all of this can only be disproved to me over the next 8 weeks!
As I made my way through the arrivals area I noticed the departures board and next to the status of planes about to leave was the message RELAX! Sarah was there to meet me after much arm twisting on my part. We made our way out to St Kilda, where Sarah, Maria and her friend Karen live, Karens friend Sinead is also staying there at the moment too. So after breakfast we decided we'd do something or other cause Sarah had taken a day off work. The initial plan was to stroll about the city, but oh no we had to go all out and hire a car. So within 4
hours of landing in Oz I was driving our rented car out of Melbourne on the way to Philip Island almost 2 and a half hours away. We didn't really have a plan except to see the penguin parade later on that evening. so we drove out and arrived at Philip Island Grand Prix circuit, (where the Australian Grand Prix was held in 1989) where we had lunch while we devised a plan for the day. Sitting there we got inspired and decided to race some go karts.
So after posing for our pics on the winners podium (each of us secretly anticipating victory!), the 3 of us (Sinead came to) headed down to race our cars. Don't have much to say about it cause I came last, which as anybody who knows me doesn't seem right - I am a closet girl racer, and the gardai siochana at home might have something to say about it after my recent little run in! (think it's because I'm quite a cautious driver normally!!). Sinead managed to crash into the tyres and break a board - they'll remember us. After that we headed to the Koala conservation centre to have a
peek at them and see if they're realy as lazy as they say, and they were every bit - one guy did wake up and perform for us. At this point it was getting dark so we hopped in the car and headed out to see the penguin parade.
There were so many people here to see this and it was lashing rain and freezing cold. Lots of tiny penguins came into shore and made there way up past us to their nests. We walked along with them and they didn't seem to be a little bit fazed that all these people were there to see them, in fact some of them were quite the little exhibitionists! You're not allowed to take pics cause it would frighten them off, but one clever tourist decided to try to take a close up of them and scare the life out of them! There was a sign outside the centre asking people to check under their cars for penguins as they left, but one person obviously forgot because there was a squashed penguin in the car park. So we hopped into the car again to some much welcomed car heating and made
our way back to Melbourne, at this point I was exhausted and began to nod off ( must add Sarah was driving at this point!)
A lovely end to my first day Down Under!
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niamh
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Tired????
Trust you to go off an ddo loads when you just arrived in oz!!!I'm very concerned that your driviing wasn't up to it's usual standard!!! Have a ball,Talk soon