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Published: January 7th 2013
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Captain Cook's cottage
Conveniently situated in the park near Hilton hotel (There should be 6 PHOTOS and - eventually when uploaded successfully - a video for this posting, so SCROLL DOWN to see them if they do not appear within this text frame.)
We had a lie-in this morning. Sleeping is moreish; the more you get the more you want!
Once we got going we decided to walk through Fitzroy Gardens. Amongst other things the park is home to Captain Cook's house, the oldest building in Australia. It is also home to beautiful gardens. We crossed the park and decided to follow the Golden Mile Heritage trail, passing old buildings of architectural significance housed among the high rise buildings of modern Melbourne. Among them was the Scots Church, the burial place of Dame Nellie Melba, a renowned soprano in Europe and particularly Britain (19th C).
All along the shopping areas is street theatre and I had my photo taken with a living statue who gave me some pixie dust with which to make a wish.
We took a little smoothie break and decided to go to 'the zone' for lunch. Called our new friends Sylvia & Michael for kosher restaurant suggestions. They gave us the location - Carlisle
Scots Church
resting place of Nellie Melba Street - so off we went on our new adventure: tram to the suburbs. Not the fastest mode of transport but we made it and even saw a couple sights along the way. Had a nice deli lunch and then obtained bagels for our evening tour. Took the train back to town and walked past the Parliament building through the park back to the hotel.
The coach came to pick us up from the hotel to take us to Phillip Island Nature Park to see the Penguin Parade. We drove for 2.5 hours and stopped to watch the wallabies in their natural habitat. They were so cute especially the babies. Our driver was a volunteer at the park and was able to tell us all about the island and the animals. It was very educational and inspirational.
We arrived at the visitors' centre about an hour before dark and after eating our bagels headed down to the beach. It was incredibly windy. After about 45 minutes the first scout penguins popped out of the water to make sure that it was safe to come out of the water. (We were there to see the Little penguins, the smallest
Living statue in Melbourne
She gave Lesley some Pixie Dust of all species. They weigh about 1 kg and are about 30 cms or 12 inches tall.)
The scouts had just called some of their mates when a seagull flew overhead and they scurried back into the water. A little while later 100s of the little things started waddling up the beach towards their burrows. As it is the mating season they had either hatched their young or were ready for some hanky panky. Those who already had young to feed looked as if they had just come off the Kosherica cruise. Others looked as though they had been wound up and their clockwork was running out.
This bit is X rated. Don and I were walking along minding our own business watching the penguins finding their burrows and guarding their territories and looking to see some chicks when we noticed two penguins just standing there. They didn't move. Then suddenly they linked wings did a few steps from Dirty Dancing and he threw her on the floor and mounted her. After the act she just lay there and we thought that he had killed her. The ranger confirmed this was the usual mating ritual. We didn't see
whether or not she survived as we had to get back to the bus.
No photographs are allowed of the Phillip Island peguins, probably because the rangers can't stop people from using flash photography. So you will have to go see for yourself as we did. A wonderful experience.
On the bus back to town the driver played the animated film Surfs Up about Cody the penguin.
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