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Published: October 1st 2007
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Our first Koala!
We paid this wee guy for this pose! I guess before we actually left to come out here neither of us really thought it was actually going to happen. So not really wanting to build up any hopes, I hadn't really looked into Melbourne in any real detail before getting here.
I did intend to read the tourist guide books on one of the three flights - but you have already read about them and, really, reading on a long hall flight with a free bar was never really going to happen.
So what little I did know about Melbourne, largely attributable to watching Neighbours when I was at school and general things you hear actually turned out not to be really that similar to what I have actually found.
Firstly, it turns out that the taxi driver that picked us up at the airport (like most other Melbournians) just laughed when I scrutinised his seats for red back spiders. As my brother reminded me before coming out here, they found them in the city in Neighbours!
Claire herself told me that you have to stuff your shoes with news paper so spiders don't climb into them. I was soon told that I would actually
need to look quite hard to find a spider in Melbourne. I continue to look hard, but perhaps not as hard as when I first got here!
Secondly, we had here for almost two weeks and still hadn't seen a kangaroo - again, it turns out they aren’t that common in central Melbourne! And, whilst I had seen a few dogs, none of them were called Bouncer. Time for a nature trip I thought!
We had quite a cool car for the weekend - and we hadn't been out of the CBD and hadn't even seen the Ocean up close - so, on the advice of the boss at work (who seemed to understand that I might not feel as though I really was in Australia until I had fed a kangaroo) we headed an hour and a half north east of Melbourne into the Yarra Valley to Healesville - home of the Kangaroo (well, in the Melbourne area anyway).
The drive to Healesville was quite good fun too actually - you drive right through the Yarra Valley wine region past probably about ten wineries. If only I hadn't been driving.
Healesville town itself also looked
great - time was getting on, so we didn’t stop but I am so going to take another drive up there for lunch one summers afternoon (in November!). It reminded me of Woodstock in New York - bit of a hippy kinda feel to it.
So we arrived at Healesville at about 1pm. I did appreciate how well I was doing to (a) drive Claire right past a region of wineries without asking to stop for some sampling and (b) watch her getting out of the car of her own accord at an animal sanctuary when it wasn’t immediately obvious where the animals were and whether they could “run up” to her there and then.
It was also a crackin’ afternoon weather wise. The sun was out without a cloud in the sky and it was mid 20s degrees. So, a walk in the country was really appealing!
So, after two weeks, I got to meet a kangaroo. They are actually quite small (I was expecting them to be about 6 foot tall!) - one in particular was quite friendly, the others were quite clearly bored of entertaining tourists and kept well away! We also got fairly
close to a couple of koalas - I was expecting to get to do the token koala hugging photo thing - but it turns out it is actually illegal to touch them in Victoria and we need to go to Queensland to do that (it was an American that asked that question by the way - not me!).
We actually also got quite close to a spider - not a typical Australian sized spider (I hope) - this thing was massive. And the guy showing it to us (and telling us in great detail where he had “rescued” it from and basically everything there was to know about it) was so passionate about spiders it kinda went a bit towards curing my fear of actually seeing one! He was playing with snakes, crocodiles (I now know that fresh water “crocs” are apparently harmless and will run away if they see you). I considered what I would do if I ever see one (a) taste a wee bit of the water to see if its salty or not or (b) run. I didn’t consider it for too long. It was really interesting though actually - and I really enjoyed our
What a life
Apparantly they sleep for 20 hours a day, and spend the other 4 eating. What a life. trip to the country. Will defo do it again although will take the bus next time and visit the wineries!
In terms of the flat - well, the electricity didn’t get turned on. Seemingly they came to the flat on Friday, but didn’t get access. Now, the building has three “body corporate” guys here all the time during the day - and when they finish at 4pm various security guards take over. Hard to see how they didn’t get access, but hey - it will get done on Monday (again, so we thought!).
We were supposed to move out of the serviced apartment on Sunday as work only put you up for 13 nights - we had to stay in it Sunday night too.
Oh - some good news on the flat furnishing front - we got a sofa on the way to Healesville, and it is being delivered on Monday! Good news on two counts - we’ll have somewhere to sit when we finally get into the flat and secondly, I’ll not have to look at any more suites for a long time!
There was one final thing that I was determined to get
Pass
I have no idea what this wee dude was - but he was quite happy to allow folk to poke their fingers into him! before returning the car - we have a balcony with fantastic views of the city - all we needed was a couple of patio chairs and a bottle of red wine for our first night. So, at about 5 mins before it closed, we found a K-Mart, ran in and got some chairs - then ran into Safeway (yup, they have Safeway here - but it’s part of Woolworths and not Morrisons!) for a bottle of red wine and, get this - a bottle of Irn Bru. I think it even tastes the same as the real stuff from Cumbernauld.
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Claire and Ricky
Aussie Adventures
Healesville
You are not in Australia until you have seen a koala, kangaroo and some wineries (and maybe a red-back spider - which I haven't seen yet!!)