Melbourne

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Saturday, November 24, 2007 - 12:46 a.m.

I meant to write before midnight to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving since we're a day ahead of you. I saw the New York Thanksgiving parade on the news this morning. We were up and out the door at 7:50 this morning and just got home a half hour ago. It's been a looooong day.

We started off with a city tour of Melbourne. Alex and I got in last night and had enough time to grab dinner at an Indian joint (very good) before crashing for the night so we hadn't seen much yet. The tour was okay. Our guide was informative, funny at times, and very friendly - the problem was that he really should have applied for a guided meditation position. He monotone voice was putting me to sleep.

Melbourne is at a level three water restriction. That means that they can water outside, for a limited time, twice a week. At a level four, they can't water outside at all. The tour guide said that he's waiting for a level five - shower with a friend. The elderly lady in front of me started giggling and said, "That might make the shower longer". That was probably the best part of the city tour.

After a half hour lunch break we hopped on another bus heading to Phillips Island. On the way we made a couple of stops. One was at a petting zoo type of place that has kangaroos, ducks, wombats (they bite and sleep during the day so you can't pet them let alone see them), and a bunny. The main draw is the kangaroos. You know, it was cool to see kangaroos up close, but it really wasn't the environment I wanted to meet one. I'd rather see some in the distance then acting like they're half dead and bombarded with tourists.

I mean, maybe they are naturally in a lethargic state with no interest in who approaches them or the food you put in front of them - but something tells me that's not the case. One actually ate the feed I gave him and hopped away a little bit when I didn't have anything to offer it, Alex and I referred to another one as "the dead one" as in, "let's go back to the dead one and take your picture with it".

It wasn't dead, but it really did not care. And the flys. The flys were just awful. I don't know what it is about Melbourne, but I actually had a fly, fly into my eye ball today. The kangaroos were covered in them and at any given moment I'd swipe my hand over Alex's back to get 15+ off his back. They were like that not just at the kangaroo place, but even later on at the beach. There was a group doing wedding photos and one guy had 40+ flies on his jacket - it was unreal looking.

The wedding party was entertaining to watch though. After their photos, they let the little girls roll down the sand hills in their pretty dresses. They were having a ball.

After the beach we went to a koala bear reservation. This was nice. We saw a bunch of koala bears in their natural habitat. Thanks to my zoom lens we got some decent snap shots of them - a few were on lower branches pretty close to us, but most were high up in the trees snoozing. They were so stinkin' cute.

Somewhere in there we stopped at the world war two memorial. They have a stone in the middle of the building that on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour the light goes over the stone. They reenact the lighting periodically for guests to see.

Our final destination was the actual island where we were going to watch the penguins come in. They come in every night from the ocean and it was awesome to witness. Hundreds of these blue feathered penguins came waddling in - they're the smallest of the penguin species. We were warned before leaving to look under our cars for them because a few have their nests in the parking lot area. As we walked out to get on the bus a few were poking around in the bushes waiting for any threats to pass before retreating to their home. We were not aloud to take pictures of the penguins because the flash disorients them and some actually regurgitate the food they had stored to bring home to their family.

We stopped at the store last night to get food for the hotel room. Alex got a six pack of Victoria Bitter. The cashier said, "What do you drink at home? I replied, "crap" and he said, "well then - you'll love this!"....it's like the Miller of Australia.

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Comments

[Macia]

At one with nature:
Your contacts and viewings of animals and fish and flys is impressive. Seems like a different lifetime. Or something. Keep sharing. Sending love.