Penguins!

Phillip Island was my favourite day of "Melbourne".

We went on a day tour with Go West down to Phillip Island, mainly to see the Fairy Penguins which return to the beach every evening.

The day started off at the Australian Garden in Cranbourne.  Not the most amazing place ever, especially since it was mainly a building site (for phase 2) and none of the water features were working. Which was a shame since part of it was meant to show the difference the presence of water makes to the plants... It would probably be of interest of keen gardener types who havn't seen much of Australia.

Then on down to Phillip Island, to the Chocolate Factory.
Now, officially I've given up chocolate for lent. That didn't last long! I fell at the first hurdle, as we walked in they handed us a truffle and I failed. It was a planned fail, so it doesn't count, right?
Its an AMAZING place! Think Willie Wonka. Ever wondered what a solid tonne of chocolate looks like? Ever seen 4 tonnes of liquid chocolate-fall? What about a giant mosaic of Dame Edna made out of truffles?

Then there were koalas...

And pretty rock formations...

Oh, and there was a snake too.

But mainly then there were PENGUINS!
We sat there in the freezing cold (for me...) in my many layers with millions of Asian tourists wearing even more layers, just waiting for the sun to go down so it was dark enough for the Little Penguins to dare come out.
But when they did it was amazing! We sat there, scanning the waterline for the little blobs.
Is that one?!

No, its a rock.

What about that?

Nah, seaweed.

That?!

Its the same rock, Ellen.

Oh.

Theres one!

And another, wow! Theres loads!

Want one!

That was pretty much how it went. 

As soon as there was one on the beach there were many, and they'd all group together, sometimes dropping back into the surf, sometimes just standing around, then eventually they'd make a dash for their homes back in the dunes. After a while, we went back from the main viewing area and watched them waddling around from the board walks. Totally amazing.

Some Fairy Penguin facts from the Penguin Foundation:

Little Penguins are amazing creatures that defy many laws of nature, let alone physics to swim, dive and live the way they do. We are proud to look after them and manage their habitat that enables many people from all over the world enjoy their incredible lives.
Did you know that ?

• The penguins at Phillip Island are the smallest of 17 species of penguins in the world (they are only 33cm tall) … their largest Antarctic cousin is the Emperor Penguin, standing up to 130 cm tall.
• Penguins are found only in the southern hemisphere; so you will never see a penguin and Polar Bear together in the wild!
• The name `Little Penguin` is now used instead of `Fairy Penguin` as it is a more accurate translation of their scientific name, Eudyptula minor.

Better in the water than Ian Thorpe !

• Penguins may swim 15 - 20 kilometres a day searching for small fish to eat. One penguin was recorded travelling 100 kilometres in one day!
• A Little Penguin has been recorded diving to 65 metres!
• A Little Penguin can actually sleep at sea, dozing as it floats on the surface.
• A Little Penguin can stay at sea for weeks, diving for fish, yet its waterproof feathers keep its skin absolutely dry.

The dangerous lives of Little Penguins

• Natural hazards for penguins are sharks, birds of prey, rough weather and fish shortages.
• Sadly, a penguin`s biggest danger is humans. They die from our plastic rubbish, oil spills at sea and on land from cars and introduced animals such as foxes, cats and dogs.
• A fox may kill as many as 30 or 40 penguins in one night. The fox is the penguins` main predator and keeps our rangers busy protecting the penguins.
• The Little Penguin`s dark feathers are not black like other penguins. They are a deep, rich blue. Their colour camouflages them from above and below the surface of the ocean.

I whole heartedly recommend going to see these little cuties.

If thats not possible, or you want to help more, why not adopt one?

Hitting the Streets

I figured instead of a true time-line I'd just group my thoughts on Melbourne together by activity.
Today being the general sights.

First thing that struck me was how uninspiring the skyline is. Maybe just because I'm so attached to Perth... I just expected more...

Then there are the trams. Remember to keep an eye out, they're not all as striking as the tourist ones! The tourist one was a good idea... free to jump on and off, bit of a commentry to let you know where you are and whats around. Its on the quiet side though, presumably to least annoy the regular people, but that menat if you were going over bumps or the traffic was bad the speach was lost beneather the rest of the noise.

I loved all the little alleyways and arcades. Some lovely architecture still hanging around, and some crazy shopping. Will definately go back without the boy in tow and really hit the shops. I just snuck in some early mornings and late afternoons around our plans.

I was really looking forward to the QV Markets, but I was underwelmed. The meat looked really good, and the deli section too. I bought some sausages (cornish, and mango!) for us to have for breakfast, and some bread and cheeses and fruit for lunch on the day trip, but otherwise was quite restrained.
The rest of the markets we just tat though. Not what I was expecting at all. The sunday markets at the Arts Centre and out at St Kilda were heaps better. Spent lots of money there, on pressed flower art and jewelry, wood stuff and the like.

I did like the old Baths just up the road though. Very cool brick work. 

And the old factory in the shopping centre. Very cool!

Federation Square was also funky. I like the patterns and the tickers built into the walls (in our case warning people that while most things were still open the storms had caused some damage so watch out). Its good having an open area with good facilities and transport links that can be used for events. The modern Village Green!

 

 Oh, and the fire show outside of the Crown Casino! We'd been told it existed, but didnt know much about it. From the way I'd been told I expected fire jugglers and things, not massive flame throwers! We were sitting having a drink in Federation Square when the sky lit up. So obviously we had to go search out teh source. The Boy loved it. I swear I felt the heat on the opposite side of the river, I dread to think what it would be like underneath!

We went into the Casino while waiting for more fire. My money started to burn a hole in my purse. I've never done more than played on the Pokies, so decided that I would get $10 (big spender!) worth of chips and play on the Roulette. Cards aren't my thing, but randomly putting chips on a table seemed easy enough.

There were a nice couple already on the table, so we joined with them. I put the chips in the wrong spot to start with... I don't know what the couple made of us! So I looked at the boy, he said "half 21/28" so I did. And it was 21. So 17 to 1 on our first chip. $2.50 x 17 = a good return! I took out my original $10 and we played a couple more chips, but then cashed it in because we wanted to go watch the fire. We ended up about 350% on the house. No complaints from here! I can see how it can become addictive, but we stood and watched two guys lose a lot of money in a couple of minutes... one lost $100 in literally 10 seconds, the other lost $500 in 10 minutes. But then, I guess that makes the highs even higher... I liked all the signs, like "what are you really gambling with?"

Snake handlers course this afternoon.

Scared but excited!

Melbourne Travels...

Back from Melbourne!

Apart from the lovely people losing our bag somewhere between Perth and Melbourne, and ripping it once they did finally get it back to us the following afternoon, we had a great time.

We flew out of Perth on Tueday afternoon, a bit of a last minute dash... Getting complacent from flying so often! We turned up with 10 minutes to spare for close of luggage check-in, which would have been fine apart from the whole of the WA SES were heading over to Victoria to help with the flood clean up, and they had a lots of gear to check! They've re-modelled the airport too, so the Boy and I circled for a while trying to find security... straight through security (and explosives check, as usual!) and on to the plane. 

Qantas served us up some food then turned out the lights for a showing of Up in the Air. Seems like a pretty good film, nice balance of chic flick and not so chick-flick.  The Boy was rather angry with them for showing an episode of something (2 1/2 men maybe?) before, so the captain talked over the key moment of the film to announce the local time, weather, blah blah, then turned it off with minutes to go. So now we'll probably never know if the lovely George turns his life around or not!

After standing at the carousel for that bit too long, with the growning feeling of "oh oh" in both our stomachs, we reported our bag as missing and grabbed a cab into the city, hoping the bag would turn up and planning what we could say was in it if not ;) We both had our nice clothes in it (my only pair of heels, his only pair of shoes, my pretty new dress) and weren't really relishing the idea of spending fun Melbourne shopping time on boring restocking of existant clothes...

Got to the hotel (Oaks on Lonsdale) and got our lovely room - 1 bed apartment on the 29th floor with a wrap around balcony and view out over the Cathedral, parliment and suburbs.

And crashed into our lovely massive bed, to prepare for full on days of shopping, penguins, cupcakes and luggage chasing.

Melbourne :)

So, finally, I'm going to Melbourne.
It was never high on my list of places to visit, it just didnt have as much WOW factor as visiting the Bondi Beach Rescue hut (love that show), swimming on the Barrier Reef (thats my Dad, BTW), or seeing Uluru.

But the more I look into it, the more Melbourne does have to offer. We've been planning a trip around now for months, but work has been so up in the air we havn't been able to book anything. But I decided yesterday that we should just go. Just for a few days. I found some reasonable flights (nowhere in Aus is cheep to fly to from Perth!) so we're going next week! Tuesday night to Sunday.

Exciting!

I want to:

1. 
   
   Visit the Queen Victoria Markets.
2. 
   
   Cruise around on a tram. Though I had this romantic image of old rackety trams, not posh new style ones like in Manchester... Hmmm...
3. 
   
   Visit Ramsay Street- I used to love Neighbours back home. My Gran first got me hooked when I was small when she'd look after me after school. I never watch it now because the times are bad (its on at about 4:30 on country TV, I work til at least 5, and country TV is behind Metro TV so there is no consistancy even when I do get a chance to watch.
4. 
   
   See Penguins, probably at Phillip Island.
5. 
   
   Go to the Zoo and Botanical Gardens
6. 
   
   Tour Parliment. It looks pretty and its free.
7. 
   
   Eat good food and people watch at trendy cafes.
8. 
   
   Shop in trendy shops which dont exist in Perth.
9. 
   
   Go to the Casino.
10. 
    
    Find an excuse to wear my new dress.

Did I miss anything?

Any suggestions of good food and/or good shopping?