Our host, linden, gave us good directions to get there so once we hopped off the train we walked with our packs in the blazing heat over to her flat.
I was not kidding when I said blazing heat, the high of the day was 106 degrees. After settling in the place and talking with Linden, we found the tram stop and headed into the city. We grabbed a bite to eat in a laneway, which is what Americans call alleys. Melbourne is known for their laneway cafe scene & coffee. There are loads hipster cafes with sandwiches, smoothies, coffee and more crammed into this small alley with tables and tents filling the road.
Melbourne is also known for their graffiti. It is definitely a different kind of city. Very alternative with graffiti filling the laneways, lots of unquie shops, cafes, and people. It's a very artsy scene, a lot of people have tattoos, piercings, and dress in different styles. Remember when I compared Sydney to San Francisco, I'd say Melbourne is closer to a Milwaukee or maybe Portland, but I've never been to Portland so I can't say for sure.
After grabbing a smoothie and a spring roll we went to the info station and got some maps. It was so hot outside that it was tempting to chill inside, but for some stupid reason I was insistent on exploring outdoors. We took a stroll through the botanic gardens which were very underwhelming. I would say they were more like a park, maybe one could call it an arboretum but I don't think I could even call it that. There were some nice statues along the walk that were difficult to appreciate considering we were sweating out of every pore in our body and the water we had was boiling hot. There wasn't a single sole in the "gardens" except for us. At the end of our garden walk we approached the shrine of remembrance which is a large temple looking building that is a memorial for all wars that Australians had fought in. There was an AIR CONDITIONED gallery inside that had a lot of neat paintings that reflected the wars as well as old flags and momentos from history. The museum also talked about recent wars and had a really interesting interactive map that showed the global peace index of all the countries. The US is 101 out of 162 countries, Australia is number 15 and New Zealand is number 4. Syria is the least peaceful and Iceland is the most peaceful. I spent a lot of time at that map!
Leaving the shrine we had a nice view of the city and when we got back we explored the town a little more and got Brazilian Acai Bowls which are like smoothies.
The heat plus lack of sleep was really getting to us, we were completely drained. While I wanted to keep exploring, we thought it'd be best to get a quick nap in so we could go to a festival later that evening.
We snoozed for an hour and then headed back out to the Queen Victoria Markets which on Wednesday nights have food stands, live music, and little pop up shops. There were sooo many different food vendors it was hard to choose what to get, and it was neat because they all had different international food. We went to a mozzarella bar and got this interesting type of mozzerella cheese that was hanging over a fire. Then we got pineapple rice that was actually served in a pineapple, and for dessert we got little Dutch pancakes dusted with powdered sugar and lemon butter.
We walked around and saw live music as well as checked out a lot of the vendors who sold everything from stuffed animals, to jewelry, to candles, clothes, and more. After exploring the huge market we checked out a new bar in town. About 2 weeks ago when Sara was driving in chicago she heard on the radio that a new bar opened in Melbourne that was George Castanza themed. As a Seinfeld fan, she was excited to hear this and check it out. I was familiar with the show but didn't know too much about it. The bar was neat, George's face was plastered on the wall quite a few times and then menu items and drinks were named after him or things from Seinfeld. We grabbed a drink and then headed home to pack for our full day ahead tomorrow: PENGUINS.
We had an animal filled day ahead of us, which really excited me! First, we planned on heading to the healseville wildlife sanctuary. We got to the train station early so we grabbed a coffee but then found out we missed our train.. unfortunately the lady at the info center gave us the wrong time! But as they say here, "no worries," we waited and got the next train. When we got to Lilydale station because we missed the first train, we had to wait an hour for the next bus. Because Australians are so friendly we went up to a random car and asked a stranger about what we should do for our hour waiting, she told us to check out a local coffee shop and she said she would have driven us to the sanctuary if she didn't have to go somewhere. We went to the coffee shop and even though I had gotten a coffee this morning I felt I should get another drink, so I did and it had really awesome latte art- a girl's face! We then walked back to the station, got a bus, and then transferred to another bus before getting to the sanctuary.
A sanctuary is different than a zoo because it gives the animals more room to roam and the animals are typically all from the area.
At the sanctuary we saw lots of animals: wombats, koalas, platypus, emus, Tasmanian devils, wallabies, kangaroos, and more. We also went into the wildlife hospital which was neat! We enjoyed watching the Tasmanian devils, which look nothing like the taz from the looney toons, but more like a vicious pig. Their teeth are so sharp that zoo keepers feed them with tongs. I Also learned they typically don't kill other animals just prey off of all the dead animals they find because with their sharp teeth they can eat the bones of animals. We stayed at the sanctuary for a couple of hours but most of our time was spent watching a Joey (baby kangaroo) in its moms pouch sticking it's head out. If you remember from my last post, I was so fascinated to learn about how baby kangaroos develop, so it was a magical miracle that we got to see a kangaroo with a Joey in it's pouch. Also, a red kangaroo came up to me and let us pet it.
We spent so much time watching the kangaroos that we had to run to catch the bus.
We got back to town grabbed a sandwich and then hopped on our little penguin bus tour! We also stopped in a department store to buy some long socks because it was supposed to be chilly that evening and we wanted to make sure we'd be warm. In the department store there was a hugeee line. Not for people buying anything, but because the Australian open is next week and Serena Williams was having a showing at the store. We didn't get to see Serena but we saw a lot of her fans.
The penguin tour that we were doing took us to Phillips island which is home to the little penguin where thousands of penguins emerge out of the ocean water at dusk to go to their burrows. l learned lots about the little penguin: it's the only penguin with blue feathers- helps them camelflauge from above, blending with the water and below their white feathers help them blend in with the sky. It's the only penguin that's not monogamous, and it sleeps for 4 minutes at a time. We got outside to the viewing area and with our binoculars we were able to see large groups of penguins, called rafts, emerging from the water and heading towards the hills/ burrows. They often would come far out and then turn around and go back to the water, there were a few wallabys out too which sometimes frightened the penguins, but the wallabies were always nice to the little penguins. Unlike the local foxes which are not nice to the penguins. We watched them all waddle to their burrows from walkways. Some of the burrows were man made, others all naturally dug into the ground. The babies would wait for their parents to come back and feed them and because have a hard time with face recognition so they'd often go up to penguins and sniff them and then walk away, because they can tell by scent who their parents are. In the penguin museum we were able to peek into a burrow and see a penguin cleaning it's baby- so adorable. We hopped back on our little penguin bus and got back to Melbourne late!!
In the AM the next day we had another early wake up call. We had rented a car and planned on driving down Great Ocean Road to see the 12 apostles. We picked up the car in the morning and Sara was the driver for the day so my responsibility was to continuously yell at her to KEEP LEFT, and that she kept running into the curb on the side of the road. It was her first time driving on the other side of the road which is really difficult because our brains are programmed to work one way and when we change the way we do things it makes it extremely difficult! For instance, the drivers seat and passenger seat are switched and we would often go to the wrong side of the car. Here, you turn your blinker on the right side of the wheel and the wind shield wipers on the left. So often, when Sara wanted to signal she was turning, she instead put the wipers on. It was comical. She got used to it quickly and did a great job getting us there and back safely. Our first stop on the trip was in Lorne, which is one of the first cities on great ocean road. The road was constructed after world war 2 to give soldiers work when they returned from war.
We stopped at the entrance of the road to take some pictures and then we continued on to some look out points. We made another pit stop in Kennet River where we saw some wild koalas. They were sleeping in the trees!
Then onto Apollo bay which is a cute town where we stopped for lunch. On the drive to Apollo bay we went through a section of the road that was recently damaged in bush fires. Just a couple of weeks ago the road had to be shut down because no cars could go through because of the fires. Now, the road is back but all the trees around that area are burnt, many don't have leaves and the ones that do have leaves are all dried out and brown. It was very sad, but interesting to see!
Our final stop was at the 12 apostles which are 12 large rock formations that emerge from the ocean close to the shoreline. It was gorgeous! We had to run to make it back to Melbourne before the car rental place closed, but we really enjoyed our day driving around. The scenery was AMAZING. Around every turn was a beautiful view of the ocean, a river, rolling hills, or a mixture. It was an incredible journey that day and it was so fun to be on our own schedule! We were so excited to be going to New Zealand where we would have our campervan for over 2 weeks!
When we got back to Melbourne we had dinner plans with a friend of Sara's who had worked for Game On! in the past and is from Melbourne. We had a yummy dinner with her, her husband, and two adorable kids. Then, they were so kind to take us to the air port because our flight to NZ was that night!
Our flight was delayed which worked out nicely because we did not have to pay for accommodations that evening and we didn't have to wait much for our transfer to the camper van rental because they didn't open until later. I knocked out before the plane took off and was asleep until landing :)
Sending smiles from Melbourne,
Rebecca
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