I woke up went to my coffee shop and yoga class. I guess I do favor routines a wee bit.
Cousin Lola and I had made plans for a weekend get a way to Melbourne. To make such a trip possible, a plane would be necessary. So that cousin Lola could squeeze in half a day of work (she’s a very hard worker) we decided to meet at the airport on Friday afternoon. I checked in at the Tiger Air counter of Sydney airport and there was no sign of Lola. At the gate, no sign of Lola. On the plane, no sign of Lola! Due to shotty international phone service my stupid-phone could not send or receive emails. Finally I called Lola and found out that she had missed the check in for our flight and would have to take another flight. Poor Lola!
Melbourne was only an hour flight and cousin Lola arrived shortly after I did. We took the shuttle bus to our rental car place. Because we arrived at the obscenely late hour of 6pm we had to be checked in by the “after hours” staff. Long story short they tried to tell us there was no car for us, but by a stroke of luck involving a nice woman named Helen we were awarded the only available car, provided we could drive a stick shift. I was able to perform this function but was a little fearful of driving in city on the left side of the road. Though I had demonstrated competence in New Zealand, Australia is a much faster paced sort of place. Luckily, my kiwi drives, and frequent use of Mike's tractor had prepared me well and I only stalled the car a couple times on our first day.
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| Pretty scenery in Melbourne |
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| Fantastic Dinner! |
After getting dinner at a fabulous Venezualen or perhaps Brazilian restaurant in the St. Kilda neighborhood, we headed over to an old college friend of Lola’s where we would be spending the night. We found a nice group of people gathered at the friend’s house and I got to talking with the college friend’s boyfriend, a Kiwi named Dan. Dan was a marine scientist and told me all about invasive species of plants and animals in Australia, such as Marin grass.
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| Yummies in St. Kilda, Melbourne |
We woke the next morning and received an important tip from Dan regarding an animal park. Then we set off for Wilson’s Promenade National Park where we would hike, see wild animals, and camp for the night. The drive to Wilson’s Prom was pretty amazing. We drove through rural bush land and around the ocean. At some point there was an advertisement for an animal park petting zoo, (not the one Dan told us about) so of course we pulled over for that! We also saw signs advertising “flatty tails” which I think is some kind of fish you can eat.
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| Check out these involuntary animal poochy faces |
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| A much better way to look when holding baby animals |
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| Cousin Lola with a baby goat at the random animal farm |
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| Aw shit, it's about to get crazy!! |
We saw tons of signs like these as we got closer to the Wilson's Prom. Some signs had four or five animals on one sign. We arrived at the park and immediately set out for a hike. We ended up taking several.
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| View from one of our hikes |
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| A wombat right on the trail! |
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| A better angle |
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| Look! A wombat!! |
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| Gorgeous hike views at Wilson's Prom |
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| More views from the prom |
Back at the campground we found out how unprepared we were compared to other campers. We also found out that wombats are little beggars for people food. At the communal grill where our grumpy neighbors were cooking, a wombat was mingling like he was one of the gang. And they fed him too.
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| This is what it looks like when a wombat shows up to a cookout. |
The next day we headed out to the animal park Kiwi Dan had recommended. We saw Koalas and cool birds but we interacted with Wallabies, Dingoes, and Kangaroos. Hells yes Australian animal parks.
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| Wallabies at Maru Animal Park-thanks Kiwi Dan! |
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| That's a joey in a pouch! |
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| A kangaroo friend |
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| That's Luna, an albino Kangaroo. |
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Luna wants to get into my bag.
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| This is right before Luna started humping me |
When Luna started humping me cousin Lola put the camera down and came to my aid. During the hump we didn't know Luna's name or that she was a female. Later one of the animal keepers explained that Luna had spent a lot, maybe too much time with humans and was raised at the park from a babe. The humping thing was new. She used to just jump up on people and get carried around. In fact, she became so fond of humans that she became a kangaroo reject and they had to work really hard to reintegrate her into the roo population.
Visiting this park and interacting with these animals was one of the best days of my life. Dreams really do come true sometimes! After the park we headed to Phillips Island which is famous for beauty and penguins. Unfortunately we were not there at the right time to catch the penguins so we settled on amazing cliff views and an obscene amount of seagulls.
We arrived back in Melbourne to the most adorable (and inexpensive) airbnb I have ever stayed in. Our hosts were an adorable dane and German couple who told us all about their travels in the United States. They had taken a greyhound bus from Washington D.C. to Portland, Oregon and had many fun stories to tell. They loved Portland more than anything and had wanted to move there but couldn't due to passport restrictions. They also told us about the rest of their world travels made possible by house-sitting. And that's how they wound up in Melbourne. It was just another house-sitting gig and they fell in love with the city. After an amazing dinner of Vietnamese noodle soup and gourmet ice cream truck dessert, it was easy to see why our hosts decided to stay.
Coming Soon:
A couple more posts about Australia!
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