Mood:  a-ok

The next morning, we left for Melbourne around 8:00a, for what would be a three hour drive.  We got to Melbourne around 11:00a, which was way too early to check in, so Kimberly stepped in with the suggestion of going to see St Kilda beach, another area she read about.  It was a nice beach and very near was the small shops and bistros you might expect.  We grabbed lunch, walked the beach for a while, then headed to the hotel.

Now I have to tell you about some of the differences between Australia and the U.S.  The Australian states enjoy much greater autonomy than the American states.  They have their own driving rules and common practices, for instance.  Some states, you have to stop before entering a traffic circle.  Others, you get run over for doing that.  Sometimes pedestrians have the right of way, others not so much.  One of these rules in Melbourne is that if you want to turn right, you do so from the left-most lane.  No joke.  Keep in mind the left-hand driving rules throughout Australia.  At an intersection, if I want to turn right, I pull into the far left lane and sort of merge with the traffic waiting for their light to turn green, although I am perpendicular to them, just waiting to be t-boned.  I’ve just become first in their line.  My light turns red, their light turns green, I now finish my turn and continue to drive.

I didn’t know this.  I just about got us killed a half-dozen times on the way to the motel-suggested parking area.  I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong!  Why can I not turn right?!?  It seems to be upsetting people and I don’t know why!  At one point, a guy in a van yelled at me, “What the hell are you doing, Mate!”  I was relieved!  I thought it was OBVIOUS that I had NO IDEA!

Finally, I said forget this and headed back to the motel and just parked at the closest available lot, which ending up costing $76 to park for less than 24hrs.

After parking, we walked up to the motel, dropped off our stuff, and armed with a few maps, went out to see Melbourne!  We had two venues here, as well.  We wanted to see the Night Market, which takes place at the Queen Victoria market grounds, although the night market is completely different, and we had tickets to see the Old Melbourne Gaol (old way of spelling “Jail”).   The market would start at 5:30p.  The Gaol tour would start at 8:30p.  Until then, we just toured around using both the free Tourist Bus, which drove around an hour loop that basically gave you the lay of the land, and the free City Circle  Tram which looped around the main downtown area of Melbourne.  Both were cool.  The bus was good because of the history and commentary it provided with each of the districts.  The tram was good because the windows rolled down and you could take pictures from it.

 Chinatown

 On the Tram

The market was packed at 5:30p and stayed that way until 7:00p, when we left.  They had all manner of shops, though it was mostly clothes.  We walked back to the hotel (5 blocks) and dropped off our loot, and then headed for the Gaol.

The Gaol Tour

We arrived at the Gaol at 8:00p and joined the other people already waiting for the doors to open.  This is one of the oldest jails in Australia, built in stages, starting in the 1850’s.  It stayed open and used until 1975.  A vast majority (something like 90%) of the executions that took place in Australia, took place at its gallows.  This included, of course, Ned Kelly, an Australian folk hero something like Robin Hood or Jesse James.  I’m sure you can find his story on the internet somewhere, if you are interested.  As for us, I just announced to this group of people that I had no idea who he was and a very nice Australian man told me the whole story!  It was told to me again once we got inside.

Great tour!  It was at night, lit by candles, with a tour guide in character as one of the inmates, and also the executioner, which was apparently common.  He took us from cell to cell telling us about the most famous inmates.  He talked about life in the prison.  He showed us the gallows and explained how they worked.  It was really well done and it was a lot of gruesome sort of fun.

Then it was back to the room to sleep it all off and begin the long journey home.  I’m not going to write about that, simply because nothing of interest happened.  It was long, hot, and uneventful.

Posted by kisajaja at 12:19 PM CET

Updated: Thursday, 10 January 2008 12:34 PM CET

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We woke up and departed the motel heading for Sorrento, a small town that had a ferry that crossed the bay leading to Melbourne.  It kept us from driving up and around Melbourne and gave us a chance to park the car for the 40 minute transit and see the sites on the water. 

This is another one of those things that people say you just gotta do.  You can’t say you’ve seen Australia if you never driven the Great Ocean Road.  Fabulous.  We drove from Torquay down to Cape Otway National Park. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Cape Otway, we lost most of our views of the water as we continued our drive to Peterborough, but the reason was simple.  There are cliffs lining the ocean in this part of Australia.  Since the roads are built a safe distance back, we saw a few hundred meters of grassland, and then nothing.  Just sky.  In a few places, we could park and walk to the cliffs edge and see some spectacular rock formations, each with names like “The Arch,” or “London Bridge.”

The most well known of these formations is called the “12 Apostles.”  Why it’s called that is an amusing story, particularly when you consider that there are only 9 of them.  They used to be called the “Sow and Piglets.”  Nobody visited them.  I mentioned before about how Australians are great at marketing.  They undertook a big campaign to rename the Sow and Piglets to the 12 Apostles.  Tourists came to see them.  The name stuck.  The fact that there are only 9 of them hasn’t slowed them down a bit.

Posted by kisajaja at 12:04 PM CET

Updated: Thursday, 10 January 2008 12:19 PM CET

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First thing in the morning, we headed back to the Conservation Center.  I wanted to see if the seals would be there in the morning.  Sadly, they were still absent (long night, I guess).  But, we were able to drive around along some of the dirt roads along the cliffs and see what things we missed the day before.  These things included some very open and viewable nests, some occupied, which we were able to snap pictures of before heading to the Koala Conservation Center.

This place was pretty cool, but after the Wildlife Wonderland park the day before, it was a little anti-climatic.  We saw lots of Koalas, both in the habitats and in the wild.  We were able to get really close to the koalas, but of course, no touching or feeding.  They had several baby koalas which captured most of our attention.  We didn’t stay all that long, but it was certainly worth the time we took there.

After that was lunch and a round of Miniature Golf on what had to be the toughest course I have ever played.  We also found a chocolate factory which claimed be “the best handmade chocolate in Australia.”  I’ll give them credit.  It was good!  Kimberly and Jacoby both gave me a small bite of theirs.

Then we headed to get an early dinner since the parade would go late.  We found Panhandle TexMex Restaurant Which really did a great job with the food and the decorations.  This place could have come right out of El Paso.  Really, really good!   That reminds me…I told them I’d send them a Texas flag and a stuffed Armadillo (toy, not real) which were the only two things they lacked.

Then it as off to see the Penguins!

The Penguin Parade

The Penguin Parade was awesome.  I mean that to say it was really neat, but it also struck me as being incredible.  These little birds do this every night, bar none.  Hundreds of people watching, street lights, seagull infested beaches, the whole nine-yards.  These little birds pop out of the water and waddle their selves up embankments I couldn’t have walked up and rest for a few hours before heading back out to sea.   It was amazing to watch.

Pictures would have been nice, but it wouldn’t have caught the moment anyway.  This is just something you’ve gotta see.

After we left the viewing stands, we headed up the boardwalk to get back to the parking lot.  All the while, these penguins were still walking up the paths, many of which criss-crossed and lined the boardwalk.  The whole way to the car, it was like we were being escorted by the birds, often well within arms reach.   It is worth noting that I didn’t see any spectator misbehave or try to catch/chase/touch the penguins.

After the Parade, we headed to the room to sleep and get ready for the next day’s drive.

Posted by kisajaja at 11:51 AM CET

Updated: Thursday, 10 January 2008 12:04 PM CET

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Mood:  a-ok

To start things off, we knew we were going to have two “suck days.”   Those days were loosely defined as the days in which we had to drive to, and then from, the Greater Melbourne area.  As such, we had no activities planned for said “Suck Days.” 

So we left at about 5:40a.  The drive would take us about 8 hours to make it to Phillip Island, and it was a long, hot drive.   That being said, we at least saw changes in the terrain and travelled through the Australian Capital Territory, through New South Wales, and into Victoria.  We saw plains, mountains, forests, and beaches all in the same day.

We got there around 1:45p.  Check in at the motel wouldn’t be until after 2:00p, so we went to a place that Kimberly found in her Australia book called Wildlife Wonderland.  As I said before, pictures of animals in zoos is cheating, but this was a free-range sort of petting zoo in which we got to see, feel, feed, and play with kangaroos, wallabies, and wombats, as well as see (but not play with) koalas, dingos, and a crocodile.

After check-in, we decided to explore the Island.  We knew we needed to find the locations of our two venues the next day, we wanted to do some shopping, and eventually, we’d have to find dinner.  It was all way too easy and we got WAY more than I expected.

The two venues were:

1)      The Koala Conservation Center – They were supposed to have several koalas on their grounds, some of them lived there in natural habitats that had a board walk built up around the trees so that you get really close and personal with them.  They called this their “Tree Top Walk.”  Others came and went as they pleased, so you had to keep your eyes peeled in the surrounding tree line.

2)      The Penguin Parade – The Nobbies host one of the larger populations of Ferry Penguins (also called “Little Penguins”) in the world.  Each night, at sunset, all of these little penguins pop up out of the ocean and waddle across the beach to get to their nests, sometimes great distances up extremely rough terrain.  They do this every night.  We had tickets to go sit in the bleachers and watch these little guys do their thing.  Unfortunately, no photography is allowed.  They say the cameras scare the penguins.  I think the cameras scare their resellers, who already have plenty of pictures…  Funny how hundreds of people and streetlights don’t scare these little guys but cameras were verboten, even without flashes…  Either way, no photography at the Penguin Parade.

We wondered out to the Nobbies and found the Conservation Center easily enough.  We wandered around the area taking pictures of the scenery when we noticed that these penguins’ nests were all around us.  Some of them were occupied!  We took several pictures, which were allowed here, and had a great time with the views of the ocean, the penguin spotting, the wind and sunny weather.  All of it was fantastic!  We were supposed to be able to see seals there, too, but they must have taken the day off.

After the Conservation Center, we went out to Cowes, which is the major population area on the Island.  It had all of their souvenir shops and restaurants.  We did our part to support both.  Afterwards we headed back to the motel to recover from the drive and get ready for the next day.

Posted by kisajaja at 11:40 AM CET

Updated: Thursday, 10 January 2008 11:51 AM CET

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Mood:  happy

Tomorrow we leave for our Melbourne trip!  -But we diodn't want to sit around all day today, so....

 Off to Parliment House!  We got there and walked through the building, saw both houses of Parliment, went up on the roof and took some

pictures ("Look kids...Big Ben, Parliment...."). and then realized that the whole thing took about an hour.

THE National Flag of Australia (like the one on top of the Capitol Building in D.C.  This picture was taken on the roof of the Capitol.  Yes, there's grass up there.

These are the houses of Parliment.  On the left is the House, on the right, the Senate.

This is the outward view from the roof, overlooking what we would call our Washington Mall, leading all the way to their War Memorial.  Just behind that is Mount Ainslie.  The white building is the Old Parliment Building, which is now a tourist attraction/museum sort of thing.

Another outward shot from the roof, this picture is of the Russel Complex, which is their Pentagon.  The statue that you see out front is of an Eagle sitting on a high perch.   It was donated to the Australians by the United States. 

So, we went to the National Library to have a look around.  Mostly, it's just a library, but they did have an exhibition on the history of the Cameleers in Australia.  Apparently, Australia relied on Cameleers to get goods across the country before cars and trucks got popular.  After walking through the library and exhibit, we realized that it only took about 45 minutes...

Sorry...No pictures at the library.

So then we decided to go to the National Gallery.  We stayed here for a couploe of hours looking through all of the rooms and hallways.  Whilke we don't have any pictures here, either, (they were not allowed) I will say they this is a neat place.  Now, admittedly, I don't really "get" most art.  This place had some cool stuff!  -And it must have had some high-end stuff too, because there was plenty that left me scratching my head.

So, tomorrow is a driving day.  I promise lots upon our return!

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 7:00 AM CET

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Mood:  a-ok

Okay, so we still have two hours to go, but I don't want to stay up and then have to blog, so....

We just got back from the Canberra New Year's celebration which was really well done!  We were out at dinner (we found Chinese Buffet!) and on the way home we realized the celebration was going on, so we parked and went to see what all the fuss was about.  We heard a lady on the main stage that sounded an aweful lot like Suzanne Vega.  She was followed by an old time rock band that sounded like a cross between the Stray Cats and Elvis.  Then we watched the 9:00p fireworks display (New Year's for the kids), which were absolutely fantastic! And then we heard another guy play a few 70s and 80s dance tunes.

It was a really nice evening, but we wanted to get home and watch the Sydney fireworks, and figuring that we'd already seen the 9:00p show, we thought it was time to bolt.  Besides, after two hours, the concrete and bricks we were sitting on were getting sorta hard...

So now we are home.  Two hours to go. 

Happy New Year, everyone!  May it bring joy to us all!

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 11:55 AM CET

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Mood:  happy

So, after sitting around for a short while after our walk this morning, we decided to go out and hit a few of the local attractions that we haven't done, yet.

We started off at the National Canberra Exhibition, which is a small museum that tells the history of how Canberra was planned and built, and how they are still not done with it.  It had a cool gift shop, which was made cool by the nature of they we having a 40% sale on their entire stock.  Kimberly and I got new hats and Jacoby got another boomerang.

Yes, Jacoby throws the boomerang.  Yes, they really do come back.  In fact, if we had a video camera rolling, we could have won $10,000 yesterday as Jacoby threw it out there and it came back to him!  - At mid-level!  -Which he didn't catch with his hands!  He swears it hit his leg.  Right.  We were there.  That was $10,000.

Anyway, after the museum, we went to the National Botanical Gardens, which was pretty boring.  Unlike in D.C., the whole thing was outside, so they couldn't keep flowers and such on display.  It was all various types of trees, which honestly all looked the same to me...  There was a cool rainforest section, though, and we took some pictures of that.

 We also saw some cool birds and reptiles wandering though the gardens, as well.

After that, we went to here the Carillon play its bells, but we were a little late.  We heard it from the car on the way in, though.

Posted by kisajaja at 5:33 AM CET

Updated: Saturday, 29 December 2007 5:48 AM CET

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Mood:  cheeky

Friday, I went for a run along a new and differnet route.  As I went along, I found myself climbing a local mountain called Mount Taylor.

Now, before you get too impressed, the whole "mountain" is only a mile and a half round trip.  After running to the mountain, up-and-then-down the mountain and returning home, I still had to add more than a mile to the run to make it to 10km (6.2 miles).

Anyway, on this run I must have sen about 30 Kangaroo.  They were everywhere I looked!  So this morning (Saturday) I took Kimberly and Jacoby on a short walk up the mountain.

We saw probably 25 or so Kangaroo.  Four of them were off by themselves (2 groups of two), but the rest were in a mob of about 20, mostly eatting and laying about.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the Mount Taylor walk.   have no idea what we are doing with the rest of our day...

- Ryan -

 I'm not sure which neighboorhood this is, but itis the view that is generally south.

This is our neighborhood.

This big building complex is the Woden mall, which is where we do most of our shopping.  Also, in the distance up near the top left-hand corner of the picture, you'll see Telstra Tower. 

Posted by kisajaja at 12:07 AM CET

Updated: Saturday, 29 December 2007 12:22 AM CET

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Mood:  a-ok

So today we went on a day trip to Sydney.  It's really not too far.  Just a little over three hours.  We had two goals with this trip.  We wanted to knock out a few of the "touristy" things, so that next time we can hit the markets without being awed by our surroundings, and we wanted to see the start of the big yacht ract, from Sydney Harbor to Hobart.  It's a big deal here, and tons of people showed up to watch the beginning of this four day race.

 Kimberly and I at the Opera House.  I kid you not, we have about 30 pictures of this building.  It's the one that everyone thinks about when they hear "Sydney, Australia."

 Here's the Harbor Bridge.  It's the other MAJOR landmark.  You can pay $200 and climb to the top of the arch for pictures.  We didn't do that...

 This guy was jammin'.  He played really well.  I'm not embarrassed to say that I bought his CD for $10.

This is an "overview picture" of "the Rocks."  It's what's left of the first European (read:  White folks) settlement in Australia.  There's several trendy sort of tourist shops and museums in there.  It's a really neat place.  Small enough to walk through without consuming your whole day.

 Here's just one of the harbor shots we took.  There were boats EVERYWHERE as people were fighting to get close to the racers. 

 Not all of the spectators where on boats...

Some of the other stuff that we did:  We took the harbor ferry to Manly Wharf, which is where we got most of these pictures.  We were going to shop around and get lunch there, but right when we got off the boat, we were told that the ferry would not run between 1200p and 3:00p due to the race.  It was 11:40a, so we literally just turned around and got back on the boat.

We ate lunch at Circular Quay (metro center, if you will) and then walked through the Rocks, and then around town a bit until we came to Darling Harbor.  That's a nice place, too.   We need to go back and spend more time there.

Then we road the ferry back to the Quay, walked up to get our car, and then drove home.

All in all, it was a nice day.  We will certainly be back!

- Ryan -

Posted by kisajaja at 12:06 PM CET

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Mood:  happy

The Tree, such as it is, before Jacoby got to it.

- Or as the Aussies say, "Happy Chrissy."  For what ever reason, they don't say "Merry" very often, and they like to shorten words and add the "y."  Even on TV commercials and such, Christmas becomes "Chrissy," breakfast becomes "Breaky," etc.  Those two are the big often used ones, but there are others.

Jacoby poses with "loot."

We had Brian and Heidy Schott over for Christmas Dinner/Lunch.  Kimberly went all out...Again...And we had turkey, ham, homestyle mashed potatos (yes, SHE mashed them, corn, dinner rolls, turkey meatballs, the Christmas Tree (3D), the Christmas Tree (2D), baked "party pies," cookies, and fresh fruit.  Heidy and Brian brought two desserts, one kinf of like fruit cake, only good, and the other was a Mango Crisp, but also good. 

3D

2D

 I was a large meal, and we have plenty left.  It's a good thing it was all delicious, because we will be eatting it for days to come.  :)

All of this was served BEFORE the meal...hmmm...the meal...You know, the BIG part.

 Again, Merry Christmas!

Posted by kisajaja at 8:20 AM CET

Updated: Tuesday, 25 December 2007 8:36 AM CET

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