How's that for a name for a post?
We got into Melbourne, took a bus to our hostel....but unfortunately they had booked us into a room with a queen bed, and althought I like Sandy....no way. We finally found a small backpacker's in a wonderful old house called Toad Hall. The owner had been a frog nut and there were statues all over the first floor...even the keys were frog green. Upstairs our room was huge, and had it's own private bathroom. High ceilings with carved plaster moldings, fireplace, crown moldings...wonderful. Wonderful outdoor garden right in downtown Melbourne. Unfortunately they only had 2 nights available. Sandy and I booked a trip for the second day, and we left 2 bags each in their storage room, and took an overnightcase with us. She went to the Great Ocean Road; I went to Phillips Island. The trip took about 6 hours, because we stopped several times. First at a wildlife rescue/ preserve where we saw wombats, koalas, wallabys and kangaroos. Wonder of wonders, I got another picture of a mother with it's joey 's head visible...to compensate for the one I lost in Melbourne. We went to a place overlooking the ocean where there were hundreds of seagulls nesting. The chicks went from just hatched to nearly grown. We had dinner at the YHA in Phillips Island...horrible, not your real Thanksgiving dinner. We got to the Penguin Parade place about 8PM and walked down to the viewing stand. WHen the tiny (blue/fairy) penguins decide to come out of the ocean to their nests to feed their babies, they accumulate into bunches of 20 or more (protection from the seagulls who sometimes get luck and prey on them). Then they start to waddle across the sand, By the time they get to the viewing stand, they are on their way, and seemingly not at all bothered by human onlookers (who are not allowed to film/photograph them and scare them with flash). We saw about 100, each one cuting then the last. On our way back to the bus the stragglers were walking alongside the walkway nearly keeping pace with their human viewers.
It was just magic! En route home I got dropped off at the Base Hostel in St. Kilda...a small suburb on the beach! Wonderful walking, but not many shells. We got back around 12, and on
Friday I slept really late! Then I trammed downtown, took the free bus that circles the downtown and went to the Melbourne Museum. They had a great aborigine exhibition called 2 Laws. I saw Ned Kelly's armor suit, and an exhibition of water/rainforest which deals with the Melbourne water ecosystem and where there water comes from.
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