Penguins

Melbourne, Victoria

Just under 3 years ago, I visited Melbourne as part of my route around Australia backpacking. Back then, I experienced the Commonwealth Games, Wilsons Prom and the Great Ocean Road. So it has been since then, that I figured I'd love to go back and experience some more and last October, I booked some dirt cheap flights to the tune of $60 each way from Sydney to Melbourne.

So last Friday night, Lauren and I arrived at Tullarmarine airport and embarked on our next adventure. Bright n early Saturday, we awoke and headed in via a tram to the centre of the city. We'd both only been once before and so it was cool to re-aquaint ourselves with the surroundings before heading to the car rental place to pick up our rental (toy) car. I bracket toy - as this is all I can really call a Kia Rio (What the?) - it feels like the whole thing is made of plastic. Regardless it drives okay, at least when I'm not stamping my clutch foot down sharply on the brakes at 70kmph :P

Phillip Island is located South East of the city, and is home to the annual Australian MotoGP - which I only really knew from playing way too much MotoGP2 on my old Xbox. We headed to the track for a look before checking out some of the rugged headlands. The temperature was remarkebly cooler than Sydney today, although the Sun would later come out and warm things up - but we'd left 30 degrees behind to get to about 19 degrees...

The evening rolled around after an afternoon dedicated to sealife and ornithology, and it was time to do our Ultimate Penguin tour. Phillip Island is famed for it's wild penguins that return from the Ocean each night. The "Little Penguins" are the smallest of the 11 worldy Penguin breeds and have a funky blue back. We hiked down on to one of the beaches and were placed on our matts to watch as the phenomenon occurred. Sure enough to form, the window of opportunity that allows the penguins a safe trip onto land came by; by night the owls will get 'em, and by day the regular birds of prey will happily feast on Penguin Burgers and Fries.

After 10-15 had wondered past us, we too took a waddle back to the car park, along the way seeing even more of the little critters heading up to 1.5kms in land... that would be painfully annoying with legs that short I'd imagine.

Sunday dawned and after returning the Kia, we set about seeing some shops, checking out the riverside and the casino before jumping on a tram to meet up with my old (well, kinda new-old)housemate Aaron. We took a look at the St Kilda markets before sucking back on cokes at the beach in the warm afternoon sun. Things were certainly warming up.

Azz, showed us back to his place before we slipped off for a walk home via Albert Park - the venue of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix. Around the lake, along the track and across the golf course we arrived back in our hotel before heading out for dinner at the infamous Lygon Street. We ate Italian and drank white wine until the staff wanted us out and the half way point of our weekend was done.

This Day Should Last Forever

Hunter Valley

My Christmas gift to Lauren, was a trip to the Hunter Valley; New South Wales’ most famous vineyard area. This was the first time I got to experience the place without being on the back of a pre-planned tour bus.

Our first day, we set out to go wine-tasting from our estate cottage. There had been some heavy showers in the previous few days, though the ground seemed pretty firm on leaving across some beaten footpaths. We both simply wore thongs/flip-flops/sandals (depending where you come from!) and were having a blast stealing the odd grape from the vines for an unofficial taste session. Jumping across puddles was fun too… but then came bigger puddles, and puddles that wanted to keep our footwear. We both ended up walking bare-foot through the sloppy clay/soil to avoid losing our shoes and when we finally reached the end of the trail, we had to use more puddles to wash the crud from between our toes and legs.

Several hours later, we were sampling Thai food at Tempus Two over a bottle of Muscato, giggling away after a morning’s worth of wine consumption. The weather on the whole behaved itself, but we still got wet as we walked the long peaceful walk back past more vines to our temporary home for the final evening in the valley.

During the week, my almost regular visit to ‘The Metro’ rolled around. This time, to see English electronic/experimental rock outfit; UNKLE. For the first time, the band brought out some kind of stage dressage with them, and it made a huge change to see a decent lighting rig here, especially to accompany a band of this genre. It turned out to be my favourite gig I’d seen there, and my favourite gig for quite some time, that left my ears ringing for a day or two afterwards.

Lilac Wine

APEC week & The Hunter Valley

Politics are generally not something I follow too closely, or get myself into a state worrying about. This particular occasion, they directly effected my life (for a week) and so I couldn't help but sit up and take notice of what was going on.

For 7days, Some of the most 'important' world leaders descended upon this fair town to have a chat about the economics of the Asian region, and the rest of the world. Inclusive was a certain George Bush. For the American Premiers arrival and stay, Sydney went into lockdown mode. For the whole week, 8ft metal fences lined a large portion of the central business district and meant buses, cars, taxis and people could not flow down the streets and walkways as usual.

Email virals circulated showing the city rooftops inhabited by snipers, the streets lined with large numbers of police and mobile phone jamming devices wherever Dubya was at the time.

So with all this extra activity, I went about my usual days work with not too much interruption. It was kinda cool too, as the journo in me came out; taking my camera to work in the hope that I might capture something dramatic, to then sell my world exclusive scoop to the mass media... alas, nothing really happened and my picture of a bin lined with police tape didn't fetch a dollar.

On the upside, the Friday of APEC week was declared a public holiday, to which employees rejoyced, and employers slapped the foreheads.

Some old friends from my Asian travel days arrived in town on the Saturday, Kathi and Irmela. The boys and I took them down to Coogee for a dinner in the evening before we would head out to the Hunter Valley for some wine tasting... and buying.

A similar trip to the one I went on last year, this time around I actually recall some of the wineries I sampled though :) The sun was in and out all day, so not exactly a hot introduction for the girls first day out in Australia.