A Day at Melbourne Zoo (March 14th)

Today Caroline had an office meeting in the Melbourne Zoo. Since traffic in the city can be thick, she’d be cutting it close to making it back to the house to pick me up before we had to be at the pier for boarding the Spirit of Tasmania—so instead of meeting her in the city via afternoon train, I decided to come along and make a day of it.

On the way we picked up her boss, Michael. Together they navigated the streets and we arrived at the zoo at about 9:30. Once inside, we parted ways and I headed off, just me and my trusty camera. I walked through the monkey exhibits first. The first few exhibits were empty, and I presumed the animals were getting fed breakfast and their enclosures cleaned. But it was a nice day and there were no other people, so I just walked a little slower.

I couldn’t find any gorillas, but I did come across a tank of carp:

And then watched some Small-clawed Otters playing and chripping:

Then I visited the ‘tree-top monkey’ exhibit and had much better luck. They were all out and eating, and didn’t mind me being there at all:

I came across the ‘food preparation’ area and peeked inside, and found the gorillas:

Then I wandered to the elephant yard.

Somehow I looped back through the monkeys and saw the Orangutans. A mother and her baby were playing under a sheet while on the other side, a female sat with her face pressed up against the glass:

I headed into Africa next, and saw the giraffes eating:

And my favorite, the zebra:

I did a quick tour through the kangaroos, not impressed after my wonderful experience at Healesville. By this time, the zoo was starting to fill up and so I was trying to stay either ahead of or behind the herds of school kids. Got some boar pics:

And then crossed into Big Cat territory. They were all behind chain link fence which made for crappy photos—plus, it was starting to get hot and they were starting to nap in the shade. But the leopard was nice enough to wander past:

I got sidetracked by the brown bears when the keepers turned them lose to eat:

Then I finished looking at the Big Cats (although most were cougar-size and smaller) and then stumbled across the tortoise:

With the sun really heating things up and the droves of people crowding around, I took refuge in the reptile house:

As I continued my aimless wandering, I came across a massive flock of Rainbow Lorikeets bathing in the misters provided for the Red Tree Kangaroo:

After another look past the small monkeys:

I headed back to the elephants and watched the keepers bathe and elephant:

Just after that, Caroline joined me. As we were starting to walk away for lunch, the elephant keeper walked past and said it was time for elephant painting, if we were interested. So of course we followed:

After lunch, I took one more loop through the tree top monkeys, because I really loved the long-haired black and white one:

I then found the lion exhibit. There were two males, and they had just gotten lunch:

While I was taking pictures of the lions, they announced that they were going to feed the African Wild Dogs (NOT HYENAS!), which were literally right behind me. So I watched that:

After watching the Dogs, I wandered past the meerkats:

And then past the Tigers again. On last night’s news, they’d said how the Melbourne zoo had locked down for a few hours because one of the tigers had gone missing, but they found it dead in the moat around its enclosure. Now, on the sign that shows pictures of each of the tigers, one of the cubs is crossed out with ‘RIP’ written under him. There are supposed to be two more cubs, but they were not there. Only one lonely mother:

Now towards the end of the day, I’d felt like I’d seen everything I wanted to—except the shy Golden Pheasant I’d missed earlier. So I doubled back to the birds and low and behold, the Pheasant was showing off all it’s glory:

Lastly I ended up in the butterfly house, surrounded by silently fluttering blues and oranges and reds and blacks. Caroline’s meeting ended and she met me inside. She’s been dying to show me St Kilda beach, so we headed there next, to kill time before we could get in line for the ship.

Then, finally, it was time to go to the boat!

I’ve never been on a cruise ship before, so the Spirit of Tasmania was a completely new experience. It can carry 1400 people and travels across the Bass straight each night, taking people and vehicles back and forth from Tassie to the mainland. Going into Tasmania, you can’t bring fruit or vegetables, and all over the loading dock there were posters warning you about sniffer dogs and the $100 fine. Didn’t see any dogs though.

It took a while to get all the cars loaded on the ship, and the fit was tight on the garage decks. There were semis and campers and motorcycles and lots of cars. A five-bank of steel cages sat in the corner; pets had to stay locked up. A lone corgi barked for its owners, while in the truck next to us, a yellow lab and a black looked perfectly content to sleep in their dog-boxes. Must be stable-minded hunters.

The boat was huge. It has a casino, two bars, two restaurants, a movie theater and a little kid’s play room. Wood floors, colored lighting, lots of comfy seats and TVs. Our room was on deck 8, so we made our way upstairs to put down our stuff before dinner. The cabin was small, but Caroline had paid extra for a porthole, so we got to look out over the ocean as the boat pulled away. Dinner was good, a reasonably priced buffet, and they we went to bed fairly early in preparation for a 5:15 wake-up call.

Gearing up for Tazzie

*pant*

Finally, I'm done blogging. Took me all of wednesday and most of thursday, but I'm done.
Now I've got three days rest before we're off again, this time to Tasmania for four days. Hee!

I'm also catching up on Dance Australia, because it's my new addiction.
From week 3 (or the top 16):
Out of the two teams I like (Demi and Jack and Marko and Stephanie), Demi and Jack ROCKED it.



And I was pleasantly surprised by Camilla and Sermsah:



Although all of them were pretty good. Props to Rhiannon for her strong tango. The only routine I didn't like was Vanessa and Henry's contemporary disco.

A Day in the Dandenongs

A day in the Dandenongs

(Wednesday)

I’ve lost track of what number day this is, obviously. Since I’ve been here, I’ve pretty much lost ALL sense of time, and a week on a deserted island did not help. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.

Today we slept in and around lunch time, headed out to see the mountains. But not before an spur of the moment pit stop at the pet store for chook (that’s ‘chicken’ to you Americans) food and dog toys. Because the dogs need souvenirs too. It was nice to see Science Diet on the shelves, but I knew it would be since there are a couple plants here.

There are two fronts to the bags of Pedigree, one a German Shorthair and one a German Wirehaired. Aww.

Other than that, the foods are pretty different. Holistic food is apparently big over here too, but the variety looked pretty balanced. For such a big story, this place didn’t have a whole lot.

Trunk (boot) loaded down with goodies, we continued on our way. The road soon turned windy and uphill as we climbed into the Dandenongs Range. We stopped at a scenic outlook and, with Tricky’s help, took some pictures:

Next, we went to the amazing William Rickett’s Sanctuary. William Rickett was a white man who dedicated his life to promoting harmony between the Australians, the Aborigines, and nature. He created a total of 92 clay sculptures and created a sanctuary before dying peacefully in 1993. Today the sanctuary is a tranquil tourist attraction that yields MOUNTAINS of incredible photos.

In the office, I saw my first Huntsman:

We were only in the Sanctuary for 45 minutes, but it felt like so much longer than that—in a good way. I could have spent all day there, taking pictures and soaking up the enormity of the surrounding forests:

It was approaching dinner time now, and we headed back up towards the restaurant and wandered through the botanical gardens, first visiting the ‘Wishing Tree’:

Wishing tree

The legend of the wishing tree began around 1900.

This area was heavily wooded and a 4 year old boy, Billy Langton became lost.

His father searched everywhere and finally came to this spot. He wished he could find his son and as he looked through the circle in the tree he saw young Billy squatting beside the creek.

Local legend says if you wish hard enough and look through the magic circle your wish will come true!

The gardens were beautiful, with lots of pretty blooming flowers.

Now it was dinner time. We wandered into the Sky High Restaurant:

Named as such for its breathtaking view:

Before we sat down, we visited the awesome ‘world’ fountain on the veranda:

Now for the food! We shared a sampler plate of nice bread, salmon, prosciutto, salami, feta, olives, roasted red peppers (capsicum) and tomatoes, hummus, couscous, and vine leaves. Yummm.

For the main course, Caroline ordered steak:

And I ordered Pork Medallions:

It was good. Very good. And expensive. But that’s okay. You can’t eat on top of the Dandedongs and not pamper yourself. We ate and watched the sun set and took hundreds of photos like this:

It was getting chilly, and our waitress actually gave Caroline her coat, and then set up a heat lamp next to our table. We were so impressed slash grateful, we stayed and ordered dessert:

And took some night pictures of the city:

We were the first ones in the restaurant and the last ones out. We’d stayed for 4 hours, well worth the cost. It was so much fun, and one of those experiences I’ll remember forever.

Daylesford

Monday morning, Labor Day and our first morning back in real civilization, started off with two bits of great news:

Supernatural not only continues its third season on April 3^rd, but is has also been picked up for a 4^th season.

And:

April 10^th is the official start date for Dog on A&E!

Caroline has a rash of some sort. It looks like chicken pox. Lots of red, itchy bumps, like bug bites, all over her back and arms. Well, we did get ate up by mozzies at the island, and RID bug repellent slash antiseptic seems to take care of it. Oh well.

Today we went to Daylesford to go to Paradise Bookstore, where incidentally, Gay Fest ‘Chill Out’ ’08 was just wrapping up. All those rainbows made me think we’d accidentally wound up in leprechaun country.

On our way, we stopped at Lerderderg gorge, but even though the water had long since dried up, the scenery was still pretty.

We ate lunch at the Boathouse Café overlooking the lake.

I had a really yummy summer salad with roasted pumpkin, walnuts, prosciutto, and feta.

Caroline ordered calamari and yes, I tried it. Not bad. Wouldn’t get it again, but not bad.

Aside from being the ‘spa capital of Australia’, Dayelsford and its neighbor-city Hepburn Springs are known for they’re Mineral waters.

There are several walking trails with pumps from various springs so that you can taste the different waters and detoxify of whatever. The place was packed with families enjoying the holiday, mostly swimming in the lake or sun-bathing on the grass. The city is very picturesque: established and peaceful, quaint, but with plenty of antique shops and places to eat. The kind of place you’d want to retire to. The kind of place that can support fifty million spa resorts.

The mineral water, however, must be an acquired taste. It’s clear and cool, and kind of tingles, and—oh yeah, tastes like blood. It’s the kind of taste that 30 seconds after you’ve done it, you think, ‘Hmm. That wasn’t so bad. Give me some more.’ We thought maybe it’d taste better cold and with lemon, so we took a couple bottles with us. Hmm.

After that, we killed a couple hours in the bookstore and got a handful of stories.

Then we headed to the Wombat Hill Botanical Gardens and took lots of pictures while the sun set. There was a tower that overlooked the rolling hills all around, and supposedly some of them were volcanoes (though I couldn’t tell which ones were). We saw a display of tuberous begonias and then walked the fernery. Lastly we drove the scenic route and got a few more pictures of the town and mountains.

Remember that rash Caroline has? Now I’ve got it too, on my arms, and hers is even worse. It’s becoming very troubling. I’m paranoid that it’s some sort of Australian poison ivy, because that’s what the bumps resemble—but they’re not going in a line like I know poison ivy to do. They’re just random, itchy red bumps. A lot of them. And it’s spreading over our bodies. We’re starting to get freaked out. Is it an allergic reaction? Lots of possibilities: laundry detergent, sunscreen, food. Or is it some delayed reaction to Keppel’s insects? We were bit by lots of different things there.

We ponder it during the drive home and finally turn to the all-knowing Google for answers. Not chicken pox, no other symptoms. Not shingles. Not poison ivy (whew). A search for ‘mysterious skin rash’ turns up a possibility: swimmer’s itch. The more we research, the more confident we are in our self-diagnosis. Swimmer’s Itch, AKA, Duck Itch. According to the diagram of the life cycle of this Flesh Eating Parasite, a duck crapped out a snail which laid maggots in the water and those maggots burrowed into our skin. 30 minutes to 12 hours later, viola. Swimmer’s Itch.

Awesome.

How is it that we spend one entire week in the ocean and avoid jellyfish, sharks, puffer fish, stingrays, snakes, eels, barracuda, and man-eating clams, but we take one, one-hour swim in a chlorinated over-priced resort swimming pool and contract the Maggot Duck Crap Disease? And it is from the pool: We didn’t go in the water at the ocean for two days before we left. This definitely came from the pool all right. Dr. Denny? Christy?? Input??

Guess who’s getting a phone call tomorrow.

Ping Pong and Airplanes

A day at Rydges

So we woke up this morning not to the sound of wind and waves but still to birds and sunshine. Time for breakfast.

What this place gives you in room value, it charges back in add-on costs. Namely, food. $25 for breakfast? Ha! We’d just spent a week on an island, we know how to survive on next-to-nothing. The gift shop provided me with some souvenirs and Caroline picked up some canned spaghetti—breakfast of champions.

After that we headed down for a few rounds of table tennis. An hour later, we were pros. We could keep the ball on the table for almost two minutes. Watch out, Olympic Team, here we come!

Time to check out of the room. We packed our stuff and settled the bill, twice of what the room cost: $25 for meals, $13 per cocktail, and souvenirs can really add up. Wanting to make the most of it, we decided to go for a swim while we waited for our 3 o’clock bus to the Rockhampton airport.

The pool was a lot quieter today. We grabbed a ball and some noodles and had fun being kids—until it got too cold. We jumped out, grabbed lunch and one more cocktail, then sunbathed ourselves dry (because I’ve already gone from white to Mexican—why not become African American?). Little did we know how much we’d regret that little swim…

A few minutes before 3 pm, we were on the bus and heading towards the airport, where, miraculously, both suitcases were 1-2 kilos under the weight limit!

The flights home were uneventful and a little sad. Beach time was well and truly over. Chris and Tanya picked us up in Melbourne and we were on the couch in front of the TV by 11, watching Johnny Depp in Dead Man. Halfway into it, we called it quits and went to bed. Weird-ass movie.