A Bird's Eye View

We drove 6 hours today into Canberra, Australia's capital city. When Melbourne and Sydney fought over who should actually be the capital, the compromise was to make it in Canberra. We were told in Melbourne though that they secretly still didn't like that because Canberra is closer to Sydney than to them. I think we all would just like to ignore D.C. right about now, so maybe they could just do that as well.

Our drive was pretty darn boring. Once you get on a highway here, that's all you see. Even when you see an exit that names a city, you sure don't see it anywhere. All you see is this

Notice the difference in these two locations? Yea, we didn't either..........

Once we got to Canberra, we noticed that everything was green again. Turned out it was very pretty after all.

Needing some exercise after that long drive, we decided to go check out the Mount Ainslie Lookout. Sooooooooo we climbed a 2,766 feet elevation (what? we didn't learn our lesson in New Zealand??) to a beautiful view of the city. 

Along the path we saw some interesting things. Look at this knobby tree. Never saw anything like it.

And we see these birds everywhere. They're probably like our pigeons (and we wouldn't know), but they're much prettier!

Sure wish there was a way to get a picture of something we saw all day long here. Lots, and I do mean lots, of wild cockatoos flying through the trees! We're now able to pick out their sounds and then immediately look up! Sorry, Kelli, still can't bring one home.

BUT the BEST thing we saw on our little hike today was this

We were this close, no telephoto lens here! It just stood there and watched us. There were about 10 hopping around, traveling in groups of 3 or 4. When they saw us, they stand up tall, probably to display their full size to us in defense.

I'm sure by now you have noticed I kind of have an obsession with kangaroos. Not so much an obsession, but more of a wonderment and awe. I love seeing things I don't get to see in the U.S. Kangaroo here are probably a lot like our deer. They probably totally annoy the locals. These guys were in a park right across the street from a residential area. Wonder if they eat their plants too?

Old McDonald Had a Farm

After our awesome drive along the Great Ocean Road, it's time to find our AirBnB. By now you know that if I devote a whole post to something so mundane, there MUST be something to it! Let's just start by saying that those of you who know me well, or maybe know me at all?, know that I'm a city girl who loves makeup and clothes and pretty much hates, or should I say HATES, being dirty..........or muddy..........or getting rained on............. Shall I go on? OK, be a little fair to me. I survived the Congo Bongo Ecolodge in Costa Rica. I was pretty proud of myself! 

Back to the AirBnB. I put the address into Maps and off we go. Seems we pass it, but we just saw a dirt road where it had said to turn. Hmmmmmm..... We turn around and go back, turning down the dirt road. This is what I see in front of me

And about a half a dozen buildings that all looked like this

Yea, there's no house here that I can see. We get to the end, turn the car around and standing now in the middle of the road is a lumberjack-looking sort of a man. Did I say he was in the middle of the road and we wouldn't be able to get around him? We stop and he asks where we are going. "To an AirBnB," Bruce says. To my relief, or maybe I should say my horror, he says we're at the right place. Oh, my, not only is there junk filling every building, there are about a dozen various vehicles in state of disrepair. Then there was also the 10 dogs barking hysterically at us. Still, I don't see a possibility of a place where I have any intention of laying my head that night!

However, sigh, we were in a part of Australia that Bruce had looked and looked and there were very few choices of places. And there is no, I think I'll go to the next hotel. We were stuck........with the junk...........the broken down vehicles.........the 10 dogs............the cows..........the emu...........the shooks (chickens).............the roosters..............and the kangaroos. Wait! What? 2 kangaroos live here too!

This is the big guy that could leave anytime he wants, but doesn't. Then there's this little guy who's 6 months old. He gets brought in every night to sleep in a bag in a laundry basket.

And I got to feed him! Wow! Made it all worthwhile!

Our host Rob was not a scary kind of a guy after all. He was a big ole teddy bear who drove us across the street to see lots of kangaroos in the wild. Here was the biggest one! Hard to tell in this pic, but he was huuuuuge!

We saw many just hopping around the field and crossing the roads in front of us. It was actually pretty exciting for this city girl. (As promised, a wallaby is really small in comparison. They are also loners whereas you will always see kangaroos in families. That's the extent of my wallaby vs kangaroo knowledge)

Rob then took us to Melba Gully where the glowworms come out at night. Unfortunately, it was almost a full moon, so they don't shine as bright and there's no good way to get a picture of them, but what we saw was pretty amazing. You look back among the trees and their lights shine out to you. 

Our room was quite nice with everything we needed. Then we heard an alarm at 5:00 AM that kept making its incessant noise without stop and with no way to put it on snooze............ Oh, yea, it was the roosters!

The long and winding road

One of the most scenic drives in Australia is the Great Ocean Road, 151 miles long. We drove about 3/4 of it, nearly all of it being along the coast. There are many pullouts to just stop and marvel at how beautiful it is. I hope that whatever you are reading this on has really good graphics. The blues and turquoises in the waters are incredible!

And some lucky person lives in this house!

On a restroom stop, we came across these guys just out in the wild! Kelli wanted us to bring one home, and there were plenty, but I think there are laws........

There are several well-known attractions to stop and see along the way. The first we encountered was Gibson Steps. Old Man Gibson had land at the top of the cliff, but he wanted a way to get down to the beach, so he carved 86 steps into the cliff-side! These are since gone, but they have concrete steps for us all to climb down (oh, yea, and then back up!). 

Now for some reason, we had it in our heads that Gibson's Steps led to what is probably the most famous highlight of the drive, which is the Twelve Apostles. These are massive limestone stacks off the coast, some standing as high as 45 meters (that's 49 yards to you Americans; oh, wait, that's us). People are awestruck with the beautiful limestone standing high above the water. There are only 8 left, the other 4 having collapsed. We got down the Steps and we saw this:

Kind of like our 3 penguins out of 13,000, I thought, "Well, here's one Apostle!" Jokes on us.........again........ So we get in the car and not 2 minutes later see a sign for a whole Visitor's Center for the Twelve Apostles! Eureka! That wasn't it after all! Whew!

So here were some more and as we traveled on the path to get to the outlooks, we had our second encounter with Australian wildlife - this wallaby had a joey in her pouch!

What's the difference between a wallaby and a kangaroo, you ask? Yea, I didn't know either. BUT you will find out in my next blog post! Stay tuned!

We meandered around Port Campbell for a bit before heading to our AirBnB for the night and ate pizza in a hostel that just so happened to have a brewery in it! Aaaahhhh I'd never been in a hostel, let alone eat and drink in one!

It was a good day........... or so I thought! (Refer to next post)

St. Kilda

We thought we'd go to St. Kilda's Beach today, but the high winds kind of put a kibosh on that. No problem! We took our system of trams to go into that town anyway. Thank goodness we were wearing shorts (first time this trip!) because when we got there it was hot and sunny.

We walked along the boardwalk with a mission in mind. At dusk, off the end of the pier, penguins come in for the night.

We wanted to get the lay of the land and make sure we knew where we should be. While scoping it out, we saw something neither one of us ever remembers seeing before - a black swan!

While we were waiting for dusk to come, we checked out the fact that St. Kilda's calls itself the "cake capital" of the world or of Australia or of something. Yep! Pretty darn good!

It's starting to get dark and now it's very gusty and getting cold. Those shorts that we thought was a good idea during the day........now, not so much! We, and a whole bunch of other tourists, go to the end of the pier on a little walkway that we crowd onto. Then we wait.......and wait............ There is a colony of 13,000 penguins here, so the excitement builds. And this is what we saw:

This little guy and 2 of his buddies! Guess the joke's on us!

Highway to...................

Day 2 in Melbourne found us doing a totally touristy day, ending with........can you guess from the title of the post?!

We went to St. Paul's Cathedral where they wouldn't actually let us take pics inside unless we bought a "license". So you'll just have to take my word for it being beautiful. Awesome stained glass windows, inlaid floors and gold everywhere!

On to the Parliament building. Normally they give public tours, but Parliament was sitting today, so they would only let us into the gallery to watch the proceedings. 

Interesting as we watched a speaker give an impassioned speech to a room that was only about 1/4 full - and ALL on their phones doing something else!! While it would be nice to think it is different here, I don't really hold out a lot of hope on that. They took a vote and couldn't discern which side won. They rang a bell for about 3 minutes where the rest of the roomful of officials seemingly came out of the woodwork through every door in the room, took a seat and they redid the vote. When it was done they all got up again and off they went! Anybody ever been to ours and know if this is pretty much the same?! (Please, no political discussions here, just observations!)

We also went to the Old Treasury which houses a museum now of the gold rush era. 

While that is a replica of a gold "nugget" that was mined, can you even imagine??

And these gold bricks are just .08% of what was mined in the 1850's! Wow! Just wow! 

Along the way we visited several opal shops. Those of you who know me well know that a ring is how I usually commemorate a trip. I say usually because, while I had my sights set on an opal ring, after truly learning about them, it appears that I should NOT get one. Hardiness, water, etc etc. 

Oh, and then there's the price! This little gem of a pendant was over $5000. Wasn't counting on that!

We went to the Library next (this is for you, Kelli!). It is 5 stories and domed at the top. You can go up there and see down into the main floor. They also had an exhibit about the history of books and writings.

 

Yesterday we ate Chinese. Today, Italian in the Little Italy section was our goal! It did not disappoint! We had lasagna and pappardelle with truffles (Kyle) at a little sidewalk cafe. 

What was really on our radar though was gelato! Yes, please!

And last, but not least.......to what Bruce had been waiting for! Did you all know that AC/DC was an Australian rock group? And one of Bruce's favs?! During his research, he learned that there is an AC/CD Lane here in Melbourne with a bar that plays rock music 365 days a year! 

However, finding it was easier said than done! This is AC/DC Lane. They told us the door will be on the left. Hmmm It was kind of like trying to find a speakeasy or something! We went all up and down the lane, then tried asking someone....

Aaahhh! Here's the door!

and as we waited for it to open, we met a trio of lively 30 somethings that we ended up sitting and chatting with for the night. Two were from Perth and all had been to the States. We learned the hoax behind "shrimp on the barbie" and exchanged world views. Lots of fun! It actually made the evening because the cover band didn't play ANY songs that we knew! Didn't feel too bad though because the young ones didn't know them either!