Melbourne

Arriving in Melbourne I felt a wind of change.. Litteraly as it was 4 degress and I was wearing my tropical outfit! I was picked up at the airport by my old friend Michael and his girlfriend Sarah and together we set course towards south west Victoria and the Great Ocean Road that follows the southern coastline and its endless amount of spectacular views. The highlight of the Great Ocean Road is the formation of rocks named the Twelve  Apostles and we arrived there in time to see the sun set.  

 

Bells beach that in name was used in the surfing movie Point Break

The Twelve Apostles that aren't actually twelve..

Coming back up to the Melbourne area we stopped by the hidden valley for a couple of kangaroo encounters. A beautifull place, with an architectural theme meant to mimic Toscana Italy. 

During the next week I explored Melbourne city walking around and taking it all in, the architecture, the mood of the people and of course the street art that the city embraces as true art. 

Federation Square and St. Pauls Chatedral

Dreamworks had an exhibition at the Australian Center for the Moving Image

Creepy street art

Amazing huge wall painting that went up between visiting the same alley Tuesday and Thursday

Beautifull street art in a small alley

Thursday afternoon I jumped on The Little Penguin Bus and headed for Phillip Island to watch the penguin parade as the penguins come on to the shore at dusk to go to their burrows across the peninsula. Being back in the first world there was of course no photografy outside the giftshop, but I managed to sneak one out:

The whole setup is very commecial and streamlined, but we were warned by our bus driver and told to just ignore it and enjoy the penguins and so I did.

They even had a countdown to the penguin invasion!

At dusk you go from the visitor center across boardwalks towards what struck me as a scene from Saving Private Ryan. Tourists are lined up in concrete emplacements facing the sea, tripod mounted binoculars at the ready and then the waiting game starts... 

Staring out into the dark sea a retreating wave reveals a little cluster of black and white penguins huddling on the beach. These guys are like scouts staying near the water waiting for the next couple of clusters to arrive so they can join up and get a critical mass together before they storm up the beach towards the dunes. 

Other little clusters will start running for rocks between the sea and the dunes, hiding there until they also gain critical mass and make the last sprint/waddle into the dunes. This is quite impressive and goes on for more than an hour while several thousand penguins make their way to their burrows. As the penguins make it to the dunes they are suddenly everywhere, under and around boardwalks, waddling around in little groups and you get very close. 

Saturday we all went to Etihad Stadium for an Australian football game or just footy. Footy is a fast paced game of field position, teamwork and individual skills and strenght. It was a very entertaining and close game between Essendon Bombers and the Western Bulldogs. 

Footy is huge in Australia and even thou the stadium was half empty there were still 33.000 people there. A footy game includes a mandatory meat pie with plenty of dead horse(tomato sauce). Aussies has a strange way of making up new names for everything as long as it rhymes with the original name its all good mate! 

I even got the chance to meet the Bombers mascot!

All in all a great night out and a big thank you to Darren for getting us the tickets and teaching us the rules!

From Melbourne I travel up to Sydney where I will spend some time wandering the city, hiking the blue mountains and visiting the beaches!