Home of Neighbours. | Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne, Australia

This place was Great

The Great Ocean Road.

So we left Bondi at around 5pm, getting a local bus to the railway station. The train took a further 15 minutes to the centre of Sydney. We had a coffee there and then took the overnight greyhound bus to Melbourne leaving at 8pm. We arrived here at 8am.

So far we have looked around the city only briefly but it looks good so far.

We have taken a trip out onto the great ocean road which has some really amazing rocks. We have seen the 12 apostles and london bridge rock formations, a local temperate rainforest, an aboriginal cultural centre and koala's in the wild. Not bad for just a couple of days. Oh and also the famous Bells Beach, (made famous by the movie 'Point Break' with patrick swayze and keanu reeves). Rumour has it the actual beach in the movie wasn't this one though. They just used its name. The koala's were really cool. They stay high up in the trees unless they are unwell, and are quite hard to spot. Got some great video though.

We are definitely not taking the 'Neighbours tour'. We do plan though to hopefully see a march of the penguins. They should be Fairy penguins and are quite small.

So we left Melbourne around 3:15pm and set off to see some penguins. We stopped on the way at a animal rescue centre. There we saw Wallabies, Wombats, Kangaroo's, Koala's and a totally mental Tasmanian Devil amongst other animals. He was awesome and wouldn't stop running. Well he did, but only briefly to sniff at you then off he went again. The Wombats were ace, even if a little slow. They are a little like the Koala's except they live on the ground in dead tree trunks and the like. They were all great animals though. After that we made our way out onto Philip island. Whilst it was still light you could see the penguins nests. Occasionally there would be chicks inside, safely tucked away. Once the sun set things started to happen. A few cautious penguins would sneak onto the beach from the ocean. Once they were happy one of them would go back to the ocean and somehow let their buddies know it was all clear. Then right before your eyes they started to appear. Hundreds of them. And so it began. Little blue Penguins. The Penguin Parade. It was totally fantastic and even though I have seen Penguins loads of times, I have never ever seen them come out of the ocean en mass and march their way back to their nests and babies like that. As they got closer to their nests the noise of chicks calling their mums and vice versa got really loud. Occasionally everything would stop moving when a large bird appeared, but once it had gone the penguins all began rushing back to their nests once more. They even marched straight past the lit areas right where we were sitting. Unforgettable.

On our last night here we had a choice. Billy Cyristal is here but the tickets are crazy prices so thats out. Leo Sayer is also playing here but who wants to see him anyway? So we went to the cinema to see 'Music & Lyrics' starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. Hilariously funny movie. After that we graced the casino with our presence and came out 30 bucks up.