Visit to Australia, January 2016

We are just beginning our trip to Australia and New Zealand. I wanted to let everyone know that we have arrived safely. We left California late Tuesday, January 19 on Qantas airlines. It was a nice flight, if you can call 16 hours on a plane nice. We did at least get food and drink. As we were over Australia and half way between Sydney and Melbourne, the plane turned around and headed back to Sydney. There were weather problems in Melbourne and they wanted to refuel. So we ended up 2 hours late to Melbourne, but we are here.

We actually arrived on Thursday, January 21, losing a day by crossing the International Date Line. We are still trying to get our brains around that! The weather was cloudy with spritzes of rain. We are staying in an apartment hotel, so we have a 3 room suite (kitchenette, living room, and bedroom). We have a nice view of Elizabeth Street. It was all we could do to enjoy the welcome dinner before heading to bed.

Don on tier three of the Melbourn Goal

The next day, January 22, was quite rainy – but we forged ahead with our sightseeing.  After a continental breakfast in the hotel our 16 member tour group climbed on the bus, dragging our umbrellas and coats. We toured the Melbourne Goal (one of the many jails built in the 1800’s). The building was architecturally quite beautiful, but learning what happened there was quite depressing. Other places of interest on our city tour were St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Shrine of Remembrance (to those killed in WWI & WWII), the Botanical Gardens (walked through in the rain, but still quite beautiful), and Victoria Markets (a mainly indoor market and food court reminiscent of Central Market in LA).. We also drove by many beautiful parks, the huge sports complex, Parliament, the Yarra River, etc.

In the evening we had another adventure when we went on the tour to see the Fairy (Little) Penguins arriving on Phillips Island. They are only 13 inches tall and really cute. We spent two hours getting there by bus. The country side was so green and lovely. The freeway had several interesting sculptures that flashed by before we could take a picture and the sound barriers are all different with an attempt at decoration.

Anyway, the penguins spend their day in the ocean eating and sleeping on top of the water. When it is dark many of them congregate on the beach and when it looks safe they waddle across the sand to their burrows which are dug into the hill side. So, we all sit in the grandstands and cheer them on. There are boardwalks built over their nesting areas, so you can walk along and see them coming and going. It was very interesting – these penguins are the smallest in the world and quite delightful to watch.