Monday 22nd Day Tour to Phillip Island

We couldn't have asked for a better day for our day tour, sunny and warm 32 degrees. We had booked a day tour through Bunyip tours. http://www.bunyiptours.com/    . Our day tour included going to various places along the way. Our first stop was at http://www.pearcedale-conservation-park.com.au/ where we had lunch. After lunch a python was brought out for anyone to hold both Alan and I passed on that one. It was now time to look around the park it is here Alan got to see his first Koala up close and personal. As the weather was warm the koalas are not keen, first Koala they had out said I ain't hanging around for all these photo's and people and dismounted his perch and walked away. So another Koala was brought out for us alot bigger too.

The fur of the Koala is soft but as Alan found out they do smell. Koala says "who is the ugly fella? You think I smell but have you looked in the mirror lately?" Koalas sleep about 20 hours of the day. This is because the gum leaves have no nutritional value at all it is just enough to sustain them. The life expectancy of a Koala is 14 to 16 years.

Around the park were all Aussie animals there were geese running around free. Below is an Emu Australia's largest flightless bird. Not so friendly though if you get to close they will reach out and probably bite your nose off.

As we were there during the day we don't get to see the animals active as they are nocturnal they were all sleeping. Here you see a wombat see his two big front teeth, you can't see how big and round the wombat is and people think they are slow moving due to their size but when needed they can and will move fast.

The Tasmania Devil are very small in population and on their way to extinction due to it is hard to mate them in captivity although there has been one successful breeding. Closely related to the Tasmania Tiger which is now extinct, the devil gets it's name because of the noise it makes when it eats it prey but it not only eats the prey meat but everything bones and all.

The Wallaby, smaller and cuter cousin of the kangaroo. When we went into this area there were quite a few but they were small this Wallaby larger and was very friendly, hopped straight up to us. We had purchased a bag of feed and as you can see they eat straight out of your hand.

kangaroo's were not anywhere to been seen, although they were somewhere but hiding. So we were fortunate that we had seen the Kangaroo's at Hanging Rock because we didn't see any kangaroo's this day.

Our next stop was at Churchill Island which is a smaller Island off Phillip Island.

http://www.penguins.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13&Itemid=39&mytabsmenu=4

A male peacock. This photo was hard to get due to the peacock spent most of the time faced away from us. Apart from a few cups of tea in the morning it was not until we got here which was at 4 to 5pm that Alan got his next cuppa Tea.

Our next stop the Nobbies and Seal rocks. It is here we are able to take photo's of the fairy penguins the smallest penguins in the world. Later when we watch the penguins coming in we are not able to take any pictures or video.

http://travability.travel/Australia/melbourne/nobbies.html

Alan and I on the boardwalk with the Ocean behind us.

Waves coming in and hitting the rocks

We finished the day just after sunset going to see the penguin parade. We were unable to take any photo's here as it affects the penguin's. When the penguin's go out in the morning they go alone but when they come back into shore you see 2 or 3 come out and then go back into the water until they have a group of 20 or more then they march up the shore. Their burrows are all around us, so Alan and I went and stood on the boardwalk and we watched them walk right under us. As you walk back up the boardwalk they are everywhere walking back the babies lag behind and the parents come back to give them a kick up the butt and get them moving again. There was also a section of road blocked off and you see the penguin's walking there too. When we got back to the bus and started to leave you see even more, there is a warning to check under your car before you leave. It is truly a site to be seen they are so cute you do just want to pick one up. The night before there was over 1,800 that had come walking back in. Not all penguin's go out for the day. The babies were in the process of losing there baby feathers so they were easily spotted because of their different colour.

Friday 19th, Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st

Friday we planned to go to Melbourne to the Queen Victoria Market. We went in by train and we got the train from Sunbury station. Everytime we go into Sunbury we stop by the Jolly Miller cafe.

http://www.thejollymiller.com/ .

On this particular morning we hadn't had any breakfast before we left the cabin but we opted to have something naughty. as you can see half eaten cake pieces which were huge we could have shared one. We didn't get much more eaten after this pic was taken. They were delicious but filling.

The Jolly MIller has a very wide range of cakes, they also do breakfast and lunch menus. I just had to take a pic of ONE of the cabinets of cakes.

The weather was warm so we had a good day to visit the market. The market consists of big sheds with all the stall holders. Alan's eyes were popping out of his head. It is very hard to resisit buying everything in site as Alan found out. There was some great stalls with Aussie souveniers at a very affordable price. 

We will be returning to the Victoria Market before Alan is due to go home as he wants to get an Akubra hat and who knows what else???? 

Saturday was a rest day as such. On sunday I had and invitation to go and play in a womens classic poker game. So we went over to Epping where I met up with many people I hadn't seen in months. I wasn't getting the cards and so bombed out early. After the game we went around the corner to T.G.I Fridays. http://www.tgifridays.com.au/ 

 

Even though I hadn't eaten much at all that day I think I was still recovering from the past few days. We shared a plate of potato skins which were delicious before we got to finish them our mains came out.

St. Kilda Beach 17th November

Yesterday was a very bright sunny day so we decided to head down to the beach and work on our sun tans. Bev drove to a place called St.Kilda it is only a 5 min drive out of Melbourne City. I was surprised at how close St.Kilda was to the city it wasn't until we walked out on to a jetty and looked across and saw the tall buildings I asked Bev if that was the city of Melbourne, as I had been happy snapping along the way I hadn't paid any attention to where we were and how far we had come out of Melbourne.

Eureka Tower tallest building in Melbourne in centre of pic. Photo taken from jetty at St Kilda beach.

The place was abuzz, very popular even though it was mid week, first we enjoyed some lunch at a cafe called the vineyard, nice place quite busy i said to eat inside because of the sun some guy in there a waiter had a weired hair cut and eye liner on, yeah they got weirdos to. and then we went for a walk along the shore to work off our lunch. great service though and food.

Sand real sand and white too, the tide was going out and you could see the seaweed left behind. We walked along a long Jetty where at the end is a cafe we stopped for a cuppa tea. When we returned to dry land we parked ourselves on a patch of grass and spit roasted ourselves for about an hour.

We then walked back into the town centre where we searched out some pubs, eventually coming across a great pub called "Abbey Road". We will be reurning to St.Kilda and the pub next week sometime.

http://www.abbeyroadcafe.com.au/

At 8pm we went back down to the beach and watched the sunset. Absolutely fantastic I had never seen a sunset before and it was awesome as you will see in the pics. We stayed around until the sun had fully set before it became dark and time to drive back to Lancefield.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How I spent my Birthday

The city of Melbourne is a good clean city. I enjoy walking through Melbourne although you could get a sore neck from looking up alot. The yarra river is brown and looks dirty much like the river thames. there are lots of trams and no buses and loads of bicycles, and some cyclists are right knobheads and try to run you over, there attitude is they have the right of way. I have noticed that they have designated bicycle lanes which saves lots of accidents.

at night time the center ring set in the pavment has a fountain set in it and lights up. just behind the fountain you see a grey column at night blows out gas and light up so it gives off flames about every ten minutes.


My first Birthday not spent in freezing and cold conditions.

As you can see it was a nice day.

The day started with Bev giving me a card and a travel wash bag and some nice after shave.

I had a cooked breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast and two pots of tea as usual.

We spent the day in Melbourne where we walked through some of the city and went into the Crown Casino. Where lots of rich bods loose lots of money, I did notice there was alot of asians in the casino, Bev said they are there alot and are always gambling. Melbourne has a very high population of asians.

As the day progressed it warmed up enough and we sat on the bank of the yarra river and enjoyed a double scoop icecream basking in the sunshine. I have never had a birthday where i have sat in the sun and eaten ice cream rum & raisin & cherry ripe hhhhmmmmm. yummie..as you can see..lol

REMEMBRANCE DAY - WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

Today is 11th November Rememberance day.....Photo's we took the other day of the cross I thought would be appropriate here.

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

Friday 5th November to Tuesday 9th November

Friday we spent the day at Lancefield as we had a busy weekend coming up. The weather was starting to get better and we laid outside in the afternoon enjoying the warmth of the sun.

Saturday we went to Melton to watch the parade for the Djerriwarrh Festival. The sun was shining and the day was very warm Alan soaked it all up and started working on his aussie tan. We met up with Matt and Laura. After the parade we went over to Hannah Watts Park where we enjoyed a cuppa tea and walked around and looked at the stalls. Finishing with a cold beer at the country club. For the next few hours we caught up with friends .... at Shelley and Micheal's place Alan enjoyed meeting Micheal's 5 children and they all took a liking to Alan. Everyone Alan has met have all taken a liking to him. Later in the evening we went back down to the festival where there was entertainment, rides and fireworks. We met up with JP and Dylan and went and watched Kate Cebrano. When she had finished performing the fireworks started and we both had a go at taking some shots and video.



Kate Cebrano


Sunday
We returned to Melton on Sunday and met up with Carina and Steve (my daughter and her fiance). We enjoyed some lunch together at a place called lazy Moe's Shelley also joined us. The meals at Lazy Moe's that were served for one was enough to feed both of us and at half the price of most bistro's.
Alan had a burger picture to come and upon seeing it he asked "where do I start"? it was that big you couldn't hold it in your 2 hands and there was no way he was going to get his mouth around it either.
After lunch we said goodbye to Carina and Steve and we went to see JP for an hour so it was another sunny day but with a bit more cloud after our late night the previous night we came back to Lancefield early and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Alan turning into aussie just need the thongs

Monday was a slow start and another warm day. We went for a drive around Mt Macedon.....where we went to "hanging rock"......Yes and for those that do know the story the book and the movie of "Picnic at Hanging Rock".... There was a choice of 3 trails to walk and Alan being the fit man that he is opted for the summit of the rock, round trip 50 mins, but for us 2 hours  lmao....lots of stops and photos and some great views. It was well worth the the walk up just to see the view. Returning to the bottom we enjoyed a very big pot of tea that was very welcome. After our tea we started on the creek trail but only got a few hundred metres down the track when Alan spotted some wild kangaroos. As we looked around more we saw more and more and they were all herded on the racetrack. Thanks to a camera with digital zoom and sneaking up we got some fantastic pics of the roo's. Alan was fascinated with them, there was females with joeys in their pouches and then there was the big males who looked like they were ready to pounce at any moment thank goodness for a 6 ft high fence. There was an opening in the fence I offered to Alan that we go in to get closer to the roo's. As much as he liked seeing them he wasn't prepared to go that close and I was only joking as they are not cute and cuddly. We left and drove to the memorial cross, which is a cross that has been erected for the aussie soldiers who served in WW1. The views from the cross are magnificent more photo's, we will return to the cross to watch a sunset and take some pics of the lights of melbourne city.

mum and joey