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New Zealand 2010: Day 06 (18): May 12

13-May-10

Checked out and ready to go. Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland! Opening at 830 we arrived around 9 and started through the park.

25 markers in total, each one had something special about them. Mud boiling, different minerals coming through the steam creating different colours, steam geysers, and the stench of sulphur. But all in all it was pretty cool. The last stop was called the Devil’s Bath which was a pool of green water 😀

Our tour at the Waitomo Caves was at 1230 and Waitomo being about 2 hours away, we couldn’t stay to see the Geyser at Wai-o-tapu go at 1015… After 2 hours of driving we barely just made it to the 1230 tour, with only 5-10 minutes to spare with just enough time to grab something to eat.

Our first cave was the Ruakiri Cave, or The Den of the Dogs. Named after the animals that the Maori people found there. The cave consisted of millions of limestone formations. Like coral, they took years to form. Approximately 1cm of limestone could take around 100 years. There was a sign outside giving the fine of 10,000$ if any of the formations were damaged. Our guide, Lucas, also explained the glowworms and showed them to us as well. They are actually the larvae or maggot stage of a fly. They are light-brownish in colour and are about 1 to 2cm in length. Their glow comes from mixing an enzyme with their… excretion. Their stages are the egg, larvae, pupa, fly. The fly only lives for about a week and reproduces hundreds of eggs in that time. The glowworms or glowmaggots, catch their food by dropping down up to 20 lines of web, much like the spider. They catch insects and consume their.. Moisture. The most impressive part of this cave is that it is completely wheelchair accessible!

Our next stop, Aranui Caves. After briefly walking the Ruakiri Bushwalk in the rain, we met up with our next tour guide, Christian, with just the two of us, we took our tour through the smaller cave. This cave was discovered later than the other two by a farmer who was chasing a wild pig that ended up in that undiscovered cave. Unlike the other two caves, this one did not have glowworms due to the fact that there was no river running through it. At the end of the cave they have thought there to be an earthquake that collapsed the tunnel, closing off the rest of the cave as well as a water source that helped form them. Maybe.

And finally our last stop of this trip, the glowworm cave, Waitomo Caves. Having some time to spare, we chatted with the other visitors, 3 of which had came from England and had visited the caves in the 70s or 80s, pretty cool :P. The other visitor was from Saskatoon. It seems most people only know of a couple places like Toronto or Vancouver. When saying from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, she could usually sum it up with the Prairies in Canada. Cough. Heh… They were a fun bunch. In the cave we weren’t allowed photography so we left our cameras behind. Our guide showed us some of the limestone formations as well as the threads of the glowworms and the maggot itself. A couple of the limestone formations were nicknamed. One was a kiwi doing a bungy jump, an Arab riding a Camel, and a mother with two children. Yup.

After this part of the cave we went lower to the river, where they have 4 boats setup and they bring the visitors into the underwater caverns in which the cave was first discovered. There were thousands of glowworms lighting up the cave ceiling like a night sky. Amazing sight.

Aaaaand. 2ish hours back to Auckland International Airport to waste or time till check-in and boarding at 7am. Going home!


Wai-o-Tapu – Devil’s Bath


Waitomo Caves – Ruakiri

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New Zealand 2010: Day 05 (17): May 11

13-May-10

One thing we HAD to do if we ever got the chance on this trip was….. Surfing! We called last night and they happened to have another person arrange a lesson as well! Discovery Surfing nz.

An hour away at Mt Maunganui north of Rotorua in Tauranga, we joined the 1130 lesson at the Main Beach with another person from Seattle.

Got some nice warm wetsuits and went with Tully for some basic instructions and tips to help us along. We also practiced how to stand on the board once we caught a wave. And explained what a rip in the surf was… Something with the sand mounds underwater creating the white wave after hitting it etc…….

It was a great experience and so exhausting. The amount of salt water that ended up in my mouth didn’t help either… The waves were pretty rough too, to me anyways. We were only taught how to drag our board into the waves and jump on, not how to paddle into them. Tully was very helpful and encouraging. By an hour I could barely push myself up on the board and wiped out instead. Sometimes I just rode the wave out on my knees 😛 so glad that we got to try it after the Bondi beach incident. Getting out of the water was another thing. There wasn’t much sun and was actually very windy so basically, freezing. But well worth it.

Heading back we were deciding how to divide up activities from tonight and tomorrow morning, as our last morning. It was between Zorb Rotorua and Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. And since we were already a bit wet, zorbing it was! Instead of lunch.

Not too far away from Rotorua, we got there and no one else was zorbing, a quiet day. Apparently its the low season on this side of the world because its fall weather. Cold.

Rosanna went through the ‘straight’ zorbing path while I took the ‘zig-zag’ which rolled me around like crazy, awesome. Zydro – with warm water in the ball too, so we also came out of this activity soaking wet and oh so cold afterwards. Again, worth it. Hahaha…

Aaaaand dinner. Had a large bento that I could barely finish. Yum. Rotorua has its fair share of jap and korean restaurants/stores/people, maybe a bit more korean actually…

Anyways. Tomorrow we head to Wai-o-Tapu and Waitomo! Then Auckland International Airport to stay the night and check-in for the 7am flight starting our journey home. Whee.


Wetsuit!


Zorbs!

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New Zealand 2010: Day 04 (16): May 10

13-May-10

Setting out for Tongariro National Park, we stopped by the Huka Falls, a small detour. The Huka Falls, where the New Zealand’s largest lake drains into its largest river, the Waikato.

Tongariro National Park. Driving past Lake Taupo and a couple of other small towns, 2 hours later, we parked at the Whakapapa Village that is mainly used for ski chateaus and lodges and a base for hikers and maps. Several of the trails start from this area. Tongariro National Park was the first park to be both a cultural and historical world heritage status.

The employee at the visitor’s centre told us to do a short hike to the Taranaki falls, which ended up to be about 2 hours long. It did lead us through bush, forest, and a nice waterfall though!

Afterwards we drove out to fill our gas tank, down to 5 litres and still had 2 hours of driving ahead of us… But our real destination, along Mangatepopo Road, the Tongariro Alpine Trail. By this time it was about 2pm and there was much land to cover. Our original goal was to hike to the Emerald Lakes at the Red Crater between Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe but that would add another 4 hours to get there and back… So we set out anyways to get to the Soda Springs hiking up Mt Tongariro. Which would be about 2 hours one way.

As we went along the path was very rocky and just got worse. The ‘trail’ became cliffs sides and rocks that looked like steps but many were high steps, unstable setting, and some slippery as well. It didn’t look to bad in the light but imagine in the dark… Haha… As we continued to Soda Springs, the sun was setting behind us lighting up the sky in blues yellows oranges pinks reds then purples, until it was black. The mountain in the distance made it look beautiful but also warned us that we would soon not be able to see. The actual soda springs weren’t….. Much. Its too bad we couldn’t make it to the Emerald Lake but no regrets! Walking back in the dark, the sun had completely set around 6ish and we still had some ways to go. Soon after the sky was lit up with stars, we could see the milky way so clearly. Beautiful. But looking down on the trail, only shadows would be racing by, could barely make out the trail we were to follow. Distinguished only by faint colour of the bush and rocks on the ground. A nice 8km hike.

And now 2 hours back to Rotorua for dinner. Whee. Driving at night was pretty intense. Most of the time we had our highbeams on and only switched between when passing cars on the approaching side. Otherwise we could barely make out 100m ahead of us. It only got worse as the thermal steam fogged up the road with light bouncing everywhere.

Tomorrow is…. Hmm.


View of one of the Mt while driving


Sunsetting from Soda Springs


Sunsetting from Mt Tongariro


Stars from Lake Taupo

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New Zealand 2010: Day 03 (15): May 09

13-May-10

Seema at Freeman’s Lodge ordered a rental car company to pick us up at 8am, arrived at around 830. Meh. The first thing that bothered me was that the driver didn’t offer to load our luggage. Went off to pick up another client, 4 passengers… And then headed to the rental car lot, Quality Car Rental, recommended by Seema.

As the only person working that day, this guy was very… Preoccupied? He went in and out of phone calls without even a gesture, just started talking. We went through the process and finally came to the drop-off times. They’re open 8-430ish so between that time, good. I say that we were planning to drop it off at the airport, he says, No. Blunt. Mentioned that we talked with Seema about it and she said it would be okay to park at the airport and pay for the parking… He makes a call, and ok! He writes up the stuff, charges my card, doesn’t ask of any ‘features’ I wanted such as gps or mp3, just… Writes it up. Goes out and drives the car around and then mentions, “Oh, you will have to park the car in the international lot, and put the key and stub under the front carpet. What time? Midnight?! No, no, no… The ticket would be huge, international parking! The 35 only covers like 3 hours. With our flight being at 7, checkin at 5ish, and they would come get it at 8… You gotta park it at 5. Figure out somewhere else to park it until then.” … we were told itd be 35. Not so much more as well. He makes a call while I’m trying to talk to him… A couple drives up to drop off their car and they need to be at the airport by 10, 10am comes and passes, “just 5 more minutes!” We go and think about the rental… And decide to get a car from the airport instead, better than dealing with this jerk, so sketchy. “Then why did you waste all of my time?” He makes a call, “how about you drop the car off at 430 and we’ll waive the 35$” … “AM?” “No, pm.” “No, we have things planned” expected us to stay at the airport for more than 12 hours? No thanks, drop us off please.

Finally got to the airport and checked out thrifty, europcar, avis, budget, hertz… Looking for midnight dropoff and gps. The prices were a lot higher than ‘quality cars’ but the service and ‘quality’ so much better. Apparently the car the couple had has shotty brakes – -; Anyways, we shopped around and because we are under 25, there is an extra charge each day… Sigh. But we went with Europcar and got a Hyundai Getz.

By this time it was 1130 and our plan to go to Waitomo Caves, ruined. Headed to Rotorua, our hostel, Crash Palace, instead. Driving in the right seat and left side of the street was very odd this time around but easier to adjust after Japan. 3 hours later, we’re in Rotorua, which has a distinctive smell of sulphur everywhere because of all of the thermal pools and geysers much like Beppu in Japan, but the smell wasn’t as… Widespread throughout the whole city. Rooms are decent. Meh. So what to do tonight?…

With only a couple of hours to spare we booked a visit to the Mitai Cultural Village with Kiwi Experience upgrade! After shopping a bit for souvenirs we got on the shuttle and left.

Run by the Mikar family for generations and including other families now, the host introduced himself and taught us some words in the aboriginal language, which I can’t seem to remember. They also called themselves the Maori. Aoeteroa – land of the long white cloud? Or something. Later as we drove along the distanced sky was in fact a large white cloud spread over the horizon, created by the thermal pools. Anyways, he chose a ‘chief’ for the guests and that chief spoke on behalf of us to the mitai… We were then led out into a cooking pit where the Hanni, traditional dinner, was being prepared – lamb chicken potatoes and sweet potatoes were cooking, smelled great. At this point the host gave thanks to all of the countries that were present, 21 in total and said a prayer in his language.

Then around a small creek, a group of them arrived in a canoe with torches and such, giving a good show. Then leading us to seats and a stage where the cultural experience took place. Showing us their weapons, instruments, fighting techniques, training, music and games, it was a great show. He also explained the tattoos that the aboriginal people would get in the past. The women possessed the Owl tattoo under their lips showing the eyes beak and body in abstract lines, to show wisdom and their duty as protectors of the children. The men eventually possessed four tattoos on their face. The bat, parrot, owl, and kiwi. The bat represented wisdom and leadership positioned on the forehead and over the eyes. The parrot was for speaking and stuff, the beak on both sides of the nose. The owl for protectors more abstract under the eyes. And finally the kiwi representing something else that I can’t remember, placed around the mouth. There would be two kiwis, either side representing a parent. And finally, time for food. Delicious and oh so filling.

We then continued on to Rainbow Springs for the Kiwi Experience. The guides first showed us the trout in the pools with the small fresh water springs underneath. Turning off all of the torches, we were then shown the glow-worms that were around the same area. They also showed us some new zealand trees and animals. The alpine parrots, Kea. The dinosaur reptile, Tarutaru or something weird like that 😀 that actually lived in the time of the dinosaurs and was able to survive because of its extraordinary metabolism and abilities to slowdown heartrates and minimal nutrition. The silver fern, cabbage tree, a pool of rainbow trout, and finally the kiwi. This nocturnal flightless bird is endangered and its main predator, the slout. The park had 4 kiwi birds running around in their pens, we were only able to catch glimpses and backsides of the bird as it is very sensitive to light and sounds. Although I sorta saw the bird, it still seems very… Mystical? Heh…

Tomorrow, what… Tongariro National Park!


Driving to Rotorua


Mitai Performance

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New Zealand 2010: Day 02 (14): May 08

08-May-10

Heading out from the hostel, UPhill to K-Road, a hub of buses we found our bus heading to the Newmarket/Broadway shopping streets. K-Road, Karangahape Road. Anyways. Got on the LinkBus, $1.70 ride! To the shopping district and got a nice breakfast as Massimo. Visited another Westfields shopping centre and other random shops. The unique chain shops I’ve seen have been glue, cottonon, justjeans… Meh. Again, shopping here isn’t very nice, its a bit less stressful than Australia because we’ve begun to convert currencies before purchasing hahaha… But the prices are still very similar to home but a little skewed. Dinners here range from mid 20s to 30s but converted only reach mid 20s so not that bad at all…

After enough shopping we made our way to the Auckland Natural History Museum, where we could have used the knowledge and expertise of a tour guide but… Missed out. So although we saw a lot of interesting aboriginal artwork and sculptures, we don’t really know what they mean or were used for… Unfortunately. Aside from aboriginal artifacts, the museum held exhibits on the usual stuff of dinosaurs native to the land such as Kiwi bird ancestors, the Mau birds and Giant Emperor penguins… And other flightless birds. And continuing on the third floor, exhibits on WWI and WWII etc. Spent a good 2-3 hours exploring.

Continuing on we headed out to Parnell Rd which we have been told would be a nice area to shop for more unique pieces… But everything was closed or closing… At 430. *sigh… After walking around and going into the shops that were open we decided to grab some dinner and got very stuffed with pizza 😀

Tomorrow, renting a car and heading out to the Waitomo Caves and Rotorua.


Auckland Museum – Maori Sculpture


Auckland Museum – Duckweed

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New Zealand 2010: Day 01 (13): May 07

08-May-10

Auckland. First impressions… Steep hills. Reminded me a bit of Korea actually… And the city centre was very heavily Korean as well! Although there were some Japanese and Chinese, more Koreans. Yup.

After making some plans, we ‘ran’ to the dock to get ferry tickets to Rangitoto Island… Only to be late by about 5 minutes 🙁 but there was to be another ferry in a couple hours so we went shopping and got some lunch. While Burger King in Australia is called Hungry Jacks, it is actually Burger King in New Zealand 😛

Short ferry ride to Rangitoto Island, the volcanic island! Hiking time! An hour hike to the summit, fun. The trail was very rough and rocky, could have easily tripped if we didn’t pay enough attention. Even then the rocks slipped underneath us a couple times. Our surroundings were of trees shrubs and so much black volcanic rock, fields of it.

On our way up to the summit we took a short detour to ‘lava caves’ as the name describes, caves created by the lava flow so long ago that they are littered with trees and vines. Despite the constantly familiar surroundings throughout the hike, we had a great view of the coast of Auckland, complete with the Sky Tower, not too different from Toronto!

Arriving back in Auckland we continued to do some shopping… Whee. Rosanna has been looking forward to purchasing some necklaces with aboriginal symbols with deeper meanings to them such as the Koru and Tikiman… There’s a list somewhere that I can’t seem to find. Some symbolize a everlasting bond of friendship, good luck and fortune, protection from evil, safety to travellers, etc. We have encountered several different variations as well as differences in the quality of the pieces. They can get… pricey.

Tomorrow, more shopping on Broadway, Parnell and some culture from the Auckland Natural History Museum.


Rangitoto Island trail


Whitcoulls, Mother’s Day

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Australia 2010: Day 12: May 06

06-May-10

Melbourne. Heading into the city from St. Kilda, not bad. The trams run frequently and go all over the place. It works on the honour system… The ‘driver’ just dictates when to close the doors and move on, and probably where the tram turns and stuff. He doesn’t check if you have bought a ticket or put it into the ticket machine thing. Hmm.

Queen Victoria Market. Much like our own St Lawrence Market, random shops of produce and a bunch more souvenir shops as well.

Federation Square, St Flinder’s Station. Federation Square, celebrating Australia’s confederation, duh. With free wi-fi! Very cool architecture and interesting typographic designs on the ground of the square. St Flinder’s station, across the street, is like our Union Station, a hub of sorts.

National Gallery of Victoria. Beside the Art Centre, very nice place, the entrance a glass wall with waterfall. Ooo. We didn’t have enough time to explore the actual gallery… But found time to get churros. 😉 yum.

We made our way back to the hostel for our airport shuttle and made it to the Melbourne International Airport at 4 for our 6 flight to Auckland, New Zealand. Get ready for some more international flight drama! Apparently Qantas strongly, by strongly I mean they won’t check you in until, recommends that you also have an outgoing flight from New Zealand before getting there. They then sent us out to get another flight booked out of New Zealand via Flight Centre. Of course, we had planned to come back to Sydney on the 12th and see Uncle Ronald and Auntie Maisie one more time and catch our flight back home on the 13th. However. We need either a re-entry visa or a brand new visa for Australia after leaving its soil… Which can only be obtained off-land. Even staying in the airport, after landing in Sydney we would have to go through customs to checkin with Air Canada and that would mean we’d technically be ‘in Australia’ and… Would require a visa – -; So we weren’t allowed to purchase the ticket from Auckland to Sydney because of that… Our options?

1. Cancel our current flight home and book one from New Zealand. Expensive. So damn expensive.
2. Fly to another international destination to appease the outgoing flight and then apply for the Australian visa and cancel the first and book a flight to Sydney. Not too expensive but the cancellation fees were more than 50% of the ticket.
3. Stay in Australia.

So we bought a ticket to Fiji! Qantas again… Wanted us to have a plan after Fiji. They then suggested us to get a connecting flight to arrive prior to the Air Canada flight and catch it. Don’t we need a visa for that? Apparently not? Wtf. 45 minutes before take-off… Check-in should be cut-off soon too! I ran back to Flight Centre and explained what they said and after they spoke to a Qantas rep at the check-in desk, apparently they have an agreement with Air Canada and we can land in Sydney without leaving the International Departures terminal, without a visa. Would have been nice to know this earlier. With a maximum of 8 hours connecting, the flight from Auckland had to land within 2 and 10am…. And only one flight worked for us… *sigh but it was the only way to get home with the least amount of damage to my depleting bank account… 7am flight from Auckland (+16) International to Sydney (+14) 830am arrival, 1025am departure to get back to Toronto (-5) at 420pm… 3.5 hours + 2 connection + 20 hour home. Fun!

Oh, our churros were wasted. We travelled with them too long and they had long become stale and cold 🙁 but we also purchased milkshakes which were great.

With no time to spare we surprisingly weren’t the last ones to board O.o… But last ones to check-in for sure. Finally arriving in Auckland at 1130pm we made our way to our hostel via shuttle and… the customs official asked about an ongoing ticket but didn’t make much of it. Sleep.

Tomorrow, Rangitoto Island and Auckland shopping…


Inside of the National Gallery of Victoria


Ground highlight within Federation Square


Building highlight in Federation Square

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Australia 2010: Day 11: May 05

06-May-10

Woke up at 625, gogogo! Went through everything again and our driver Cameron was off. The Great Ocean Road tour.

First town we passed through was Torquay, the hometown of QuikSilver and RipCurl! Passing over a small bridge, we were off! And our first stop: Bell’s Beach. Morning Tea and biscuits… We had a lot of germans on the tour, france, ireland, thailand, japan and korea as well.

As we went along the road Cam elaborated on the road and explained to us that this road was built by the returning soldiers of WWI. Since they did not have jobs when they returned they were shown gratitude by being given this task which proved to be difficult and actually take some more lives, adding to the many already lost in the war. The road is very windy, motion-sick-enducing. Most of the views were basically the same, beach, cliffs, waves, eroded sandstone formations…

Split Point Lighthouse. Apparently this was the location of an old comedy that aired in Canada as well O.o… Hmm.

Wild Koalas. Kennett River. Driving up a pathway of a national park we were able to spot koalas up in the trees and we actually found one on the ground, moving to another tree. It crossed the dirt road right in front of us, illegal to touch them, and pretty dangerous too.

Cameron told us some stories of animal accidents that took place involving koalas and others with kangaroos. A girl on one of the tours came to Australia with her mind set on cuddling a koala, but being disappointed that the first ones she saw were up in the trees too far to hug. On her way to the toilet she spotted a koala sleeping on low tree and just had to get her hug! She ran up to it and tried to pry it off of the tree to no avail. Managing to wake the male koala, it held out an arm and she saw it is an invitation and ran in… Only to receive a nice big slash in the cheek 75mm deep. Ouch.

One morning as a man went through a park, an eastern grey kangaroo was hopping on through and saw and turned towards the man. Pretty cool, right? The kangaroo stopped shortly before the man, fell back onto its tail and threw the man meters away with its legs, piercing him with its nails in the process. Of course, the kangaroo had to make sure its point was made with a couple more kicks, breaking some ribs…

Otway’s Rainforest. A looped pathway through a cool temperate rainforest full of eucalyptus trees.

Loch Ard. Razorback. Salt and Pepper shakers. Three Sisters. London Bridge. Besides Loch Ard, the rest of these are rock formations named after their shapes. Loch Ard Gorge was named after the shipwreck that took place and the story alongside it.

Loch Ard was the name of the ship that sunk, obviously. It was carrying mostly fine goods cargo, pianos, etc, but also some families and crew, totaling around 60 passengers. The compass wasn’t working as it should be was dismissed because of the iron in the ship. The over confident captain thought he knew where he was but in the fog ended up closer to Tasmania than intended. Unable to readjust the heading in time, punctured the hull and sunk. A family from Ireland was on the ship heading to Melbourne, sans a son who stayed back. The daughter, Eva, was saved by crew mates and placed in a tub that kept her alive, while the crew mates eventually got too cold and drowned… Tom Pearce, one of the crew-in-training was lucky enough to wash up on the coast which happened to be the gorge. He then spotted and rescued Eva, bringing her back to the gorge and scaling the cliff to bring help. The hero of the town he and Eva eventually fell in love after she recovered. Later on Eva’s brother requested that she come back home so he could take care of her, as their family would have wanted. What followed was a heart-breaking tale for Tom, working towards being good enough for Eva only to be too late as she moved on with her life and was actually very ill. He then also moved on and had two sons, who like their father became men of the sea only to become victims of shipwrecks… Hahah I’m sure the story sounded better to me than how I wrote it here 🙂

12 Apostles. Port Campbell National Park. Apparently the names of these formations were made for tourism sake. To attract the european crowd, the 12 Apostles. Along with the bridge of the London Bridge, a couple of the apostles have collapsed as the years go by as well…

We set out to get home but not before dropping by a small town to grab a quick dinner. Red Rooster!

Another story told by Cam as we passed a town celebrating an anniversary of the rabbit and later on, the fox… told of a man from Europe who moved to Melbourne and through letters conveyed that he was missing his old home and requested that his nephew could send him something that he could hunt. Being the good nephew, he sent some rabbits! But rabbits doing what the do best, became too much for the uncle and others to hunt. He then requested that his nephew send an animal that could help hunt down the rabbits, the fox. However, the fox did not only hunt some rabbits, it also damaged the marsupial population greatly… More damage caused by the conquering queen.

Anyways, off to New Zealand tomorrow after exploring a bit of Melbourne!


Loch Ard Gorge


A part of the 12 Apostles

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Australia 2010: Day 10: May 04

06-May-10

10am pickup for the Penguin Parade tour on Philips Island. After picking up a couple more people and traversing through Melbourne closer to the beaches, we were brought past several cool buildings and dropped off at the Bunyip office to pay.

With a full bus our driver Bernie brought us to our first stop, a conservation centre (or something) where we saw some more reptiles, koala, emu, some birds, tasmanian devils, a wombat and a walk through a wallaby path! They were ‘free’ to wander around and we could feed them. This particular place only had 3 eastern grey kangaroos and 1 koala. Back in the building they took out a python and several people had the chance to hold it, feels interesting and strong… I didn’t know before but snakes evolved from lizards and actually have two hind remnants of legs, evident only through two useless and small nails near the end of the snake.

Cape Woolamai. Nice and windy. We’ve seen too many beaches… But now its cloudly and cold. Nice waves though! We haven’t had the chance to get surfing lessons since our one-hour-late Bondi Beach incident.

Churchill Island, here we visited a farm! And saw the furrrrrrry cow, Highland Cow, looks funny :D. There were the regular farm animals and a couple peacocks too… Here we watched a sheep shearing demonstration! Which was….. Interesting? Meh. As well, they demo’d a working dog that has been trained to work with herding sheep. Very well trained, and they don’t bark! That was cool 😛

Koalas, yup. More. By this time, it was cold, raining, and windy. Fun. Apparently everyone else was prepared for this with jackets and brolleys (umbrellas) unlike myself in a tshirt :D. This conservation park was a bit different in that they were high up in the trees. But since it was raining and cold I did a quick route and ran back to the centre and grabbed some hot chocolate… Which wasn’t very hot. Owell. Koalas, although not endangered, are getting there. Their habitat has been cleared considerably and have been hunted by foxes but have also been stricken with a disease that can kill them, chlamydia.

The Nobbies – Seals, fortunately was indoors. Unfortunately there wasn’t much too see. The seals were very far out on the rocks only visible through the built-in, 5$ cameras. Got a decent view of them through the camera though. Since it was raining the cameras were littered in water droplets blurring the view. Boo.

Penguin Parade, outdoors! Photography of any sort is not allowed. I wore my zing shirt for this occasion but couldn’t get a picture with them :(… So. Raining cold and windy, we trekked out onto the beach to await the penguins coming back to their burrows. After waiting a bit, they arrived at 5:58. The penguins here are the smallest species of penguins, the fairy penguins. A group: raft. When reaching the beach the penguins had to be in a big enough raft or they would return to the ocean and wait for more! Incredibly cute, hahah. Waddling and falling their way into the hills to find their burrows, which could be up to 1km into land. After enduring a couple of rafts landing and waddling home, we headed back into the building, spotting several penguins in the bush and running across the path even. Drivers were told to check under their vehicles before driving off, just in case. Good experience. Hurray Philips Island!

Had pizza with the group and home to rest. 7am tomorrow for the Great Ocean Road.


Wallaby!


Python!


A crazy mech sculpture on a Churchill Island Farm…


Sheep being round up by a dog

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Australia 2010: Day 09: May 03

06-May-10

Today: going to Melbourne. Having two choices, 6am or 1245, we chose 1245 for our flight so most of our day was spent in the Melbourne Domestic airport. Unlike Air Canada, we were able to check-in at the kiosk with just our reservation number. Easy stuff.

Blahblahblah, landed in Melbourne after a stop in Sydney, approx 5 hour flight in total. Took some time to find our shuttle, but finally reached Habitat HQ on St Kilda around….. 8 or 9?

Our first impression of Melbourne, very downtown Toronto-like! Built in a grid has a King and Queen street 😛 and streetcar/tram lanes running down the middle. Its a little bit more hill-y and has surf! We apparently didn’t stay in a busy part of the town though, limited choices of food close-by… Oh well.

Habitat HQ is like a hotel. Very clean and comfy beds. And a lot of rooms. Our room has a double as well as a bunk bed, could fit 4 people. Its a nice place, friendly people, and we just missed seeing a Joey (kangaroo) and a snake on their special monday night visit.

After some talking and a call to the Stand-Up Paddle Boarding, we decided to book two tours through Bunyip. The next two days, the only real days we have in Melbourne, are not viable days for stand-up paddling boarding unfortunately :(… So the two tours are: Penguin Parade Ultimate Tour and The Great Ocean Road! Good stuff.


Way out of Cairns


Way into Melbourne

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