Cradle Mountain Photos

2/22/15 Adelaide

We had a good last night in Melbourne.  We went to a restaurant in China Town and then walked around with several hundred thousand of our friends (it was sooooo crowded with people just milling around the closed-off streets) to enjoy White Night.  There were a multitude of venues for film, bands, the symphony (which we were going to attend, but as we had had a thundershower, we decided to skip so as to not sit in the wet grass) and light shows.  The highlight for me was the huge display of giant lotus flowers on the river - magnificent (see pic).  There were fireworks later on, but we were at the hotel and in bed so could only hear them.  Apparently, the festival went on all night as one of our group met someone as she was going to breakfast and that someone was just coming back to the hotel from the festival at 7 AM!

This morning we got on a plane to Adelaide (a smaller city of 1.3 million with the feel of a large town as it is surrounded by green spaces and parks).   I sat next to a young lady, Dominique, who was a PR person for Haigh's Chocolates - we hope to go on a factory tour in Adelaide.  Her father owns a vineyard and produces three local labeled wines.  We were driven straight to Cleland Wildlife Park in time for lunch in their cafe and then we were free to roam the grounds and get up close and personal with the kangaroos, including one with a joey in the pouch.  We also saw echidnas (spiny anteaters), potoroos (small marsupials), wallabies, wombats, a Tasmanian devil, koalas, dingos, kookaburras, and rainbow lorikeets.  It was an excellent day!  We had a city tour on the way back to our hotel, which is right in the city, but next door to the red light district.  The view from our room is the rear entrance to a gent's club and a peep show.  We had time for a wash up and a change of clothes and then went to our home hosted dinner.  Our hosts were Rosie and Dave who live in an 1880 slate house.  It was quite lovely and so were our hosts.  Dave had been an accountant and then they ran a cafe in a technology park.  Rosie later worked in a book shop.  They have two children and five grandchildren.  Their daughter lives in Sydney and their son teaches at an English language school in Thailand.  We had a lovely time.  The temperature today was 110, but it was a dry heat and not too bad.  It did stay hot in the evening so I was glad that we had dinner in their air conditioned house instead of on the patio.

The internet here is very slow so I may have to wait until later to post the pictures for the day.

Koala, Emu, and Kangaroo pics

2/21/15. Koalas and Kangaroos

Today we took a bus ride about an hour from the city to see some wildlife.  We first went to You Yangs Regional Park to see koalas.  We saw two young females, Elizabeth and Aris, and an older dominant male named Anzac.  The were all just hanging out in the crotches of eucalyptus trees - very cute.  We helped to get rid of an invasive of this area by pulling up bone seed.  We also saw some galah parrots, gray and pink.  We climbed up Big Rock, a sacred place to the local aboriginal peoples, to see the water depressions carved into the granite.  We had a lovely lunch of sandwiches, cookies, fruit, and bush tea (flavored with lemon grass) before moving on to Serendip to see the emus and kangaroos.  These were the grey Roos who get about six to seven feet tall.  We saw males, females (including a pregnant one) and a Joey out of the pouch.  Although it was hot, in the nineties, no one was complaining as it was so wonderful to see everything out in the wild.  We had a great local guide, Sam, who was knowledgeable and articulate.  All in all, it was a spectacular day!  We are feet up now and were slated to go to an open air concert tonight, but it is pouring just now so the plan may change.

2/20/15 Melbourne photos

2/20/15. Melbourne

We had a wonderful and long day today.  The weather was in the 80's, but with a lovely breeze.  We started off with a bus tour of the city after breakfast.  We drove by all of the sports stadiums - cricket, soccer, football, and tennis.  The were all huge stadiums and apparently fill up when the matches are on.  We went to the Old Melbourne Gaol and were given a private tour.  We learned the story of Melbourne's famous outlaw (bushranger), Ned Kelly.  He and his gang (think Billy the Kid) heard that the police were closing in on them and built body armor out of plows.  When the confrontation was over, Ned had 29 bullets in his arms and legs, but was alive.  He was taken to the Melbourne jail where he was hung at the age of 25.  The gaol was built by Scottish stone masons and when they finished, they were commissioned to build Melbourne University nearby.  The hours were long and the work hard so they eventually went on strike.  Their mantra was 888 - 8 hours of work, 8 hours of recreation, and 8 hours of rest.  Their wishes were granted and that began the 8 hour work day.  The idea spread throughout Australia and then around the world - the year was 1856!  There is a monument to this effort outside the gaol and I will try to put a pic on the blog.  We stopped at St. Patrick's Cathedral, but couldn't go in as there was a private Mass going on. We then took a stroll through Fitzroy Gardens and saw Cook's Cottage, Captain Cook's childhood home that was brought over from England and rebuilt here.  We visited the Shrine of Remberance - dedicated to the soldiers of WWI and finally took a lovely walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens, where we had lunch in a cafe by the lake.  We saw a black swan there (we saw many of them on Tasmania also) and a number of moorhens.  The flowers and trees were lovely and we soaked up the atmosphere as we know we won't see the same at home for a long time.  We went back to the hotel for a short "feet up" and then went down to the beach for dinner.  There were a large number of kite surfers at the beach - great fun to watch.  After dinner we walked down a long pier to see the sunset and watch the little penguins come back to the rocks to their nests.  They are very small and quite cute.  We didn't get back to the hotel until after 10.  I will try to put pics on separately.

2/19/15. Melbourne photos

Louise took us through a long alley in the city where graffiti is allowed by the local government.   Many of the pieces were quite good.  The first picture shows the artist at work.  I don't know what happened to the third pic, but I think you can get a feel for the alley by looking at the photos that did come through.