Melbourne: Fitzroy

By the way, if you can find me this shochu (the last one listed, the Kawagoe), you will win a prize (sorry for the slant):* EDITED: NEVER MIND, I FOUND IT! EDITED: Never mind, they only ship to Japan.

The next morning we were kind of lazy and meandered out of the hotel intending to go to the Fitzroy neighborhood. One of the guys on the wine tour had mentioned it, and it sounded cool.

It really was. It was like a terrific combination of Brooklyn, Hoboken, and SE Portland, with even more stuff. Very vibrant and reasonable and the people were awesome. I liked it a lot, more than Justin, I think, though he could have just been tired.

Fitzroy and surrounds:

(Heh, we had to take this.)

 Cute stationary shop:

We actually spent a lot of time in the city in the areas to get free wifi. It wasn't always the greatest.

Generally, we had good weather in Melbourne. It was a little cloudy the day we did our wine tour, but that worked out well because we spent a lot of time inside anyway. On the walk back, the clouds moved in. The wind picked up. It was that delicious time before a big-ass rainstorm. We tried to outwalk it and almost made it! We were about four blocks from our hotel before the clouds turned into a deluge. I started filming. I would advise you put it on mute because I hate that I sound like an obnoxious asshole in this video and I hate my voice, but here you go:

It was time to call it a night and get packed for Hobart!

Melbourne: Free Day

The next day we strolled all over the fucking place. Remember when I mentioned that what I love to do is meander around cities with kind of a destination in mind, and it's usually far enough away to have people blanch and say "You're walking all THAT way?" Well, yes. And I would run all that way too if I did any significant running on this vacation (which I did not).

So we started out downtown, checking out some of Melbourne's street art and laneways. I really liked Melbourne. It's the NYC to Sydney's LA.

Crocheted tree cozies. They get cold!

This is not street art, but I LOVE the crosswalk signs in Australia. LOVE. It's sort of Monopoly guy meets safety.

I took this one for my Facebook profile pic. But that means I'd have to get rid of the cat photo I currently have and I'm not sure I can bear to do that...

Me and my dental work:

We walked to the South Melbourne market and I saw this and thought Portland could use it, too:

After the market, we walked to Phillip Bay and St. Kilda. It was maybe about a three mile walk the way we did it. Gorgeous day. Abundant sun. Happy-making. Saw some beautiful houses. They love their lacy iron work.

Once we got to Phillip Bay, we spent a lot of time watching a fisherman reel in his line but not catching anything. It was boring but we were on vacation so who cares? No photos of that, but here is the coastline and Justin. In shorts.

Then we walked to the St. Kilda neighborhood and found a place for a reasonable lunch (I can't remember the name, but they had lots of pizzas--some even gf!--and salads. On a side note, I was impressed by how gluten-considerate they were throughout everywhere we went in Oz...even the places you wouldn't expect!).

We caught the streetcar for a few stops back into town and disembarked at the Shrine of Remembrance. They like their war memorials in Australia, and this one is pretty damn striking and worth a visit.

Parts of the inside are very Indiana Jones:

Obligatory self-portrait:

That evening, we went for a swim at the hotel and had a late dinner at a trendy izakaya that was so not worth it but it was a terrific time. Really, a delicious, lovely, fantastic day. I heart Melbourne for allowing us to have this.

Last free day in Melbourne coming up!

Melbourne: And then there was wine

We got back late from the penguins but couldn't sleep in. We were off on a wine-tasting tour.

This time, it was thankfully a small group - I think there were about 12 of us? That was even a little more people than I wanted--I get irritated seeing a bus roll up to one of my favorite wineries here in Portland, but this was 1) smaller and 2) very well-coordinated.

Plus, we couldn't afford a private tour. We had to parcel out our ducats, you know? And I thought our guide and driver (the same person) did a good job. No one was really annoying. Plus, there was wine, and there would be food, we had water, and we weren't driving, so who cares?

There were a few pickup points. We got picked up at a 7-11 where I marveled once again at the potato chip (sorry, crisp) flavors we might have had to endure if we didn't win our independence lo those many years ago:

Gross.

Anyway, after about an hour on the bus we ended up at our first winery: We visited Yering Station, Balgownie Estate, Yering Farm, and Domaine Chandon. I think my favorite was Yering, but they were nicest at Balgownie. Balgownie is where we had lunch, too, and it was delicious. 

If you can find me this shiraz at a better price than AUD$60 I will love you if not forever then at least for the time being:

Balgownie also had the best views IMHO.

At Chandon:

Panoramics:

The next two days were free to explore Melbourne, and yay for that!

Melbourne and the Little Penguins

Okay, so where was I? Oh yes. Time to go to Melbourne. I was immensely pleased, because we fled Sydney in overcast, rainy skies, and when we arrived in Melbourne, the sun shone brightly, every so often peeking through children's book clouds. In other words: Happy.

Along the Yarra River in an area of town called Southbank:

Also: Hungry. It was lunchtime, and we meandered hurriedly around the streets and laneways of Melbourne looking for lunch that wasn't a mullion dollars. Flinders Lane granted us a terrific little sandwich shop with a brick-size (but not consistency) frittata for me. Satiated, we grabbed some stuff to bring along for dinner (where we discovered the best ginger ever but I'll get to that later if I remember) made our way back to the hotel in time for the Philip Island penguin tour.

In case it's not already evident, I'm not a fan of group tours. Especially large ones. But you make some concessions, and it was the only way we were going to get to see the little penguins. (Which used to be called "fairy" penguins, due to their size, but certain groups got up in arms (flippers?) and the renamed the penguins. Which is silly, really. The penguins are not gay (as I'll get to in a sec), they are SMALL. As are fairies. But whatever. It is fun to say "little penguins," especially when you enunciate the t.)

So we were told we were going to be in a group of no more than 20.

Well, this Gray Line bus shows up, and we are one of the first people on it, and we think to ourselves. Hmm, a big-ass bus for 20something people? Okay, whatever.

Except that it fills up. With 50 60 -and 70-something people. Look, I don't mean to be ageist but you expect one thing and get another. And (as we will also see later) I have nothing against your age, but must you really fit the stereotype of east coast American retired cruise ship passenger? Ugh. Yeah. We're getting a refund for that part of the trip.

But all (okay, most) was forgotten after the 2+ hour ride (I know) to see the little penguins. You have to skip over the cheesy stuff like the terrible snack bar and the gift shop (okay, we bought a blanket but only because we were freezing! we neglected the fact that we would be watching penguins come in after a day ON THE WINDY FREEZING OCEAN BEACH IN THE DARK) and the area where you can get your photo taken on a green screen and then get penguins photoshopped onto it...but it's worth it. No photos are allowed. Initially it was no flash photography was allowed but some dumb-ass cruise ship passengers who don't know how to use their cameras probably ruined it for everyone.

Here's some of the landscape before dark.

Oh, heh. This was on the way out of Melbourne. We saw a PANTHA! (Or at least the sign for a PANTHA.)

Philip Island. This was a ways out. I kind of wish we had rented a car and driven there on our own. So much to see and it was just stunning. We also could have spent more time watching the penguins if we did our own thing. But whatev. Over it.

Sun beginning to set. I was starting to feel pretty close to the bottom of the world. It was beginning to feel a little exotic, despite the proliferation of polyester.

 I obviously have no photos of the penguins.

We were able to sit in a separate area (with less than 100 people instead of the 300+) and learn about the penguins from the ranger assigned to our group (whose name was RICK, by the way. We had Ranger Rick! Justin couldn't stop laughing).

Despite the bus and the relative lack of time spent with the actual penguins, I have to say this was one of the highlights of the trip. There is a REASON this place gets 3+million visitors a year.

It's because the penguins are amazing.

We had a pretty clear night, which means 1) cold and 2) the penguins come into the beach a little later, since they do so under the cover of dark (yay, I finally was able to use that phrase). The penguins spend all day in the ocean, and they come in at night with food to feed their babies and to get some sleep in their burrows further up the dunes.

When you consider their size, and the distance involved, it's like they run an ultramarathon. Every day.

So you spend a lot of time at first watching the beach and thinking you see something. Especially because it was low tide, every glimmer of moonlight on a rock makes you think it's a penguin. But it's not.

And then...

And then little flecks and shimmers start moving. And you realize it's not the shells. They are little creatures, coming up in groups of 10, 20, 50. They are TINY. Maybe a foot tall. And they wobble. And they're calling to each other. Babies in the burrows call to their moms. Penguins call to each other abut their day. We even saw two penguins have sex under the boardwalk.

Seriously.

And then they really start to emerge. Hundreds of tiny (excuse me, LITTLE) penguins all hippedy hopping over the beach and up the sand to the dunes. EN MASSE.

It paralyzes you with the cute. It makes you wondrous. It made both Justin and I cry with happiness. It was an enchanting spectacle.

So the next day, we drank.

Oz, some

Oh, God. Has it really been close to 2 years since I posted here? That goes to show you how long we were saving up for the trip we just finished: THREE WEEKS IN AUSTRALIA. And how long we'll be saving up after it's done: THANKS, EXCHANGE RATE.

Of course we didn't see as much as we (okay, me) wanted--it's a continent, people! You don't go to the US and see each city and region! You focus on certain areas. So that's what we did: Sydney, Melbourne (pronounced something like "Mel-bin," by the way), and Tasmania (Hobart and surrounds & Launceston and surrounds).

Test post to make sure this works. Kind of dreading covering three weeks with the trickiness of posting photos (probably for no one else who uses blogger but for some reason I'm a mess when it comes to photos. and of course photos is what people want to see).

So: Testing, with a photo of us on the outbound flight.