Tuesday morning Nick, Katie and I went and walked the city and used the free tourist shuttle bus to get around some parts of the city. The feel of this place is really nice, similar to Sydney with old and new buildings mixed together nicely and a very good transport system all over the ultra clean and tidy city. We saw the famous Flinders Street Station, St Pauls cathedral and got thrown out of the Art Gallery after walking in and through part of it when it was closed! The museum was pretty good too, and we blagged free entry using our YHA cards. I spent most of the time in the human body and mind sections, where there were several interesting experiments to play with and plenty to get the brain working.
In the evening we went along the road for a free comedy night as it was currently the comedy festival month. This turned out to be quite painful after we went into the main room once the compare had started and collared us to sit in the empty table near the front... this of course turned into our table being picked on quite a lot during the night, which I really couldn't be bothered with! It was also, 'young guns' night, and the first half was bloody aweful... with some really stunning 'tumble weed' moments. We decided to try and stick it out after getting a drink in the interval, in the hope that they would improve. The first guy out after the break started well but faded fast... luckily they had a really good guy on last of all, who brought the house down. Phew, not a complete waste of an evening, but it came close! After getting back to the hostel Nick and I played a few games of pool and had a few beers, which turned out to be funnier than the 'comedy' on offer before as we reminised about our old pal Boris from the road trip... heheh.
On Wednesday I went to Phillip Island with Katie on a day trip. We stopped off on the way to see some commercial looking animal park, which had a very cheesey 'have your picture taken with a koala' section with a painted wall behind this poor koala depicting the natural habitat it comes from. Both of us baulked at this and refused to take part. Luckily the park redeemed itself well with the excellent Koala and Kangaroo sections behind the main building. The animals here are hand reared and kept in very comfortable conditions. We got to walk amongst them and feed them by hand with seeds bought inside, which was great fun! The baby ones were really cute and at one point I had 4 eating from my hand at once, with the big one holding on tight to my hand with his big claws and carelessly biting into my hand in the rush to eat the seeds!
After this place we went on to the Island and walked around the scenic point where the seal colony lives, although they are on the rocks too far out to actually see them! Then we drove to the section of beach famous for the Penguins Parade, where hundreds of penguins come ashore on an average evening to climb the banks up to their nests. There was strictly no photography allowed here as the penguins are extremely nervous about this part of their day and the lenses can reflect and scare them off. We sat and watched sunset and waited for the little fellas to come out of the water, which they do after a few tests, popping in and out of the water to see if it is safe to make the run across the beach. Once a large enough group was ready, they went for it... all waddling along in unison towards us and past onto the hill side... very amusing and quite cute. The walk back up to the carpark allows you to see them stood chattering to each other outside their burrows on the hill too which is quite funny.
We got back late and I headed off to bed straight away as we were due to leave for Adelaide at 6am tomorrow...
Pictures over on photobucket...
