Hello from cold, windy Melbourne! We landed in Melbourne on Saturday and checked into a hostel in South Yarra. Met up with John there and we had a few quiet ones back in the hostel. We decided to up sticks and move closer into the city yesterday morning, so once we had found the trusty YHA and dumped our stuff, we spent the rest of the day doing the ‘culture vulture walking tour of Melbourne’. Strolled around the botanic gardens and went on the rickety ‘wheel of death’. We ended up at an aussie rules football game – interesting! Headed out last night in St. Kildas for a few. We had a good laugh and were home at a reasonable hour!

photo credit: MacJewell

Today we went on a day trip to Philip island where we saw the excellent penguin parade. After sunset, groups of cute little penguins come ashore and cross the beach to find their burrows up in the dunes. It’s amazing to watch. They just appear out of the ocean and form in groups of about 20 or so and waddle their way up the beach. They are pretty noisy little creatures too!

photo credit: hughiethethird

Aswell as the penguins, we stopped off at a wildlife park where we got to feed some pretty big kangaroos including a female with a joey in her pouch. Also saw cute little koalas sleeping in the trees, some wallabies and a tasmanian devil. We also went to the nobbies on Philip island, home to the seal rocks and also a few little penguins. It was pretty wild out there – the winter gear has finally come out! So it’s off to the great ocean road tommorrow…better bring the thermals!