The Great Ocean Road and Phillip Island

Ryan and I went on vacation this weekend! We took a bus tour along the Great Ocean Road - a highway that stretches from Melbourne to Adelaide built by government employed WWI veterans. We didn't drive the entire stretch of the road, but we covered a good portion of it. We drove about 200km, stopping literally every 20 minutes to see the beaches from a new and different angle. Here is a photo of the 12 Apostles, which is the sightseeing highlight from Day 1:

We were traveling with a pretty eclectic group of primarily Asian tourists and all spent the night together in a house out in Apollo Bay. While trying to entertain ourselves, Ryan challenged a 10 year-old Polish kid to a dance off. He definitely lost:


The second day we went on a nature hike, for which one of the Asian girls refused to get off the bus. Here are some trees:

Then we went and saw some koalas in the wild which wasn't too exciting since they just sleep high up in trees. Here's Ryan being a Koala:

While looking at Koalas, a lot of people started feeding parrots as well. I avoided this due to my averseness to bird poop.


Then my camera died (of course) so I have no photos of us feeding/petting the kangaroos at the petting zoo. We also saw some dingoes, emus, tasmanian devils, and a wombat. Here's a pretty long video of some of the video highlights from the trip:

After that, my video camera died and we saw a lot more kangaroos at the zoo, some wild wallabies, and the penguins coming in at Phillip Island.

When the penguins get in to shore at dusk on Phillip Island, they waddle up to find their little holes they live in and swap places with their mates who are sitting on the eggs and keeping them warm. The penguins have to eat half their weight in fish to stay alive, so they spend entire days at a time fishing. While looking for their homes, they call out to their mates who call back to them and they keep making noise until they waddle into each other. It was pretty adorable. It puts Maura and my penguin documentary to shame.

Overall, the vacation was really nice but incredibly exhausting. Running around trying to see everything on the Great Ocean Road and Phillip Island in two days is tough. Especially when you are getting woken up before sunrise to go see koalas. Definitely worth it, but it's nice to be back home where we're allowed to sleep for more than four hours at a time. I also finally reached my goal of seeing a kangaroo/wallaby in the wild!!

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

Last Tuesday night, Ryan and I took the train from Lilydale (15 minutes from where we live) into Melbourne to go see Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros at the Forum in Melbourne. I had been looking forward to this concert since before arriving in Australia - my ticket had been folded in my wallet since December. Ryan and I made some German-inspired cocktails for the train ride: chilled white wine and sparkling water since it was so hot out. After arriving in Melbourne, we were en route to the Forum when we met a fellow american: Dallas, from Tennessee. Dallas was also going to the concert, but didn't have any friends with him (I would have been doing the same thing if Ryan hadn't bought a ticket the day before), so we incorporated him into our posse and had a great time hanging out with him all night. Here's a video of the beginning of the concert:

Afterwards, we went down the street to get some beers under the assumption that trains back to Lilydale run late. We were totally wrong. We drunkenly arrived at the train station around 2am and were confused by the janitors everywhere cleaning things. We also couldn't physically get to any trains because there were metal gates blocking off access to the train platforms. And there weren't actually any trains at the station.

So, Ryan and I went outside and immediately hailed a cab. We told the driver we needed to get to Lilydale (about an hour away from Melbourne) and he said it would cost us $100 up-front. I asked if he would do it for $60 and he agreed since he was heading out that way anyway. I took a nice nap in the back of the cab and then Ryan - who was sober at this point - drove us home from Lilydale: getting a crash-course in driving on the wrong side of the road.

I got in bed around 5:15 am. Ryan and I had an amazing night, the concert was one of the best I've ever been to, and we got to hang out with Dallas.

We miss Dallas.

Puppy Mall Day

Ryan and I went to the Eastlands Shopping Center to look for his cell phone. Here are some video high-lights.




Note how the Chocolate Lab puppy kind of looks like "Bitch Stewie" from Family Guy.

PS. Ryan's here so I have someone to hang out with!!