Wine, Wildlife, and Robber's Remorse

I'm now in Aussieland for a bit and completed my Melbourne to Adelaide leg of my journeys complete. I've downgraded the amount and speed of my tourist activities and relaxing more in each location by gradually adding more time to stay in each place. So with a few days in Melbourne, I settled into my accomodation at St Arnauds Guest House which had a very 20's vibe with gramophone included and worked on my New Zealand blog post well into the night. There really aren't many activities of interest in Melbourne outside of walking around, taking the free shuttle bus, checking out the Queen Victoria Market, and the Botanic Gardens. The gardens were by far the biggest highlight with many varieties of flowers, but an amazing variety of birds with many types of calls permeating the garden atmosphere but my favorites were the big honking black swans:

With my camera filters freshly cleaned and after a 7-Eleven (!) supply stop, I picked up my tiny rental car (I got a free upgrade from the teeny car) on a Sunday afternoon, survived my exit route from Melbourne with the crazy left turning lane for a right turn because of massive tram traffic, and started my next road trip, Great Ocean Road to the Grampians (and eventually Adelaide).

I had many opportunities for snaps along the coastal journey, especially for cliffs and apostles (or the cutouts of land from gradual ocean wear and tear along the coastline in rocks with various levels of softness), but I only included my favorite snap from a stop at the Grotto. I stopped for a few nights in Apollo Bay to relax by the shore before continuing on for more sightseeing and a turn inland to the Grampians National Park. I also finished the book about whale hunting and swapped for the James Michener novel, Caravans.

Eventually it was just me on the road with a straight path in front of me while I kept scanning the radio for Triple J. Then out of nowhere, a mountain range pops into the horizon at an angle, maybe 75 degrees if you can imagine it. In this shot you can sorta see the angle of the rocks on the bottom right corner, but on a smaller scale, and you also see evidence of the small town of Halls Gap where I stayed in a really peaceful eco-hostel. There were lots of friendly blokes to chat with about hiking and wildlife adventures, but note that pretty much all of these blokes travel on their own without their wives for vacation, like extended vacations... strange? I thought so. But they were nice and gave good advice on sight-seeing (immense waterfalls), food (drover's poppyseed bread with quongdong/desert peach jam and cream), and culture (aboriginal koori center).

My time in the Grampians also provided me an immense moment of joy when I stopped (thank you very much) at this sign:

I stayed on the track to Adelaide, but made a stop in Robe for a night, which ended up being much more delightful than expected. The hostel was rated number 1 several years in a row for South Australia, and I found out why. The groundskeeper dude made me a fire in the library, yeah, that's right I said library, where I cosied up with my recently acquired book. I got to know my British roommate a bit, and she might be in the Montreal area while I'm there, and got some free beer from the German dudes who were staying for free at the hostel since they helped out around the place. I woke up early and ready for a long drive to Adelaide, which was pretty uneventful, but I had my first pastie (not the stripper clothing), pronounced PAH-stie not PAY-stie. It's taken me a while to get that down. But I've now had many opportunities to try this delectable treat, and its very similar to the veggie pies that I sampled in New Zealand.

Alright, I made it into Adelaide! Lots of time to check out this country city, finally get upclose to some wildlife (okay, so they were fairly tame), among many other events. But mostly I was thankful to see a familiar face on the opposite side of the planet while staying with H1N1 coworker, Lauren. I did some sightseeing on my own since Lauren works at the public hospital in downtown Adelaide, but we did get to have a day of wine awesomeness with four wineries and a good group of fellow travelers and our tour guide, Lucy. I wish that I could say that all of the wine was incredibly amazing, but I can't really remember much after the first stop, but I'm sure it was good. And of course it was beautiful scenery:

Barossa Valley. Gorgeous, isn't it? We also learned about the six S's of wine tasting, which I will someday remember, but there was one S that they left out, Sleepy.

I wandered around the city for a few days on my own and checked out the South Australian Museum, an art museum, and the botanic gardens (all free to the public):

Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoyed seeing fossils, whale bones, a fake squid, aboriginal art, Dutch art, among many other exhibits, but I think I'm happiest when I get my dose of Vitamin D, especially in the warm afternoons of Adelaide. Even indoors at the gardens were like standing in the sunshine. Really lovely. And I picked up more postcards, so once this blog is done, I might just send some more out!

I also took some time to get the local bus to the Adelaide Hills where the Cleland Wildlife Park is located.

Some pelicans with their creepy huge eyes staring back at me.

Emus that I enticed to come closer for photos by throwing some rabbit food in front of them.

And yes, kangaroos! Lots of them. And many different kinds. They are super cute and surprisingly interactive. Especially if you have food. But I didn't realized that this one was sticking its tongue out at me while I was taking photos. Sneaky roo!

One of the highlights was getting up close to Becky, a four year old koala (a teenager by comparison) who was rescued when her mum was killed by a car. She really doesn't see well, but has super sensitive hearing. So I would whisper to her that I was going to pet her, then pet her towards the back. She would freak out if I got too close to her head. And those claws are pretty intimidating.

So I was really happy with my adventures in Adelaide. Lauren and I also had a few nights out and a nice double date by the beach at Glenelg, but the most recent night out on the eve of my flight to Hobart (via Melbourne) included a shaggy haired dude taking my wallet, but then I'm guessing felt really guilty and decided to return it! I'm still having a hard time realizing that this happened and don't feel like reliving the details again, but I was smart enough not to take my passport out with me, and I definitely feel like I've been scared into being much more careful. Losing all of my money and access to it a few hours before my flight! Never again! I don't ever want to feel that panic again. Lesson learned! I'm soooo lucky!

So I don't want to think about that craziness anymore, but I would like to note that I also started reading Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and having not read the Jane Austen original and only seeing a few odd scenes of the one of movie versions, I'm getting the plot for the first time. But now I'm starting to worry about sea creatures that I might encounter when I snorkel and possibly dive off the coast of Cairns. I've been reassured many times that I'll be safe, but those sea monsters tend to come out of nowhere.

I think this posting has skipped over a lot of details and probably a lot of events, but my posts were destined to get shorter as I traveled. The tourism/traveling honeymoon is over. Sigh. But do not fret, I like Hobart very much and am taking my time to enjoy it. The details will come in a later post. I'm falling behind! my original posting schedule. Not taking notes is making posting more difficult, but I'll try to get back in the habit. In the meantime, I think this kangaroo gave me his version of the peace sign, so I'll follow his lead, and say peace out for now!