The flight was fine, a quick 4 hour flight. Nothing too eventful and I landed ahead of time at 7:45am local time. It took me what seemed like forever to get through customs, but once the Australian government decided that it was fine to let me into their country, it was out the door and looking for Nora. It was easy enough to find her with her awesome sign welcoming me to Melbourne with my name in BIG letters....embarrassing but effective! lol We grabbed a cup of coffee and a muffin for me since the breakfast on the plane was not great. Then we were on our way to Daylesford which was a little less then a two hour drive away from the airport. Daylesford is a quaint little town, farther inland in Victoria than Melbourne which is known for its bath houses and curing water. We explored the town center and walked around the small lake before going back to the straw batch (yes I stayed in a straw house, but it didn't blow down!) for lunch. After lunch, Nora surprised me with a appointment at a local bath house for a massage!! It was AMAZING!! THe bath house was really cool, in that area of Victoria there is natural mineral water spring, which is why there are so many bath houses in the area. In the eary 20th c. many people traveled to the area to "take the water" because people thought it had medicinal qualities. After that it was a lazy evening around the house and by 10pm jet lag hit me and I was off to bed.
The next morning we had another lazy morning before we got in the car and drove up to Melbourne. Nora took me around the city for the day and it felt like there was no more city to be seen by the time we were done at 4pm. Nora first took me by the river Yarra (which I couldn't decided why it was called a Riverara since we were no where close to a spanish speaking country...I then realized that I misheard the name), which reminded me SOOO much of the Charles. After a nice walk by the water we went up to the arts center of Melbourne, Federation Square. We wandered around the museum and saw some famous painting by local artists as well as some really interesting furniture. We had lunch in the very trendy lane ways. They were really cool, and I recommend to go and walk around them if you ever find yourself in Melbourne. They are all smaller lanes found behind the larger major city. What they were originally built for was sewage reasons--when bathrooms still needed to be emptied, the lane ways were there for the trucks to come down behind the stores and to empty the toilets. Now, with the wonderful invention of sewer systems, they are returaunts trendy smaller streets with millions of resturaunts and small shops. The city also made graffiti legal in these lane ways, now dubbed street art, so the walls are very interesting and you can always find something new because people are always painting over something else.
After lunch, I squeezed some shopping in....but it was only window shopping...I somehow managed to buy NOTHING!!! I was so proud of myself :-D Then we saw a few more sites...parliament and the greens, where all of the trees have possum guards. Then we went back down by the river and grabbed a little snack and sat by the river before getting back into the car up to Nora's house in the patch, a suburb of Melbourne about an hour outside the city up in the hills. It was a gorgeous spot. It's called the patch because that area of the hills had a large population of mountain ash trees. These trees are known to grow very tall with very few branches, so they were great for boat masts. So the area of the patch is the patch of mountain where most of the mountain ash trees were felled. When we got back to her house, I met Tony Nora's husband, who was making dinner. Another lazy night before I hit the sack around 11.
The next day was fun, Nora took me out to breakfast a little further up in the hills before taking me into the city to meet up with one of her son's friends. Talk about Australian hospitality! Nora had originally thought that Tony would be able to take me around Melbourne on Wednesday before I needed to grab my flight at 8:30pm. Well Tony had to go on a last minute business trip to Canberra and Sydney. So they called up on of her son's friends and asked if he could take me around the city on Wednesday. He was a very gracious host, and I got to see another part of the city I didn't get to see the day before. We walked around the Uni and saw the student area of Melbourne. Then we went to one of his favorite bars for some late lunch and some down time for a couple of hours before I needed to grab my flight to Sydney.
Melbourne was an awesome time and I can't thank my hosts enough for their wonderful hospitality. That is one of the things I will miss when I go back to the states. Everyone here is so laid back and SUPER nice and always willing to help...all very rare back in the states.
My plane to Sydney was delayed 45 minutes, and I landed in Sydney closer to 10:30. When I arrived at my hotel, I had to ring the doorbell to get let in. Then as I was walking in the girl behind the desk said, "good evening Marjorie" which kinda creaped me out, but she quickly explained that I was the last guest to check in for the evening, so that is how she knew it was me. I did splurge a little on my hotel and I was soooo glad I did. The hotel was pretty central in the city, and the room was really nice, though I didn't spend much time in it! However, when I finally got to sleep at 12:30 (there was a little bit of stress with my UVM course registration....my parents forgot to do it, but it all worked out in the end so no worries!) it seemed like no time at all when my alarm was going off again...or what I thought was my alarm. However, when I finally realized what was happening I realized that it was not my alarm but the hotel's fire alarm. It was 4:45am!! Well I got up and put on some cloths and evacuated the building like the nice man over the intercom asked me to do. By 5:15am we were let back into our rooms where I proceeded to turn off my alarm and go back to sleep. I woke up at 10am, grabbed some breakfast from the hotel and it was off to exploring Sydney. I spent most of my day in Days bay at the Wildlife conservation park and the aquarium. I got my picture taken with a koala and got to pet and feed a kangaroo at the wildlife park, and saw lots of other indigenous animals to Aussie (pronounced Osiee as I was taught).....but not platypus :-( Then I went over to the Aquaium...which was SOO crowded since it was Easter holiday and all the primary and secondary schools were out. After I had enough exploration of Days bay, I jumped on the monorail, since I was getting tired of walking, over to China town. Walked around the shops over there (again I didn't buy a thing!) I did end up finding a jewelry shop later in the day, which gave me an AMAZING deal on an opal, I got it down from $200 to AUS$120 which was only US$90....my first try at bartering...so I was proud of myself lol. But one of the places Nora told me I MUST see was the Chinese Gardens. I did and they were so nice. It was really interesting for me since I just took an Asian art history course last year and learned all about the symbolism behind different aspects of a Chinese garden, so I ended up wandering around and taking pictures there for about two hours. After that Tony gave me a call since he was in Sydney for business and we met up back at Days Bay. Initially, I thought we were just going to grab a drink since he had said that he had a client he was going to take out for dinner, but an hour or so after meeting him he told me that his dinner thing had fallen through and that he wanted to take me out to dinner. We went to this great thaicloser to our hotel (he was staying in the same place I was) where we ended up eating 1000 year old eggs!! They were very spicy and kind of blue, but I thought they were restaurant good. Tony thought they were a little spicy....which they were my lips were burning by the end of it. But hey! how many people can say they have had 1000 year old eggs. Dinner was awesome and it was so nice of Tony to meet up with me!
Friday was my last day in Sydney, and in the morning was the high light of my trip. I had a backstage tour of the Sydney opera house, which was absolutely amazing. We had to be there by 6:45am, so it was another early morning for me, but TOTALLY worth it. There were only 5 people on my tour (of which I was the youngest by at least 40 years) and our guide was super nice. I ended up asking enough technical questions, he ended up guessing that I must work in the theatre, to which I said that I was minoring in theatre back at school and that I did lights and stage management and so he ended up tailoring the tour for me so that I could see other parts of the theaters that people would not normally see! We got to see all of the booths and he explained all about the stage manager's booth (which was back stage in the wings...how nice!). We also got to stand on EVERY stage in the opera house, but I couldn't take many pictures inside because they had a ton of show up at the moment and the sets were copy written, so no pictures allowed. The tour lasted about an hour and a half and afterwards they gave us breakfast in the green room. All in all a great time, I was so happy that I did it...it was SOOO COOL! lol
I was done by about 10:00 and so hoped a ferry over to Manly beach...another must see on Nora's list of sights in Sydney. I spent most of the day over there, just walking around the town and exploring the beaches. I walked all the way down to shelly beach and out to the point where I took a few pictures of some surfers...I was so sad I didn't bring a bathing suit because it was wonderful weather the whole time I was in Australia, but sadly I could only dip my feet in. At 3:30 I hopped the ferry back to Sydney and took the long way back to my hotel. I walked down from the opera house through the Botanical gardens at dusk which was BEAUTIFUL until I got lost in the palm grove. You see it was about 5:00 and I needed to find the toilets....which happened to be in the palm grove. I thought nothing of the walk through the nice gardens until, for what ever reason, I decided to look up, when I realized that I was walking under about a bazillion fruit bats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After that discovery I proceeded to SPRINT to the lou and then SPRINT back out again. However the sprinting back out did not go as well as I had hoped and I got lost since I was so freaked out about the bats. I, thank god, was not the only one afraid of bats, and bonded with another lady trying to find her way out as well. Thankfully the bats only reside in that area of the gardens, something about the trees I guess. So once I was out the rest of my walk was very relaxing. I did take a few pictures of these bats in the trees, once I was a safe distance away...but it is hard to see the sheer number of bats that there actually were. So you are just going to have to trust me....there were A LOT!!! The other fun fact....is that since it was dusk....THEY WERE WAKING UP!!!! Non were flying yet, thank god!!!, but they were stretching and starting to squeak, and OHMYGOD are they HUGE!! But once I was out I walked down past St. Mary's cathedral (the patron saint of Sydney) and then back through Hyde park. Once I got back down to the city center I wandered around the Queen Victoria building for a little while and then decided that I was hungry and tired for a long day's walk, so I went back to the hotel and had some dinner there.
The next day was a travel day, flew out of Sydney at 10am (so I was at the airport by 8am...not as bad as the flight there lol) where I flew to Auckland where I had a 4 hour layover before getti deja ng into Welly again at 8:30. It was weird going through customs again in Auckland, I had major vou from when I first arrived in NZ back in Feb. However it was nice that this time I was only getting off a 5 hr flight, not a 13 hr flight! lol The layover was fine, but I did have to transfer my bags from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, which I didn't realize was a hike to get to. 2o minutes later I got to the domestic terminal where all I wanted to do was get rid of this heavy bag that I had just lugged the whole way over, but again the desks were closed until 6:15. So I grabbed some food and read my book.
I got back into Wellington without any problems and grabbed a cab back to my flat! Then I had a night layover here where I unpacked and repacked and ate some dinner before going to bed to grab my 8:30 ferry down to the south island!
'phew that took a while.....when you don't keep up with your travel blog daily I guess the posts get kinda long.....LIKE USUAL! If you have gotten to this point....thank you! I would have understood if you just blew it off half way through. But I am so glad I went and experienced more of life down under the whole trip was heaps and heaps of fun!! Photos and tales of the South Island trip to come later!
Cheers,
~Marjorie
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