The Sites from Melbourne

We flew from Cairns to Melbourne. By this time we all getting a bit tired of being away from home. Melbourne was a nice city but nothing could compare to Sydney. There was lots of shopping available in Melbourne. Probably our two favorite stops were Target and BigW (like our Walmart). It was wonderful just to walk through the stores and see all the products.
Melbourne has a lot of parks, it was so nice to see the clean green grass and the large trees. It was spring in Melbourne so we were able to see some beautiful flowers in bloom. We visited Fitzroy Gardens which has Captain Hook's cottage and the Conservatory. The Conservatory had such beautiful flowers inside and out. That is one thing I miss most about living in the midwest of the US, the flowers. Captain Hook's cottage was not original to the area but was moved in 33, it was sold in a auction in England and each brick was numbered and the cottage was moved brick by brick and rebuilt where it stands today. The Garden was really large and the kids had a blast running in the grass and climbing the trees.
Our favorite thing we did was driving down to Phillip Island to see the fairy penguins come ashore at night. We left Melbourne around 2 pm for the 2 hour journey. The drive was really nice, it reminded me much of the rolling fields in Iowa and Wisconsin. Along the way we stopped at tourist wildlife park. It was expensive but we got to see baby kangaroos hop out of the pouch and back in. I told Ted that alone was worth the cost. We saw some albino kangaroos which evidently are very rare. We saw an older "joey" try to climb back in the pouch but he was a bit too big. We visited Panny's Chocolate Factory and tasted some of the best chocolate ever. Ironically enough the owner Panny is an Indian who moved to Australia 15 years ago. Our driver took us to an amazing look out of the coast. The coastline was so rugged with steep cliffs. There was a big sign telling of the dangers of fishing on the rocks, the water level can increase dramatically in a matter of minutes and a lot of lives have been lost. We then drove to the surfer's beach and watched kids try to ride the waves. The water was freezing! Finally we arrived at around 8 pm to wait for the "Penguin Parade" to begin. By around 8:30pm they started to come out of the water and make there way toward land and find a nest. I think probably 800 or so came ashore that night. We were able to walk on the boardwalk and see them very close up. They are the world's smallest penguin, some only reaching 12 inches tall. Visitors are no longer allowed to photograph the penguins so the photo below is not mine but from journals.worldnomads.com.