Zippity Doo Da

On Saturday morning, we headed for the Otway Fly Tree Tops and our 10AM zip lining appointment. Molly was desperate to know if she could go by herself - so desperate, she wandered off and asked someone without asking Mike or me to do it for her. The answer was, unfortunately, no, which means we'll be doing this again in a few years! Molly rode tandem with me and the Mike/Charlie team was right behind us. Brave Daniel was the first in line and went solo the whole way.

7 zip lines, 8 cloud towers - ranging from 5 to 15 meters high, and two rope bridges, with the longest zip of 120 meters. It was a beautiful setting and the kids were very, very happy. They're busy drawing up plans for the zip lines at PopPop and Grandma's farm. Mike and I ziplined in Costa Rica 2 years ago and have to admit, this one was so safe, it was it a bit less thrilling!

It's taken me a while to write this edition, because I'm still not over the fact that the webpage and the check in people made it very clear that you couldn't take cameras. Of course, I assumed that meant that the guides would take them and then you'd have to pay for them at the end, which was exactly what did happen with the following twist...the guides didn't really want to be taking pictures and in the middle of the zipping through the rain forest (long after I've locked the camera in a locker) they said, "You could bring your own camera, we're not the fun police." Yep, that's what they said - I can hear it plain as day and feel the regret seeping through me again :-). Maybe a break from the camera was good for me. Maybe not. Anyway, we do have two prints from our trip that our guide Ticker took for us - we got two for the price of one because they're both blurry. They promised that we could download them after 48 hours, but so far, I've had no luck at all and am awaiting a reply from the administrators. I think I have a problem.

The day was young, so we headed for the nearby Triplet Falls in the Beech Forest. We've been very impressed at how willing to hike the Conlin troops are - less impressed at their ability to savor beautiful sights - I'm usually 20 meters behind because I stopped to take a picture and you can almost see in these pictures the lean in their bodies - "let's go, let's go, let's go". Ahh, the tradeoffs in life.




After Triplet, there was still daylight, so we hopped in the car and made our way to Hopetoun Falls. Like the other walks, we're completely alone on the hike. In this case, we climbed over the fence at the end of the lookout and get a closer look. Daniel is the leader and the other three are right behind these rule-breaking behaviours. Of course, someone has to take pictures...

Movin' Right Along in Search of Good Times

After the bird bonanza, we continued on our journey to Apollo Bay, Victoria along the Great Ocean Road. This is the first time we encountered signs like these, reminding us where to drive. Apparently, we're one of many tourists in these here parts.



We checked into the Infomation Center in Apollo Bay and learned that our most preferred hike to Marriners Falls that included "cross[ing] the creek via very large stepping stones" was closed due to weather. So, we settled for Shelly Beach that "[a]t low tide an alternate loop walk is accessed 400m west via rock platforms". Either way, slippery wet rocks were involved and this one had the element of wondering if the tide was coming in or out as we walked. 4/5 Conlins were completely unconcerned about any of these threatening options. The mom stands alone, but doesn't want to be thought of as a chicken. It isn't easy. Here's the first reassuring sign we came to near the water:
Along the way Daniel and Molly chanted "Adventure" and Charlie chanted "Attack". Uh huh, I'm just reporting the facts here.

Here's me looking nervous, right after I "made" Molly fall by reminding her to be careful. She tried to pull it together for the picture, but I guess the blood dripping from her scraped hand was a distraction. A bandaid from the camera bag cured it pretty quickly - although she was still blaming me...


I'm sure fun signs exist all over the world, but we're enjoying spotting them in Australia...

And reenacting them, when possible, in the rainforest. Mike says this is a Dickert picture, which I'm sure he means as the highest complement - are you with me Dickerts?! It is true that Holly Dickert once knocked over the Christmas tree and we reenacted it in pictures for years after that.




"Movin' right along, We've found a life on the highway." Kermit and Fozzie from 1979

Great Ocean Road

We busted out of the city on Friday morning and headed south west in Victoria to the Great Ocean Road. Along the way, we stopped at a town called Lorne and Charlie shared his croissant with a Cockatoo and Molly didn't.



They also tried the skate park without skateboards. It was all in good fun until the concrete ripped right through Molly's self proclaimed favorite pants. I'm talking gaping hole! Oops. I'm not sure Lands' End will replace them under these circumstances.

The guide book suggested stopping on the drive at a town called Kennett River to look for Koalas on the Grey River Road. I guess that's why we've lugged the Lonely Planet across the continents - we definitely saw koalas (Mike, the hunting dad, was best eyes).
AND, wow did we get our $2 worth of fun from the bird seed at the local Koala Cafe (the only business in town except for a caravan park). Mike and I both agree that this might be the thing the kids remember most from the whole trip. If you've ever paid the $1 at the Potter Park zoo for the bird seed on a stick - this is a whole other ball game!

Warning, if have have a "thing" about birds, you might want to spend your 30 seconds elsewhere...

Melbourne Day 2

Melbourne Day 2, Starring...

MOLLY!

CHARLIE!

AND ANIEL!

Destination: Royal Botanical Gardens

On the way, we went through Federation Square - full of these odd metallic buildings (and a few large alphabet letters).
This is the view of a bridge over the Yarra River along the way - maybe you can see the Conlins on the bridge?

On our city walk, we stopped by the Shrine of Remembrance near the Royal Botanical Gardens. There's a ceremony that they hold on the 11th of November to remember the World War I Veterans from the state of Victoria. Part of of it includes a ray of sunlight that goes from the top of the building over a stone on the floor in the middle of this building. They do a mini version of it on the hour that we all managed to stay mostly quiet throughout.

We went to the Botanical Gardens to see the statues of Bunyip Bluegum, Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff, the characters from "our" Magic Pudding book. Sadly for us, the children's garden is closed for the winter to let the plants recover from the other three seasons of attention. There they are in the background with some angry children in the foreground.

A final word on the Botanical Gardens and another aside: There is 4KM running/walking track around the Royal Botanical Gardens that I learned about from a guy on the bus beside me in Sydney on my way to the City To Surf. It's lit between 5:30 AM and 12 AM, but I only used it for a bit between 6:15 and 7 :-). Aside: on my way back from my run I passed by the Rod Laver Stadium, which was advertising the upcoming concerts in this order: Dolly Parton, Placido Domingo, DefLeppard and Motley Crue. It made me smile on my way home along the river.

I got the afternoon off (or on) to give my own talk. Mike had take away pad thai waiting for me when I got home. Yummy! The night before the kids and I foraged for food on our cute little street, Flinders Lane, in Melbourne. We came across a waffle place with a very friendly, French accented owner. After deciding on the family pack of waffles made with Belgian sugar, the secret ingredient, and expressing his hope that Obama will be the next president, he wrote down on a piece of paper where we should go to be sure to see kangaroos on our next part of the trip..."Anglesea golf course". What is it exactly with kangaroos and golf courses?

Melbourne

Walking in the big city - watch your tyres when parking near the kerb!


We spent much of the day in the Melbourne museum or riding the free tourism transportation: bus and tram. In the Melbourne exhibit of the museum we met Phar Lap, a horse whose claim to fame I couldn't quite figure out, and the Big Dipper, a roller coaster from the St. Kilda's Luna Park. I took this photo for Robin, my card carrying roller coaster club cousin, since we disappointed her by not going to the actual park... The coaster cars reminded me of the ones at Idlewild in Ligonier or the Blue Streak at Conneaut Lake. We also learned that Molly is about three wombats tall.



Here's the Australian coat of arms/some official symbol of the country.

Mike gave a talk at Deakin University in the afternoon, so the kids and I went to the Italian district and had hamburgers at a place, we later learned is a chain, called Grill'd. Yeah, I know, I
just cannot bring myself to pay the prices listed for Italian food. As a bonus, we learned some new Aussie words for red heads!


Then, back to the museum, via the playground. Spending a day in a city with kids is challenging, or maybe just not my taste.

Daniel stuck, a la Pooh Bear, in the playground wall. Too many chips with his burger!

We rode all the free public transportation - a tourism bus and the Melbourne City trams - not the fastest way to travel, but we got where we were going (Steven and Jen, this is the place with all the weird driving turns to accommodate the trams).

Travel Tuesday

Penneshaw Penguin Sign

Pack up and load back on the Spirit of Kangaroo to return to the mainland. From there, we had about an hour and a half drive to Adelaide and a few hours to spare before our flight out. The guidebook said there was fun tour of a Chocolate company, but bookings were essential. Our timing was too iffy to actually book, so we just drove straight there and arrived at 12:59, hoping to get into the 1PM tour. We found the place, and the guide assured us that bookings were indeed essential, BUT a party of 4 who did book hadn't arrived yet and we could have their spot if if they didn't show in the next 30 seconds AND a kid sat on someone's lap. Done deal! We're in! That was our lunch - fistfuls of chocolate and a very entertaining tour! Very filling. We got some factory seconds for the road, don't forget dessert.

Flinders Chase National Park

We heard stories about Kangaroo Island of having to fend off over-aggressive kangaroos. Without that experience so far, I walked into the Flinders Chase National Park Information Center and asked where we could maximize our chances of seeing wildlife. The patient national parks worker behind the desk sighed and explained that since they began discouraging persons from feeding the roos, those days are over and we shouldn’t expect to see anything, except some funky geese on our hikes. We headed out for Platypus Waterhole without much hope and some whining from the boy-who-reopens-skinned-knee-scabs-weekly in whatever parking lot is available.

Funky geese abounded and we also laid eyes on a wallaby, mamma and young kangaroo and another wallaby. Success by all measures. Maybe you can just make out the wallaby behind the kids (between Molly and Charlie, really) in this photo? The photographer couldn’t quite get the camera to focus on the back- and foreground.

Next up, the Cape du Couedic in the Park at the far south west corner of the island. I’m sorry to say we couldn’t capture the vastness or the beauty of it in photos. You walk down the boardwalk, turn and keep going down.

To your right, the New Zealand Fur Seals are perched on the rocks

and to your left is Admiral Arch:

Daniel, our faithful sign reader, tells us one day this will collapse and fall into the ocean as an island – not one day soon though.

We decided to brave the Weirs Cove Hike from the lighthouse to the house where the three lightkeepers lived (all together with their families in one little house). Our braveness didn’t come from the part of the map labeled “Cliff edge”, but rather whether the kids would drive us crazy. Not too far into the walk, Mike ran ahead, ducked behind one of the large shrubs and scared all three kids by jumping out of them. Thus ensued more than 1 hour and 3 kilometers of the three of them running ahead, “hiding” and jumping out at us yelling “BOO!” It was one of our best hikes yet and once more we were grateful it is winter and the national park is not very populated.

Is it true they cannot see you if you cannot see them?

The parting words from the pessimistic park ranger behind the desk in the morning were to try the Hanson Bay Sanctuary if we wanted to be guaranteed to see wildlife. So, about 4PM, we pulled into the parking lot of Hansons, deposited our $2.50/person on the honor system (many people don’t, so we were told, who would believe the economists would miss a chance to free ride?).

Many animals were moved to Kangaroo Island to help prevent their decline on the mainland. Koalas are one of them and did so well on the Island their numbers grew to 30,000 and the eucalyptus trees they feast on for the 4 hours per day they’re awake started to suffer. So, they took steps to make sure that fewer baby koalas are born and the population has shrunk back to 14,000. Anyway, the sanctuary is a place where you can be sure that you can see some of those flourishing animals and suffering trees. We counted 8 or 9 koalas. Even though it was still daytime when koalas are almost always sleeping, Molly spotted one that we all saw take up a new spot to snooze and heard make some loud grunting noises. Mike spotted this one that jumped from one branch to another.

Can you see it?!

Another rainbow on the way home to dinner followed by a dessert that included two, count them, two cookies each – life is good.