Tell Me What You See, Part 3

   Sunday turned out to be an amazing day chock full of the things tourists to Australia want to see: koalas, roos, and lots of stars, and even glow worms!

   First were the koalas. Our destination was the Cape Otway Lightstation, which is the oldest existing lighthouse in mainland Oz. We'd been told to watch for koalas in the gum trees on the way there, and sure enough, we found them. The first one we saw was actually a mom and her joey!

   Although koalas can sleep up to 19 hours a day, this pair was awake and fairly active. Possibly because Aliya kept trying to get closer and they wanted to move further up, but I could be wrong...We spotted more than a dozen wild koalas, a definite highlight of the trip. Eventually, though, looking at fuzzy lumps high up in trees does get a bit tiresome, so we continued onward.
   There are a number of buildings at the Cape Otway Lightstation, such as a bunker used in WW2 and the Telegraph Station, which monitored communications over a submarine cable between the mainland and Tasmania.  

  The lighthouse was built in 1848 to mark the entrance to the Bass Straight. For immigrants arriving from England, this was often the first sighting of land after about 100 days of sailing. It also meant that Melbourne was just a day away.

Aboriginal building

   At the museum, a costumed character (playing the part of Mary Anne Ford, wife of the second Otway lightkeeper in the 1800's) showed the girls the routes ships took from England to Australia, and then from Australia to England.

   After a picnic lunch, which the girls enjoyed on the roof of the car, we headed back to Apollo Bay. Andy and Alanna wanted to go to the beach to play. It was a pretty cold and windy day, but they did have wetsuits. Because it was a fairly cool spring day, Gram, Aliya and I wisely decided to take a hike instead.

Mariners Lookout Walk  trail head

View of Apollo Bay from the top

Posing in town

Tough girl and sand castle creation

   After dinner, we still had another activity on our agenda: to see the glow worms! As we learned from our brochure from the information center, the glow worms are not actually worms, but larvae of fly-like insects called fungus gnats. Some great marketing people here, because which would you rather see, glow worms or fungus gnats?? Apparently they produce threads of sticky silk to ensnare prey, which are attracted by the glow. Another fun fact from the brochure: The adult fly has an uncontrollable light, with the female being brighter until fertilised. Enough said, I think!

   We drove east, then headed up a very dark side road into the forest. Andy put on his high-beams, because it was pitch black. Just a few clicks (kilometers) up the road we spotted our first kangaroo! We stopped immediately. He was startled, but not very scared. He bounded up the road away from us, then paused, then turned back towards us, passing us on the side. Unfortunately we couldn't find a camera in time, and it probably wouldn't have come out anyway, but we got a nice long look at him. Shortly afterwards another one ran in front of us. Thankfully we missed hitting him.

   We parked, grabbed our torches (aka flashlights) and headed for the embankment. We turned off the lights and there they were, tiny bits of glowing. Although the info sheet said they would switch off the lights if disturbed by loud noise or light, we wanted to see if we could see the actual fungus gnats, er, sorry, glow worms. We couldn't detect them with our torches. They are pretty small and must have been partially buried into the embankment or covered partially by leaves. So, we switched off our lights and were happy to see they hadn't switched off theirs.

   We headed out, hoping to see more roos, but no such luck. We did however stop on the way home to check out the stars. No words to describe the beautiful night sky. Far from Melbourne, far from any light pollution, there were more stars than we'd ever seen. We were able to find the most famous Aussie constellation, the Southern Cross. Truly gorgeous, and a great ending to a great Aussie day!

Tell Me What You See, Part 2

   On Saturday morning, we headed into the Great Otway National Park to visit the Otway Fly TreeTop Adventures. The plan was to simply do the Treetop Walk. My family had other ideas...

at Otway Fly TreeTop Adventures

As stated on the website, the walk is "a one hour rainforest walk experience that is approximately 2 km in total and features a 600 m long and 30 m high steel structure treetop canopy walkway that takes you right into the treetops. It's the longest and tallest walkway of its type in the world."

Prehistoric Path: "a dinosaur around every corner"

As "luck" would have it, there just happened to be five spots available in the 2:00 pm Zip Line Tour. Again quoting the website, it's a 2.5 hour zip line activity, with 8 cloud stations, 6 zip lines, and two suspension bridges. Heights are not my thing, so I was prepared to decline, but I caved into the intense family peer pressure. How could I chicken out if my mom and young daughters were doing it? I couldn't. We signed the five of us up, had lunch, and headed to our safety briefing. The instructors were very entertaining and reassuring, thankfully. 

Aliya and Gram went tandem. This was a mini practice run.

Alanna preparing to launch

Look ma, no hands!

Stuck! Needed to be pulled in.

Gram (if you look closely) and Aliya

Smiling faces (because it was fun, or because it was over??)

Definitely glad I did it. But as Andy pointed out, this certainly wasn't an ideal Alexi adventure. It was freezing cold and involved heights, whereas I much prefer warm, sea-level beaches...
If you have time, check out this video. Has some cool shots of Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road at the beginning, and then some promo stuff about the zip line.

Alanna Says:
"I liked when the walkway started swaying because I (tried), and this other guy we don't know shook it and it was fun. And I liked the zip line. That was the best. My favorite was the longest one:120 m, and 17 seconds. You could only see this secret valley from when you were on the zip line, not from either of the check-points. I kept getting stuck right at the very end though (4 times!) and it was really annoying when I got stuck on the last one because I wanted to do this trick called the Hoyck. It's where you lift your feet up, then put then down on the platform. And finally, I liked bouncing on the bridges. And it was cool when one of the assistants hung upside down and did some cool tricks. Mom wants me to put his name, so to tell you it's Tigger. Ciao!"

Tell Me What You See, Part 1

   No visit to Melbourne would be complete without a trip to the Queen Victoria market. Gram picked up lots of souvenirs for family back home, I got some footy socks for the girls (see below), and we did a lot of "window shopping." 

Shopping Queen Vic market

Friday was Footy Day at school. The kids were able to dress up in their favorite footy team colors. Alanna goes for the Collingwood Magpies, and Aliya goes for the Carlton Blues (gotta love the Penn State colors!)  Alanna got lots of comments on her mismatched shoes, and Aliya got a lot of laughs by wearing her socks on her headband.

Footy day at school

   Gram and I picked up the girls early from school. It was the last day of term 3, so they weren't going to miss too much. We picked up Andy in the city after his meeting, and headed for the Great Ocean Road. 

Scenic lookout

Split Point Lighthouse

Hoping to get this in Gram's local paper at home

Playground at Lorne, letting the kids stretch their legs

   We were fortunate to have the use of a friend's holiday house in Apollo Bay. The house was perfect for us. Four bedrooms, so we had plenty of space. Best of all, there were lots of toys for the kids and even Harry Potter books for Alanna to re-read when she finished the books she'd brought.

Front of house

Ocean views

Thanks Great Grandma Nalda, for the Halloween Oreos!

Gram and Alanna could be found here every evening

Andy and Aliya could be found playing with the boys' toys

Footy people, one for each of us. Name those teams for extra credit!

   Friday night we had a pizza party at the house, then relaxed while reading, playing, and watching the Magpies play the Hawthorn Hawks in the semi-final playoff game. I'm sure it was a more technical name. All I know is the winner goes to the Grand Final next week. It was an amazing game, with the Hawks ahead most of the game. By the end of the third quarter, they were ahead 17 points. In the fourth quarter though, Collingwood really turned it on, and although it was late, there was no way anyone was going to bed until the game was over. In the end, the Magpies managed a win, 68-65. Now, Collingwood's reputation is a lot like, say, the Oakland Raiders (same colors too) so most of us were cheering for the Hawks. Alanna was quite happy with the outcome though! 

Train Kept A-Rollin'

   Aliya's class is currently studying transportation. As part of that study, last week, Aliya and I and the rest of the Year 1 students at her school went to Puffing Billy, a century-old steam train that is still running on its original mountain track. It's also probably the only railroad where you can ride with your arms and legs outside the car:

No, our kids weren't allowed to ride like this!

Enjoying the ride

When the train reached Emerald Lake, we all disembarked. Feeding time at the zoo! The kids all enjoyed their picnic lunches, then we walked to a nearby playground to let them burn off some, well, steam!

How many kids can you fit on a merry-go-round?

Can you spot Aliya amongst all the Year 1's in this pic? Me neither.

   After playtime and a nice walk around the lake, we piled into the buses and headed home. 

   Pappy and Grandpa, there are worries that there won't be enough funding to keep this running, so you'd better come visit us soon!

Crying, Waiting, Hoping

   That's what we were doing Saturday morning: waiting at the airport for Gram to arrive, hoping she would come soon, and crying with happiness when our very first visitor arrived in Melbourne. 

  

   All in all, it wasn't too bad a trip for her. Long, to be sure, as travel time was almost 24 hours door to door. She had a pretty tight connection at LAX, and by the time she got to the international terminal it was less than an hour till departure, so they gave someone else her seat. She complained, as she'd paid extra to book her aisle seat, and thankfully they found her another one a few rows back. Five movies, a nap, a few meals, some trips around the cabin, next thing you know you're in Australia! Okay, a slight exaggeration, but it's doable people!

   She made it through immigration and customs, though the beagle did sniff out her bacon sandwich she'd forgotten about. The agent asked if she wanted it, but it was over a day old, so she tossed it. Probably a wise choice, although if she knew you can't get American-style crispy bacon here, she might have made a different decision! Thankfully, she made it through with five big boxes of z-bars, some real marshmallows, cans of green chilis, some Halloween oreos from Great Grandma Nalda and a few other food items.

   She also packed a few other goodies. I'd had some clothing shipped to her house from Kohls, so she had jeans for me, undies, and socks for the girls. Not to mention a new curling iron, oil of olay, breathe rights, Dramamine, and 87 books for the girls!! That should hold Alanna for a day or two.

New books, and Aliya's new obsession: basketball!

  

 After unpacking and eating lunch, we headed off to the park to get some fresh air and exercise. Aliya went to a "Come and Try" basketball day and loved it, so she was eager to shoot some hoops. Alanna was happy to do tricks on the monkey bars. We pointed out the magpies to Gram, giving them wide berth. We've been told they can be very aggressive in the spring, and will swoop at you if they think you're getting too close to their nest of babies. 

   Except for a trip with Andy to buy a basketball system, Aliya pretty much attached herself to Gram for the rest of the day. We made Gram stay up all day (tough love, but it's the best way to get over jet lag) and they both went to bed about 8:30. 

   The next day, today (Sunday here) we headed into town. Our destination was the Tutankhamun exhibit. We got off on a rough start though. When Aliya found out that her beloved Carlton footy team had lost the previous night in the quarter-final playoff round, she burst into tears! We were shocked at how upset she was. Loyal fan there, or at least we though, until she suggested that she'd pick a new team for next year! 

   We cheered her up, got to the local station, and as we were buying Gram's ticket, the train departed. First of three trains we just missed today. This was a bummer, especially as the next train wasn't for another 30 minutes. So we headed back home to get the water bottles we'd forgotten, and stopped for a strong flat white and hot chocolates for the girls. Back to the station, and caught the train.

Gram and Aliya on the train

    Finally starting to look like spring! It's hard to get used to the seasons being reversed, but needless to say we're really happy it's starting to warm up a bit. We headed to the Melbourne Museum.

Walking through Carlton Gardens 

We checked out a few exhibits, then headed downstairs for the IMAX (3rd largest in the world, so they say) 3-D movie, Egypt: Secret of the Mummies. We though this would help them better understand what they'd be seeing later in the King Tut exhibit. You can see the level of enthusiasm, a precursor of things to come:

Waiting for the movie to start

   Okay, that was just for fun. We pretty much had the theatre to ourselves, as you'll see in the next picture: 

Future's so bright, we gotta wear shades

   After the movie, we went to an outdoor play area to eat the lunch we'd brought. Not so much the girls, who'd filled up on Shapes (Aussie crackers, closest thing to goldfish) during the movie, so they just played tiggie (tag.)

   Then we headed to the exhibit. Our tickets were timed for a 1:30 entrance, and you only have a 30 minute window to enter. This prevents over-crowding at the most successful exhibition in Australian history, which had its 500,000th visitor last month. That's a huge number, especially considering Melbourne has a population of about four million. The kids were getting tired out though, and because it was thankfully not a busy day, they let us go in early.

   Kids enjoyed it at first, but quickly got bored, despite having the audio tour to listen too. Andy went through at a faster pace with the kids, letting Gram and I take a more leisurely tour. It's quite amazing to see artifacts that are 3000 years old, and the level of artistry was simply incredible. Couldn't take any pictures unfortunately, but there are some preview pics here. 

   All in all, a nice day, and it was wonderful to be able to share it with Gram. We're so glad she's here.