'Bourne Again

Many people have declared me insane, undertaking a trip like this. I have to say, so far I think I was right in doing this. Sure, I have had some interesting experiences I wouldn't necessarily describe as pleasant. Sure, I'm spending a lot of money doing this, no matter how "Dutch" I try to be. Sure, I have no idea what "adventures" Africa has in store for me. But, now that my trip is halfway over (more than that, actually... hard to believe!), I know that, well, I'm getting more out of this than I had ever imagined. Seeing some of the most beautiful places in the world, learning something new every day, about myself, about people in general, and cultures, and meeting some of the most interesting people. Including someone way more "insane" than me, a guy from London I met yesterday who is actually doing the same thing I am, only for a full year. Insanity is relative.

Friday morning, Nadine and Anthony went to the airport for their weekend at the Gold Coast. It felt a little strange staying at their place without them, but in all fairness, I appreciated the opportunity to go back to sleep. I pretty much spent the day lulling about, and biking into town (Albury) one last time (picture above left), snapping some pictures. Biking on the left side of the road was a new experience, but it all was fairly straightforward, really. In the evening, I hitched a ride to Melbourne with one of Anthony's colleagues, Steve, who is actually from New Zealand, and we had a fun time on the ride down (and one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen, or at least, while driving! See picture above to the right). I got to Melbourne late, started to plan my next day in town, and then hit the sack.

I felt well-rested enough that I wanted to spend the next day walking around Melbourne for as long as I could. Which turned out to be quite long; I didn't return 'home' until about 1 in the morning... I first walked over to the sports district. Melbournians (Melbourners? Melbournites?) are sports crazy, even more than Australians in general! The most popular sports are Aussie Rules (sort of a cross-over between rugby and soccer, simply put) and cricket, but also rugby itself (two completely different kinds!) and swimming are popular (later this month the world championships are held here, with our own Pieter v/d Hoogenband one of the contenders, especially with the "Thorpedo" gone). The sports district for me, however, was primarily about Rod Laver Arena, where every year in January the Australian Open tennis championships are held (picture right). Sadly, the Arena itself was closed for volunteer training, but I still got to peek into court one and tred onto courts 5 and 7, where many local youths were practicing games. Also in the same area are the giant Melbourne Cricket Ground (where also many of the Aussie Rules games are held), the Vodaphone Arena, and the Olympic Stadium (where the Melbourne Victory soccer team plays). Unfortunately, there are no Aussie Rules games in town while I am here, but I saw some of it on TV the other day, and it's not like I'd understand the rules any time soon (they seem to fumble the ball a lot!).
After all this, I stayed on the southbanks of the Yarra river, and strolled along St. Kilda Rd, and the botanical gardens. Some readers of my blog may be surprised how many gardens I've gone to see in Japan and China and Australia, and perhaps I myself am most surprised, seeing as this was never something I was too interested in or particularly cared about before. But I've found that the tranquility of a beautiful garden is a great remedy for tired feet on a long day of walking, and the scents and sights of these gardens are much more beautiful when you actually look up and around. That's something I'm finding out in general, not just about gardens or parks: I love natural beauties. Whether it be a gorgeous soft beach or a rocky one, a beautiful sunset or randomly dispersed wildflowers, kangaroos or wombats, these are some of my favorite things. As I'm sure you can tell by the many pictures of all of the above.

I lunched at the Crown casino complex, which was once (briefly) the largest casino in the world, or so I'm told. After lunch I crossed the river and hit the downtown area. The architecture is quite magnificent and tremendously diverse. On my photo site I tried to capture the beauty of this city in its diversity (two examples right, and left above). There have traditionally been many quarrels between the peoples of Sydney and Melbourne. My objective touristy point of view is that Sydney is more obvious in its beauty, and therefore probably more accessible to passing tourists such as myself. But at the same time I think that Melbourne does have a lot going for it, it's just more subtle and requires perhaps a longer stay. Throw in the climate which is nicer (cooler) in Melbourne and I think this would make a great town to live in.

For dinner I went into the newer area of the Docklands, and I picked just about the best place I could have picked; a restaurant called Meccah Bah, where they served me some of the most amazing Turkish / Middle Eastern food I have ever had! OK, I drank an Australian beer with it, but still... Just in time for the sunset over the harbor (picture above left), I took off to go to Rialto Towers, which is the tallest building in Melbourne, but really it didn't seem all that high; the observation deck is at the 55th floor. In any case, I managed to catch the tail-end of the sunset, and am glad I did, the sight was truly magnificent and awe-inspiring (picture right). People were actually still talking about that sunset the next day, including some true Melbournians I met, saying it was good even by their (undoubtedly high) standards! I ended the day with a movie, the Good Shepard. Talk about a downer movie, but I'm still glad to have seen it, I have become mildly (and just mildly) obsessed with US politics in the 50s and 60s.

Melbourne is definitely the farthest south I have ever been, but just how far south, I realized fully on Sunday, when I took a trip to Philip Island to see the penguins. Basically, I booked a seat on a day-tour there, and I feel like I definitely got my money's worth. First stop was a winery, and even though I had already been to a couple of Rutherglen wineries, it was still fun to stop over and sample some more! We had a fun busride, with an American couple, one English bloke (the year-long world-traveler mentioned at the top), three Irish girls, three Chinese girls, and two more English girls actually working in Melbourne.

The next stop after the winery was at the koala conservatory. There we saw a great bunch of animals, including baby wombats pic above left). All baby animals are called "joeys" in Australia (as I found out after wondering aloud why they apparently named all animals the same name and whether it had something to do with TV-show Friends), although I'm not sure I'm spelling that correctly. Cute as the baby-wombats are, apparently they become quite vicious at around 2 years old, which is their way of telling their conservators that they're ready to be set free once more. Koalas on the other hand can not be set free if born in captivity (that's actually true for most animals in Australia). Sadly, in the state of Victoria, you're not allowed to hold the koalas, since they're too big and WILL scratch you quite severely... but I still got a lovely picture out of it with a sleeping koala (they eat 4 hrs a day, and sleep the other 20 hrs... literally!). I've clearly (also) become mildly obsessed with local wildlife, and can't wait to go and see more of this in Africa (Kruger National Park, for example). We also saw some alpacas (they're every bit as funny looking as I thought they would), Tasmanian devils (they were separated because they would attach each other constantly) and even a mommy kangaroo with a joey-roo still in its pouch (picture left)!

The rest of the day consisted of us going to several different beaches on Philip island where, indeed, plenty of penguins habitate. The latest estimate is that the colony holds some 20,000 penguins(!), of the smallest kind actually. At "seal rock" you could see seals lying in the distant (too far for good pictures but you could see them with binoculars), and penguins were lulling about under the boardwalk that we were walking over (picture right). After that we went to the actual penguin observatory. Sadly, taking pictures was prohibited altogether, but man... what a sight!!! This is an absolute must-see for anyone who loves penguins (Marc?)! As dusk settles in, the penguins come out of the water, after having spent several days there, eating (3 times their own body weight, typically), and now return back home to their holes in the dunes. Hundres and hundreds of penguins will walk less than 1 meter away from you along the beach, it is truly phenomenal to see this. They are remarkable creatures, not in the least disturbed by people all around them (or the giant wallaby right next to them), and yes, they walk funny too!

Now I'm in my last 24 hours in Melbourne. I've actually checked out of my hostel already; that way, I can get a room closer to the airport, so I can get an extra hour and a half of sleep tomorrow morning before my (almost 12-hour long) flight to Mauritius. Which, by the way, was first settled on by the Dutch in the 16th century (it's named after Prins Maurits van Nassau!). In any case, I'm extremely looking forward to my 8-or-so days there; I'm hoping to see the whole island in a whirlwind tour, I hope I'm not getting my hopes up too high, but I don't see how there's any way around this, having wanted to go here for almost 11 years now... As for Australia, it's an extremely pleasant country, and not only a very recommendable tourist destination, but certainly a place I could see myself returning to for a longer period of time as well.