Since I last posted, I have moved into my apartment (yeah, no more AirBnb or hotels!) and have settled into working life in Melbourne. I live in St. Kilda, which is a funky neighborhood southeast of the CBD (central business district, aka downtown). I'm close to the beach (unfortunately it's too cold currently to take advantage of this) and Albert Park (great running track). Plus it's only about a 20-minute tram ride to work, though at some point I'll get a bike and commute that way.
Ross came up to visit this weekend and I took a couple days off. We had been thinking of going camping/hiking at Wilson's Promontory but it is still a little on the cold side for a tent... That being said, I've been told that there are wombats (and emus, kangaroos, etc.) at Wilson's Prom, so it is definitely on my "To Do" list. Plus you can also hike out to the Lighthouse keeper's cabins and spend the night there, which sounds awesome to me. Even though we didn't get out hiking, we did not lack for things to do in Melbourne.
We started off by wandering through the laneways in the CBD looking at some of the street art. Melbourne is known as one of the world's great street art capitals and the laneways (think alleys but narrower) are often covered from curb level up several stories with multiple layers of art. It is fantastic. I've made a habit of keeping my phone close at hand when I'm out in the city because you never know when you're going to come across some gorgeous, crazy, or political artwork. I love it! At some point I'll have to do a blog just about street art in Melbourne because it is so cool and it's constantly changing.
On Friday we went to the Melbourne Zoo for a large chunk of the day. It is the oldest zoo in Australia and the third oldest in the world. It's on the expensive side but it is nice and has one of the coolest aviaries that I've ever seen. We had been hoping to avoid the swarms of parents and kids by going during the week but we ended up having a bunch of school groups running around. You can't win them all, but we still had a good time.
One really fun thing about St. Kilda is that a colony of Little Penguins has settled in the breakwater near St. Kilda Pier. In the evenings you can go out and watch the penguins come in from a day of fishing. I stumbled upon the penguins when I first moved to St. Kilda, much to my delight, and so on Friday evening Ross and I went to see them come in. Unfortunately it was only in the mid-40's and really windy, so it was a rather cold wait but it was definitely worth it! They didn't come in until dark so they were pretty hard to pick-out but it was still so cool. They are like little torpedoes moving through the water and they are so little! I would definitely recommend going and seeing the penguins to anyone visiting Melbourne. I mean, really. How often do you get to see wild penguins with the skyline of a major city as the background?
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| St. Kilda beach |
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| Little Penguin |
Saturday was a very laid back day. We went to a live showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show in the evening and so we stopped by a secondhand clothing store in the morning to get some clothes. From there we made our way up to the Queen Victoria Market. Once again, we didn't give ourselves enough time to really explore before it closed for the day... It is such a huge market, you could probably spend most of the day there. It has everything from vegetables to t-shirts to chickens (both ready for the oven and ready to lay eggs) and everything in between. We had wanted to play mini golf at a place that just opened up in the CBD (Holey Moley), but it's still too new and popular, plus we didn't know that we needed to make a booking online, so next time... We ended up finding a couple new (to me) bookstores and happily spent a while perusing the shelves. We also stumbled upon some more great street art (I'm telling you, it's everywhere!).
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| Handmade pasta |
After a pleasant weekend exploring Melbourne, Ross headed back to Wellington this morning and I'm heading up to Brisbane for a week of field work this afternoon. I know that I will be crazy busy in Brisbane but I am really excited about getting some warmer weather for a bit as it has been a rather chilly spring so far in Melbourne.
