Mornington Peninsula and Royal Melbourne Show

This weekend was the AFL (Australian Football) Grand Final which meant that I had a three-day weekend.  For reasons that I don't entirely understand, Melbourne (and only Melbourne) gets the Friday before the Grand Final off as a public holiday.  Someone in my office told me that it was an effort to get more people to attend the parade in the CBD (aka downtown) but I'm not entirely sure.  I'm really not going to question why I had a three-day weekend, I'm just going to enjoy it.

One day I went down to the Mornington Peninsula and hiked in the Mornington Peninsula National Park.  The peninsula is about an hour and a half south of Melbourne and is gorgeous.  It almost reminded me of driving around Northern California with the rolling hills and vineyards.  You pass through a number of small, quiet beach towns that I'm sure are crazy during the summer with everyone trying to get out of Melbourne and to a decent beach.  But given that it's still early spring here and that it was cool and rainy this weekend, the Mornington Peninsula wasn't too crowded.

The southern coastline is surprisingly rugged which is quite the change from the Port Philip Bay side of the peninsula which is composed mostly of calm, white beaches.  I started off by the Cape Schanck lighthouse and then wandered west along the coast into the Mornington Peninsula National Park.  As I said, the weather was not amazing so there were not a lot of people around, which was really nice.  It was great to get away from all of the concrete and hustle and bustle of a big city for a while too.  Plus, since it is spring, everything is starting to bloom which was really nice since it has been rather grey and dreary in Melbourne since I moved down at the end of July.

Cape Schanck Lighthouse

Australian Tea Tree

Pink Fairies 

Before I headed back to Melbourne I decided to check out a note that I saw on my park map that said "Kangaroo Viewing Area."  I almost missed the turnoff as it was just a small dirt road and you couldn't actually see the National Park sign until you had almost driven by it.  I was hoping to see one or two kangaroos but there were probably close to 50 just hanging out by the carpark, grazing.  Most were pretty far off from the path that was mowed through the grass but there were some that were grazing right on the path.  Needless to say, I sat on the grass in the wind and light rain and watched them until they all hopped off.  Even if I spend the rest of my life in Australia, I do not think that I will ever cease to be amazed by kangaroos; they are just so cool!

Mom and Joey

So many kangaroos...

Kangaroos sparring

I also went to the Royal Melbourne Show.  For those of you that are from or have lived in the Midwest, it was comparable to the Minnesota State Fair but smaller.  It had all of the standard livestock, deep fried food, rides, and arts and crafts of State Fairs back in the states.  Honestly, it made me miss Minnesota a bit.  But just a bit. ;) One thing that I really liked was the yarn barn (see below).  I was also a big fan of the working dog demonstrations and the wood chopping competitions. All in all, it was an expensive (as all fairs are) day but was highly enjoyable.

Crocheted cow

I'm off to Brisbane for field work again this week - this will be 3 out of the last 4 weeks up there but Ross will be in Melbourne the following week.  It will be really nice to see him and it's getting warm enough that we might go camping (probably at Wilson's Prom) but we'll see what the weather brings.