Autumn Down Under

I feel like I have months of nothing but work and then three weeks or so of craziness. The last month has been in the 'crazy' category - this is my first weekend at home without company since the middle of April.

Autumn colors in Wellington

The last week in April my managers let me work from home.  By "home," I mean Wellington.  It actually worked out really well because Vic (Victoria University, Wellington - where Ross is getting his PhD) had a fall break the same week and so I was able to borrow an office and computer with dual monitors, which made working on reports way more pleasant than it would have been on a laptop for the week. I didn't take any time off while I was in Wellington, so our days consisted of walking into campus and going our separate ways to work for the day.  We'd meet for lunch but otherwise, I hung out in my borrowed office and worked on reports.

Wellington from campus

Ross science-ing

That being said, we did have fun.  The first weekend that I was in Wellington my favorite band, The Killers, were performing so we met up with some friends for dinner and then rocked out at the concert.  The venue in Wellington was pretty small, so Ross and I ended up with only about two people between us and the stage.  According to my FitBit, I jumped/danced ~5 miles at the concert so, needless to say, I had a great time!

The Wednesday that I was in Wellington was Anzac Day (commemorates the day that the Australian and New Zealand army corps landed at Gallipoli during WWI), which is a public holiday, so I got an extra day off work to hang out with Ross. We went for a long walk out by Red Rocks to a seal colony.  We had great weather and had a nice picnic lunch by the seals.

We managed to squeeze in a rugby game on Friday evening but too soon it was Sunday and time for me to head back to Melbourne... 

Cheering on the Hurricanes at Westpac

While I was in Wellington I'd seen an email about a training course that looked interesting, so once I was back in Melbourne I talked to my manager about it and got the 'okay' to go.  The training course was put on by the Australian Land and Groundwater Association and was an introduction to performing risk assessments for contaminated land but the fun part was that it was in Hobart.  The course was on a Monday-Tuesday so I made a weekend of it and flew down to Hobart Friday night.  It was my first time in Tasmania and, while the weather wasn't amazing, I had a great time.

You are greeted by Tasmanian Devils at the Hobart airport

I started off the weekend by doing the Hobart Parkrun (free timed 5k).  It is located a ways out of town but I was able to catch a ride out with the race director since I hadn't hired a car for the weekend.  After a much hillier run than I'd been expecting, I headed back to my hotel and then out into Hobart to explore. I started off wandering around at the Salamanca Market.  It is a weekly arts and crafts market along the waterfront.  It had some really great stuff but I managed to restrain myself to one small souvenir.  

Hobart waterfront

Salamanca Market with Mt Wellington in the background

From there I swung by the State Library (not nearly as cool as the one in Melbourne) and then St. David's Cathedral (I am a sucker for the artwork and architecture).  I then walked out to the Royal Botanical Gardens, which were a lot further away then I had thought.  That being said, the gardens were well worth the walk.

St. David's

St. David's

Botanical Gardens

Botanical Gardens

Botanical Gardens

Botanical Gardens

Superb Fairywren

Musk Lorikeet

Afternoon light on the walk back to Hobart

Seal begging for my fish and chips

Sunday was my museum day.  I started off at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.  It is housed in some great, old buildings and has fabulous displays.  I spent most of my time in a special exhibit about Tasmanian Devils (wouldn't you?), though I also made sure to check out the local venomous snakes and spiders; it's important to know who you really ought to avoid stepping on in Australia...

After the Tasmanian Museum I caught the MONA ROMA, which is the ferry out to the Museum of Old & New Art (MONA).  The ferry ride was cold but great.  I go back and forth on modern art but MONA was an interesting experience.  Some of the installations were really thought provoking and interesting, and some of them were just weird.  The whole art gallery is underground and isn't that well lit, so it wouldn't surprise me if I missed a number of exhibits.

On the MONA ROMA

MONA's one view outside

Tasmanian Native Hen

Sunset from the ferry

Sunset from the ferry

Monday and Tuesday I spent all day in a hotel conference room learning about risk assessments (it was actually more interesting than it sounds).  Flights to and from Hobart during the week in the off-season are at really random times, so I ended up catching a 6 a.m. flight back to Melbourne on Wednesday and going straight to work from the airport.  I made it until about 3 p.m. before I had to call it a day.

On Thursday (the day after I got back from Hobart) Ross came up for the weekend.  Ross is going to be traveling for conferences for all of June, so these visits weren't spaced out as far as they normally are.  It was really nice to see him again so soon after I'd been in New Zealand.  We had a pretty laid back weekend but we did do some fun activities.  On Friday night we went to the 25th anniversary showing of Jurassic Park at my favorite, local theater. It was really fun to see it on the big screen again.  

On Saturday we mostly planned for the trip that we're taking in July - ten days in a camper van (get excited!). Saturday night we went to "Strictly Ballroom: The Musical."  I love, love, love Strictly Ballroom (the movie) and the musical was the perfect transformation from movie to musical.  The staging made you feel like you were actually at the dance competitions.  It was great!  If you like the movie and you ever get a chance to see the musical - do it!  We were also treated to a very Australian  theater experience (I've never run into this elsewhere but it might not be unique to Oz) - apparently opening weekend and closing night, there is free food and booze after the show.  We were quite surprised when we came down into the lobby to find tables upon tables that were absolutely covered with sandwiches and roast chicken.  The bar was covered in wine, champagne, juice, etc.  It was pretty cool.

On Sunday, we took advantage of my company's season tickets and went to a footy match (Australian rules football - only really played in Victoria).  The two teams that we saw were really evenly matched so it was actually a really close match. Ross and I have decided that if/when we leave this part of the world, we're going to have to figure out what sport channel we need to get so that we can keep watching footy and super rugby (involves teams from NZ, Australia, South Africa, Japan and Argentina) because we've both become mildly addicted.

During halftime at footy matches, they bring out the peewee
teams and it's adorable.  Way better than a halftime show.

Sunset at St. Kilda pier

Like I said, it's been a crazy month.  I won't see Ross again until early July and we only have one public holiday (Queen's Birthday) between now and then so we are again entering the lull where I probably won't do a lot beside work and be sad that it's cold, dark and rainy.  Enjoy that summer weather for me if you're in the Northern Hemisphere!

Travels around Victoria

Somehow two months have past since my last post...where does the time go?  In my defense, February was basically nothing but work.  Between writing reports and two weeks of field work in Brisbane, I didn't get up to much of anything on the weekends other than sleeping in.  March was much busier as my parents were visiting for almost three weeks.  It was really nice to see them both.  I hadn't seen my Dad since we moved abroad in June 2016 and I hadn't seen my Mom since she visited me in Wellington in November 2016.  I had to work during the week but we got out and explored Victoria on the weekends.

Koala along the Great Ocean Road

The first weekend that they were in town, we saw the Melbourne sights as both of my parents were still trying to get over jet lag.  We went to the Shrine of Remembrance, Botanical Gardens, laneways, State Library, National Gallery Victoria and the Queen Victoria Market.  I showed them around St. Kilda and we had some cake at one of the European cake shops along Acland Street. We also tried to see the penguins on the St. Kilda pier but we went on a weekend day over a long holiday weekend, so it was swarming with people.  My parents didn't end up seeing the penguins while they were visiting but we did see a ton of other fun Oz wildlife, so I think that made up for the lack of penguins. Plus my parents are already planning their trip for next year, so we'll make more of an effort to see penguins then. 

At the Botanical Gardens

Sunset by the St. Kilda pier

Street art in the laneways

The first Monday that my parents were in Oz was Labour Day (public holiday) so we drove down to Wilsons Promontory National Park (aka Wilsons Prom or just The Prom).  I've been meaning to get down there since I moved to Melbourne in August and just hadn't made it yet.  It is gorgeous!  We had a little picnic before starting out hiking and my parents were blown away by the birds (Galah, Crimson Rosella, Kookaburra, etc.) around the picnic area.  My dad kept saying that he'd only ever seen these birds at zoos or pet stores.  We did a couple short hikes out to an overlook and Squeaky Beach.  On the way out we came across a wallaby just off the side of the trail.  It was surprisingly unafraid of us and only hopped off after we'd all gotten some pictures.  When we were leaving the park we saw a young wombat by the side of the road.  It was sooooo cute and the first wombat that I'd seen that wasn't in a zoo or roadkill.

Kookaburra

Squeaky Beach

Wombat

Galahs

Crimson Rosella

The second weekend that my parents were in town Ross came up from New Zealand and the four of us did the Great Ocean Road.  It was really pretty but a surprising amount of it is inland and away from the ocean.  We stopped at Bells Beach of "Point Break" fame or, if you actually surf, it's where the RipCurl Champs are, I think... I don't know but they were setting up stands for something when we were there.  

Bells Beach

The next major stop for us along the Great Ocean Road was at Kennett River.  One of my co-workers had mentioned that the roads behind the caravan park are a good place to see wild Koalas.  I am so glad that I listened because we saw a ton.  Oddly enough, the first one that we saw was in the tree that I happened to park under.

From the koalas we headed on to the Twelve Apostles. We got there later in the day but there were still a ton of people around.  They are close enough to Melbourne that you can go out and back in a day (~12 hours) if you want to.  Even though there are only seven actual rock stacks, the Twelve Apostles are really incredible.  We stayed for a while and took way too many pictures.  There are a bunch of other cool things by the Twelve Apostles that we wanted to see too (e.g. - Gibson Steps, Loch Ard Gorge, London Bridge, etc.) but it was getting pretty late so we headed on to our AirBnb in Warrnambool with the intent of coming back the next day to see what we had missed.

The next morning, on the way back to the Twelve Apostles, I noticed that a couple roads heading north off of the Great Ocean Road were closed and my first thought (being a Colorado kid) was "Fire."  We stopped at a cheese factory and I asked at the checkout while my parents investigated the cheese options.  Sure enough there were multiple grass fires in the area.  Ross and I watched the news and found out that the main motorway that we'd been planning on taking back to Melbourne was closed, as was the Great Ocean Road.  After consulting the map, we found a road that was open and headed back to Melbourne.  We listened to the radio the whole way because we were basically driving between two grass fires.  The announcements that they had on the radio were unlike anything that I've ever heard before.  The radio announcer would read off towns that were under evacuation orders and then they'd read off towns where it was too late to evacuate and the residents were just supposed to "shelter in place."  They would then go through a list of what you should do if you're driving and your car is overtaken by the grass fire.  It was crazy.  

The second Monday that my parents were in town, I took off from work.  Ross headed back to New Zealand early in the morning.  My parents and I then went to Hanging Rock Reserve.  The impetus for the trip was a movie that my parents love called "Picnic at Hanging Rock."  I haven't seen it since I was in high school but I remember it as boring and incredibly slow.  That being said, we had a picnic at Hanging Rock and then did some hiking.  We saw a huge mob (actual work for a group of kangaroos) of kangaroos and a bunch of gorgeous birds.  The rock formations were also incredible and, while the hike wasn't that long, it had great views.

Since it was on the way back to Melbourne, we also stopped at Organ Pipes National Park.  It's a really small park plus there's very little shade and it was a really warm day, so we didn't spend a whole lot of time there.  Apparently there are platypuses there but we didn't see any.

The last weekend that my parents were in Australia, we spent the weekend down on the Mornington Peninsula which is just south of Melbourne.  The weather wasn't amazing but we went hiking at both Point Nepean National Park and Cape Schanck, which is part of the Mornington Peninsula National Park.  Point Nepean has a really interesting history as a military base.  Let me pause here in my narration to quote Bill Bryson from In a Sunburned Country: "For a hundred years, the whole of [Point Nepean] - several hundred acres of the most gorgeous coastal property in Victoria - was off limits to the public because it was owned by the military, which used it as a firing range.  Pause with me for a moment while we put this in perspective.  Here you have a country of three million square miles, nearly all of it empty and eminently bombable. And here, just a couple hours' drive from the country's second city, you have a headland of rare and sumptuous beauty, and of considerable ecological importance, and from this land you bar the public because you are trying to blow it to smithereens."  Luckily the military agreed to turn the land into a national park and it's gorgeous. I'd been to Cape Schanck previously but it is really pretty and well-worth repeat visits.

The Narrows at Point Nepean

Point Nepean

Point Nepean

Cape Schanck Lighthouse

Cape Schanck 

The roos blend in so well.

All in all, it was great to see my parents and take advantage of their rental car to see more of Victoria. As I've said before, I love having visitors because it gives me an excuse to explore more.