Melbourne

Well, I've been nearly a week and a half in Melbourne. Taking it easy, wandering around the city -- it's a great city for that kind of thing. I met a few great people in the hostel, including Kim, another Canadian from BC, and Katy, a recently graduated nurse from Portland. The night I checked in, Kim and I went out with a friend of hers, Dan, who had worked a ski season in Canadia, and some of his friends. As the following day was a holiday, no one was in any hurry to go home early, so they showed us around a few Melbourne bars (I don't remember the names, just that one was on a roof). We drank, we danced, we had a darn good time. Kim left the next morning for her new job at a resort (in the Grampians, I think), and Katy moved in. We decided to go to the Melbourne Aquarium (see pics), where they had the usual bizarre Australian sea creatures, and Antarctic penguins! I don't know what it is about penguins, but they seem to be my new favourite animal. Well, new favourite bird, at least. Though I hope to see the Southern Cassowary up in Cairns. But penguins are way cuter than cassowaries.
Katy and I also did a little shopping at the DFO--mid-winter sales at factory outlets, need I say more? For the rest of my time in Melbourne, I spent much of it wandering around, walking up Brunswick St., going to the Victoria Market, St. Kilda's, along the Yarra, and so on. On the Wednesday Dan (Kim's friend, see above)took me along the Great Ocean Road to the Twelve Apostles (currently only about eight are still with us), one of the most photographed spots in Victoria. We also stopped at Bels Beach, where Point Break (starring Keanu!) was filmed. Unfortunately, they didn't have any life size cutouts of Keanu to pose with. I was exceedingly disappointed. As you can imagine.

It doesn't sound like I did all that much in just over a week, but the time certainly went very quickly. On June 16th, I fly to Christchurch.