Visitors

My brother Bryan was traveling to New Zealand for work, so he and his wife Kristen came to Melbourne for a few days afterwards. We enjoyed having them stay at our place and showing them a little of the city and its environments. And putting them on a tour bus when we didn't show them the city.

Bryan and Kristen arrived Friday morning. Tim met them at the train station and took them to our house to drop off bags, and then went to the Melbourne zoo. Jonathan had a regular day at school, so I took a regular day at work, but we all met up for dinner in the city centre. If you have to choose one restaurant, and you're with us, what do you think you choose?

Yup. Ramen. (Japanese.)

Saturday morning Jonathan had a skating lesson. During the lesson Tim took Bryan and Kristen to the Queen Victoria Market, where they spent $20 on fruit. Cherries, plums, passion fruit, grapes, mangos, apples. And some sausages made of kangaroo.

In the early afternoon, we took a tour bus to Philip Island. We stopped first at an animal sanctuary, and saw live kangaroos and wallabies and wombats.

Wombat.

Bryan with kangaroos.

Kristen with the kangaroos.

Then we stopped in tour bus city: a chocolate factory. We figure that the chocolate factory must pay the tour bus companies some big chunk of money to stop there, because chocolate has nothing to do with Philip Island, or really even much Australian, yet every single tour bus stopped at the chocolate factory on its way in. I found it annoying. Bryan and Kristen were more kind. They said their kids would have loved it!

Next we stopped at the Nobbies, for dinner and a walk with views, followed by lots and lots of wallabies on the sides of the road.

View from the Nobbies.

Finally, we went to the beach for viewing little penguins.

At the penguin beach.

The penguins come out of the ocean just after dark, rush across the beach, and make their way up the hill to their nests. We were standing over a little hill, and soon after sunset a pair of young penguins, who had been left behind, came out of the nest and started squawking. They weren't very small chicks anymore, but still a little too soft and downy for doing their own fishing in the ocean.

Lots of little penguins walked up the beach. We couldn't take pictures, but they were cute. Some were preparing to moult. When they're moulting they can't go fish in the ocean, so they fatten up as much as they can first. The fat penguins waddled up the beach all wobbly, with their heads bobbing back and forth. Kind of funny looking.

And then the bus drove us home, to arrive around midnight.

Sunday morning we went to church. (How boring.)

In the afternoon, we took a walk through the Botanic Gardens and the Shrine of Remembrance. The Shrine has the best views of the city.

And we saw a flock of cockatoos over the Botanic Gardens, way off in the distance.

We had dinner in the park -- we grilled those kangaroo sausages. Yummy. I guess.

Later, Bryan and Kristen and Tim headed to China town in the city centre for the Chinese New Year. Jonathan had school in the morning, so he and I opted for sleep instead. Talk about boring.

But Bryan and Kristen and Tim came back with stories of dragon parades and fire crackers and hoards of people. Melbourne has the oldest China town in the world, outside of China, of course, and San Francisco, I believe.

Monday morning Jonathan went to school. I went to work. Tim made sure that Bryan and Kristen got on their tour bus to see the Great Ocean Road. And then we all had a regular day. They got back near midnight.

Tuesday morning we all said goodbye.

And Wednesday morning, around 30 hours later, we got a note that their plane had landed back in their home state of Tennessee. That's a long journey.

But see how much fun we had? You should come visit, and you will have fun, too.

(A note on the photos: Many more were taken. Just not with my camera. Perhaps I will post more from other cameras later. Perhaps.)