Melbourne Part 2 - Friday 1st - Monday 4th January

Handley:

Friday:
On Friday morning we headed to the immigration museum.  I had expected great things from this, but to be honest I found it a little boring and a little random as there was an entire floor dedicated to ancient india, which didn't seem to have much to do with immigration into Australia.  I think Michelle enjoyed it more than me:

In the afternoon we headed to the Docklands area to look round the shops and have some dinner.  There are some cool "modern" art pieces round here which brighten the place up:

Saturday:

Today we were booked on a trip to see the penguin parade at Philip Island.  The trip included a visit to a wildlife park before hand and I'm afraid the park was a little ropey... perhaps after visiting the animal park in Adelaide we had great expectations, but it wasn't really as good and we were on the trip with some odd people, in particular a german guy who was acting a little strangely.  When advised that you could buy food from the counter to feed the kangaroos with he bought a stuffed toy and then when everyone else was feeding the animals he crouched down next to Michelle got in her face and said "now you will be giving me the food!".  Hmmm yeah ok freak boy here you go!

I did feed an emu though:

We then headed to watch the penguins come in and I'd been really excited about seeing them, but I think the place on Philip Island has maybe got a little bit too commercial as there were 3 football stadium seating areas for people to view and they were full and people were just having to mill about in the background.  I got a bit annoyed as there were 3 simple rules 1) be quiet 2) no photography of any kind 3) keep still and not one person took any notice of this, I saw people taking pictures and no one was quiet and people were running all over the seats to try and get better views of the penguins!!  I guess the penguins would stop going there if it really bothered them and they didn't seem to put off, but how thick are people when they can't stick to a few simple rules put in place to protect the animals!!

That said when we let the crowds disperse we got some really great views of the penguins and one couple even mated infront of us so they seemed ultra relaxed even with the people being there.

Sunday:

On Sunday we visited the ACMI building which is Melbourne equivalent to the Bradford Film Museum, but sorry Bradford this place was a million times better.  For a start the displays actually worked and they were actually loads better as well!!

After ACMI we got a sandwich and sat in Federation Sq to watch a few street performers and that's when it happened... it was less of a dingo stole my baby more of a seagull stole my sandwich!!!  It still haunts me now, I didn't see the white shadow looming and then wham it hit me... quite litterally in the face and stole my sandwich, it all went in slow motion!!!  I was gutted the buttie had been good up until that point and I was only half way through and still hungry and I didn't fancy the seagull fondled remains I still held!!  It was a sad day, but we went to the Royal Botanic Gardens to help cheer me up:

Monday:

On Monday we were booked on a Great Ocean Road tour which took us from Melbourne all the way to London Bridge on the Great Ocean Rd.  The trip was brilliant if a little tiring, we got to see the light house that was used in the "Round the Twist" programme.... who remembers that... have you ever, ever felt like this, when strange things happen, are you going round the twist.... just me... yeah that was the case on the bus tour as well!

We got to see all the main sights of the road, the twelve apostles, Loch Ard Gorge, London Bridge etc and as our heli hike was cancelled in New Zealand we decided to treat ourselves to a helicopter ride over the Twelve Apostles.... amazing.  Our first trip in a helicopter and it was pretty cool and we got some great views of all the sights:

We got back pretty late and hit the hay as we had an early start as we were heading to Sydney on the morning!