To Melbourne and back

Given that it is raining (side note: when it rains here it pours buckets and puts Vancouver's rain to shame) and way too stuffy to venture comfortably outside, I will take the time to catch up on the blogosphere.

Returned earlier this week from a too short four day trip to Melbourne to visit an old friend of my mom. As it was Chinese New Year's eve when we arrived, we had a big dinner with many friends of the people that we were staying with. This I think was the first time that I'd celebrated CNY with so many other people since leaving China. Who would have known that it would be in Australia?

The next day we went on a group tour to Phillip Island, where the priceless highlight was watching little penguins waddle up from the ocean to their homes in the sand dunes. At only about 33cm tall, these penguins are the smallest of the species. They return every night around sunset so we had to wait until about 9:15pm (with DST in Victoria, it stays light very long). Unfortunately cameras are forbidden because the flash hurts their eyes but this is what they look like :

Little Penguins

 The most interesting thing is that they always walk in groups of at least 2; if one falls behind, the entire group will stop or turn around so nobody gets left alone. And they take the exact same path up to the sand dunes every day.
Also on Phillip Island, we stopped at a chocolate factory where I made my own strawberry and vegemite (which by the way, is the weirdest thing I've ever tasted) flavoured chocolate, and at Cowes, a beautiful little beach town with miles and miles perfect sand awesome for beachcombing.

Dubbed the "cultural capital of Australia," Melbourne itself bears a lot of resemblance to European cities. It is home to a number of heritage buildings from the 19th century (such as the Royal Exhibition Building), art galleries and museums, and operates the largest tram network in the world.

 

Riding in the tram in the heart of the City

  After returning to Brisbane, my mom had two more days in Australia and we spent one of them taking the ferry across Moreton Bay to spend the day at Tangalooma Resort on Moreton Island, the third largest sand island in the world. Unfortunately the desert safari and sandboarding activity that we had initially wanted to do was cancelled due to rain, so I went swimming/snorkeling to explore the Tangalooma shipwrecks, a collection of vessels that were deliberately sunk to provide a breakwall and dive/snorkle site, instead. Turned out to be a great decision because I got some awesome views fish around the wrecks, which has turned into an artificial reef. I also swam alongside a stingray and a humongous turtle. In addition, multiple times I've popped my head up and seen a large black fin emerge out of the water (which could have been a shark for all that I know), and another instance I almost made contact with a blue jellyfish, which made me realize that I was most definitely trespassing in these animals' territory.
Moreton Island is famous for its wild dolphin feeding program, where 5-10 bottlenose dolphins come to the island everyday after sunset (sort of similar to the Penguin Parade at Phillip Island) and visitors are able to handfeed them for a fee. That night, we had almost given up on waiting and was about to board the return ferry, when the dolphins came, almost like out of nowhere, more than 1.5 hours after the predicted time. It was quite a spectacle watching them porpoise towards the shore and two of them even brought their calves!

Tangalooma Wrecks off in the distance