Wild Life in AustraliaDay 13: G’day Bruce! Up with the dawn in Queenstown NZ, and onto the coach to the airport – the sweet sleepy little airport. Our Counter was the only one open when we arrived and even filling out forms took only a minute. After a wait made more comfortable by ice cream, we went through a sweet and personable security line and boarded up the two ramps. And we were off to Melbourne! And Australia! The view of Flinders Island was a welcome one as we crossed the Tasman, but the hustle and bustle of Melbourne (pronounced “Melb’n”) was immediate. We saw more graffiti here in a minute than we saw in all of NZ. And only when a curiously-attired woman cut in the customs line did we realize there’d been no meanness or pettiness on our trip so far – a couple jaded and hard-faced Americans, sure. A couple furrow-browed South Africans, fine. But to see 2 different but almost identically dressed 50+ Asian ladies in black pleather with straps and buttons intentionally break in lines and ignore protocols was a bit surreal. Like an updated version of ‘What’s Up Doc’, where matching outfits and bad behavior create Screwball comic mayhem down under…. We never went to a bank machine or changed currency for NZ, but Australia is already proving a different kettle of fish. Cash is king, and exchange fees pile onto to the already poor showing of the US Dollar.
We awoke a couple hours on to the sounds of pouring pounding rain. While we’d slept, the storm had roared in from the south, and the city was running like a watercolor left out in the rain. But we headed out to meet up with Stefan and Edith nonetheless. We crossed the Yarra and ducked into the tunnel under Flinders St Station:
It was a bracing night, but other than a curious stain on my poncho everything turned out wonderfully well. Day 14: Mission: Fairy Penguins Hit the Beach! In a day fraught with monotremes and nobbies, we will not attempt any manner of sensible narrative here ~ only a list of the day’s many highlights. Gluten-free designer cupcakes
Purple swamp hens and other splendid bird life
Home by midnight
Keywords:
Adventures,
New Zealand/Australia
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