Pre-Kevin and Mornington Penisula

It's me again (do not worry Kevin will be back with his tidbits of experiences) ... just wanted to catch up on things and set other things straignt ... the Wednesday before Kevin's arrival was Australia day -- more or less the same as the 4th of July, Canada day -- a day to celebrate the country's heritage .. this year the day was a scorcher so I limited my celebrations. In general, they had fun runs, big Aussie breakfasts, a multi-cultural parade (to mark the various heritages of Australia's citizens), concerts, fireworks, even an antique car show. I chose to go to the antique car show -- it was sad to see that some of the cars on display were only a few years older than I am. There were various vending booths -- I went for the homemade ice-cream -- decided to go for a shake -- milkshakes are not thick and creamy here .. more or less a lot of milk with a bit of ice cream. Afterwards I went to the government house -- it is rarely open to the public -- today it was open and it was free -- the house weas built between 1872 and 1876 as the official residence for the Governors of Victoria. It is the largest (government/public) house ever built in Australia but also as one of the most palatial and representative of the 19th century rivalist architecture. The house (the parts we got to see) was amazing, as are the grounds -- lots of gardens, a tennis court, lawn bowling grounds (? -- not sure what they are called). I will post a picture of the outside of the house. Also on Australia day, the government sends a helicopter over the city, flying with the Australian flag. It just so happens the helicopter was above the government house when I was there. Rather cool ...
In addition to Australia day, the week preceeding Kevin's arrival was full of late night tennis -- I attended some of the matches earlier in the week -- saw Lindsay Davenport, one of the male quarterfinalists (the Russian player who was ranked in the 100s) and a few other matches. At night, however, the mens (and women's until Alicia Molik was eliminated) matches became quite heated and long ... I actually reached a point during the Open where, while excited to watch the tennis, I was also looking forward to when it was over and I would be able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour ...
Kevin's arrival -- okay, let me set things straight -- the day Kevin arrived -- the first thing we did was walk across the street to the news agent and get him a tram card -- it was Kevin that chose to walk to the market (which is only 1 km away from us) ... so do not let him think that I dragged him all over the city that day (I waited a week before doing that).
We here the torrential rains/flooding made the news in North America -- our apartment, if you recall, directly looks onto a big park -- there is a big tree that is probably 10 feet from the apartment -- turns out we were quite lucky -- this past Friday we walked through the park to discover huge trees that had fallen over (we will post a picture of this) -- but most of this happened in the northern part of the park (we are on the southern side).
This past weekend we made our first jaunt out of the city -- Kevin was in charge of the itinerary -- we first made our way to Phillip Island -- a place southeast of Melbourne that is known for its small penguins. We stayed in the town of Cowes on the resort -- it was somewhat deserted, given kids are back in school and also because the weather was still so-so given the torrential rains most sane folks might have delayed their trip. Cowes is a small resort town -- much like the Jersey shore or the small towns in Ontario cottage country -- a bit tacky but adorable because it is on the coast. Most of the lodgings are of the motel type. Kevin had booked us into a discounted room at one of these motels -- let us just say it was only slightly worse than a motel six -- but clean, with a comfortable bed, and okay facilities. We booked for the penguin parade as they call it -- we got the premium seats which meant we got to stand on a boardwalk that the penguins walked right by (the non-premium seats are grand stands set off from the beach). The unknown aspect to the parade the evening we attended was that the rains had created a nice flowing creek that went to the beach -- so it was not known whether the penguins would use the creek (forcing them to swim upstream) or would take another route (waddling along). For those of you that do not know much about penguins: these are the smallest in the world -- during mating seasons penguins leave two eggs -- both parents tend to the eggs and the young -- when the babies are just babes (first few weeks) one parent will spend the day (dawn to sunset) in the ocean finding food and will then come back at night to feed the youngun -- once the babies are a bit older (4-8 weeks) both parents will go fishing -- and the babes will start coming out of their nests around sunset in search of their parents -- but the babes do not know who their parents are -- only the parents known their babes -- and so any given babe will go up to every adult penguin it encounters, hoping it is his/her parent. On the way to boardwalk we saw a few of the babes waiting (and froliking in the creek). At sunset (or shortly thereafter) about two penguins made their way up to the are near the boardwalk (these two used the creek which was a bit humorous to watch) -- and then we did not see any more penguins -- at this point, Kevin and I looked at each other and said "hoax" ... but shortly thereafter we stopped counting after we got to 40 penguins ... some were small, some were huge (near the end of the summer, the penguins have to overeat and get quite big as they have to spend 14-17 days out of the ocean to molt and develop new water-resistent feathers to withstand the winter months) ... many of their nests were far from the beach -- they waddle, move forward, sometimes fall over -- stop, rest .. get up and do it again ... by the time they get to their nest, feed their babes they must have only a few hours to sleep before they have to do it again (I guess not that much different from our moms) ...
Saturday was spent driving around the coast and moving onto the Mornington Peninsula (MP). The MP is known for its dramatic coastline and wineries. The first thing we did was drive throuh the town/village of Red Hill -- before we knew it were in this throng of cars and was being hurded to a parking space -- we had to ask the parking attendant why we were their (first response was: "to find a parking space") ... when we asked again, we found out we had landed at the Red Hill market -- a once-a-month market full of crafts, jewelry, food, etc. It was great -- lots of good deals (beautiful earrings for $5) ... but then it started to rain. So we ventured to a few different wineries -- compared to the wineries in Northern California, these wineries are quite laid back. We tried the wines, got into various conversations with the pourers (one was a musician who told us about an acoustic bar in Melbourne) and bought wine ... and then we found a seaside cafe along the coast for the Aussie hamburger (Kevin could not believe his eyes when the food came out) ... then onto touring the coast ... the one thing we needed, however, was lodging -- Kevin (remember he was in charge of the itinerary) had decided we did not need to pre-book our room .. turns out the MP is quite busy on the weekend ... we had quite a difficult time finding a place with a vacancy -- decided to go to a tourist agency (the kind that is government sponsored) as they are supposed to help out in booking -- the one we found -- was in a parked caravan. The woman told us she "had heard" that everything in the town we were in was booked and offered to rent her b&b room to us for close to $200 a night in a place in the country about 3 towns over -- we decided to take our chances ... as you may know -- we are trying to live on a budget given Kevin will be on a leave of absence shortly and we still have some of our Toronto expenses to cover. With $200 a night as our "last resort" option, we decided to call some of the fancier looking places in our local tour books ... As Kevin was calling, I looked up and realized we were sitting across the street from the place -- a historic Victorian beach resort -- it looked great. They had one room left -- required us to use shared facilities (not one of Kevin's favourites) -- for $95 a night ... we went in and looked at it. The best thing about the room were the 20 foot ceilings -- the floor space of the room? Held a double bed and a hanging rack. But hey, it was a room in a packed town and it was cheaper than the B&B in who knows where ... let's just say it turned out to be Kevin's worst hotel experience ever -- the bathrooms needed a serious amount of refurbishing -- and the noise of doors opening and closing was quite high ...
On a nice front -- we decided to go to the movies on Saturday night (saw "Sideways" -- very good, and quite appropriate given we were traveling around wine country). We walked by the theater about an hour before the movie, picked up some tickets and then walked around. When we went to find some seats (about 20 minutes before the movie started), we were the only ones at the theater ... what we did not know was that we had "allocated" seats ... we were quite shocked by this (our seats were last row on the aisle). Turns out, however, to be quite a civilized way to see a movie -- before hand the patrons hang out in the lobby and chat with their friends ... and just before the previews start they are shown to their seats ... After having spent 2 hours listening to Americans talk -- we both (independently) forgot where we were -- so when we walked out of the theater and heard the Aussie dialect, we were taken a bit aback and brought into reality -- where we then enjoyed a pleasant salad and pizza.
The rest of the weekend was spent doing more of the same ... on Sunday we explored the coastline (very rugged and amazing) and visited some more wineries. ... as we were in search for lunch, we went down this dirt road (single lane with cars going both ways) in search of a particular winery with a restaurant. We did not like the menu so did not go in. Across the way, however, was this cheese maker that we would not have otherwise known about if we had not happened upon this very isolated dirt road. Unbelievable cheese. It became our dinner on Sunday night ...
For those of you who like to drink wine (okay all of you) -- here's what we ended up buying: Bimaris (cabernat, shiraz, merlot blend) 2003 -- quite drinkable and very pleasant. Tuck Ridge (pinot gris) 2004 (more expensive). Callans Road (another name used by Tuck Ridge, Shiraz) 2002. Karina (Chardonnay and we do not usually like chardonays, buttery not oaky) 2000. Red Hill (muscat), no vintage year. All of the wines ranged between $14 and $27 per bottle.
We are back in Melbourne getting ready for our trip to Hobart on Tuesday ... I am in charge of the itinerary on this trip ...

vineyards in the Mornington Penisula -- overlooking the bay 

from the outside this looks like a beautiful old hotel ... think again 

part of the coastline near Phillip Island. 

devastation from the 36 hour downpour in Melbourne -- this is in Fawkner Park, near our apartment. 

Government House (home of Victoria's Governors) on Australia day (flag is from the helicopter).