Day 18 (part 1): Mon Jan 27, observed Australia Day. Melbourne museum and Parade of Penguins wildlife tour

Expecting a 7:30a phone call I set an alarm for 6;30a. I awake early and slip out to search the neighborhood for coffee to start the day. Knowing it is several blocks to the nearest cafe, I rent a Lime bike to ride there and back. Ultimately I execute a grid search pattern over the local neighborhood to no avail -- coffee is not available here on Aussie Day. How can one observe Australia Day without coffee, especially here in Melbourne the home of good food and coffee?!?

Thank goodness for Starbucks Via instant coffee packed in the suitcase! 

We talk to Martin and Heidi about a possible short bike tour this summer. 

Now it's 8:30 and we have an 11:30 meetup for the afternoon wildlife tour. A long discussion ensures about what to do, what might it might not be open. Seeing that the discussion will consume all the available time, I (normally recalcitrant) put in that "I want to do X, we can get there on tram Y, let's leave now." Amazingly, all agree and we depart.

We make it easily to the Melbourne museum, first passing the stately Exhibition Hall. They have beautiful gardens out front including a ring of massive blooming century plants. The fruiting stalks are 15-20 feet tall, a whole ring of them. What can't you do with subtropical temps and healthy irrigation! One tree has parrots, cool!

The MM has a wonderful display of First Peoples art.

Possum skin cape, including meaningful drawings on some panels. Unfortunately much knowledge of creating these was lost (destroyed).

Diarama of eel trap in use.. Interestingly the eel trap looks just like the Hawaiian one we saw last week in Hawaii. Kathy notes that the Australian eel trap is used both to trap and to divert eels from one pond to another, separating them by size for catching and growing. 

Assemblage and display of different types of spears.

On topic of sustainability, we read: Gunditjmara people have been practising sustainability and the protection of their environment for ever and a day. If you come across one swan egg in a nest, you don't take it. You wait until you come across two in a nest, and then you only take one. You never take more than you need. You allow things to grow, and things to build.

We also read about seal hunting here, that Aboriginal people sustainably hunted seals for thousands of years. When the Europeans arrived and started seal hunting they decimated the seal population in 20 years. The rapacious behavior is heartbreaking and clearly what got you here will not get you there (the future) so something has to change. 

First Peoples

The flag 

Of course we have only one hour and then must book it to our meetup spot for the Penguins Parade. Fortunately the city has a wealth of tram lines and together they leave every few minutes and get us there with time to spare. (I am doing all the navigation.)

BTW on the plane here I read an article about indigenous fire practices. By 6000 years ago the people here were regularly burning enough that they had grassland with intermittent trees, very little "ladder understory" of plants that would translate ground fire into tree crown fire. Regular burning kept the Country that way. The last 250 of proscribed burning has led to large mass of ready fuel and growth of the ladder species that help fire make it into the overstory where it burns the trees and grows much hotter.

Although the weather for today is advertised as 100+° so far it is high 60's and low 70's. How can we get 35° difference starting now??

We are taking the GoWest tour for Parade of Penguins.  Eventually I will learn what this entails... The bus rolls up and our tour guide Jono (that's Jonathan, but it wouldn't fit on the name tag ;-) jumps out. Delightful Australian accent and a charming young guy. We hop on the bus and immediately realize it's an "assume the position" bus tour. All 24 passenger seats are full, there's less leg room than a United Airlines basic economy seat, and the window seat has space for one foot under the forward seat. Kathy and I will swap periodically, it's clear. 

Along the way we notice a posting from Charlotte acquaintances that there are ICE checkpoints in Charlotte. And so it begins. 

Our first stop on the ride to the penguins is at Melbourne's Brighton beach. Nice coarse sand but with some crushed shells in it. Kathy and I ditch the shoes and get our toes in the sand & water ASAP. This place has interesting Victorian beach changing cabins, about 30-40 in a line along the beach, now painted in gay colors. Reminds us of Martha's Vineyard gingerbread cabins in Oak Bluffs. Apparently the last one sold for AUS$200,000+ and they are half the size of a shipping container! 

Then back on the bus. Now on to Moonlit Sanctuary to see native Australian animals. The temp is increasing, to the point that the buses AC cannot keep up. Pretty soon the driver has his windows open to blow 90+° wind back to us as a cooling gust.

It's a wombat (4 legged muscular marsupial). Our guide points out that marsupials are mammals, but a subgroup, a fact I did not know. He also reminds us to watch for the bicycling MAMILs (middle aged men in Lycra). Hee hee.

Famous pink parrot. 

Koala -- they mostly sleep to digest their eucalyptus meals. Also they have two opposed digits on the hands! 

I'd rather see this snake here then along the trail tonight! 

Wallaby. Or kangaroo??

Frogmouth, a type of bird with very wide beak. Cute.

At Moonlit we get a sense of the Australian Outback. It is sunny, over 100°, not much breeze and intermittent shade at best. The animals are doing the best they can, some of them having sprinkler systems set up for cooling. Moonlit makes a point to display the conservation status of each animal, must of what we see are endangered or critically endangered. They have breeding programs and release to the wild to help bolster native populations. Our tourist dollars are doing some good. 

We get to see wallabies, kangaroos, tawny frogmouth bird, kookaburra, koalas, pink parrot, other multi colored parrots, an echidna (like a porcupine), fortunately no snakes in the wild. Some areas have penned animals and but then we enter a central pen and suddenly we are the penned species along the fenced trail, with wallabies & kangas and others roaming free. Hard to photo well but very nice to see. 

We don't dawddle because of the heat, eventually making it to the cafe. Inside is full of people so we eat outside -- fortunately they have shade. Also, the fans have a water spritzing system so every dam is also a mister. Keeps it in the high 80's so very doable. 

Back on the bus the AC report is that all the company's buses have the same problem (so don't complain?). We sweat actively until our next stop, a clifftop walk at the Nobbies. Nice view. Then the weather breaks and the 100° turns to rain. Cold driving rain on a hard wind. Like the old scene from Crocodile Dundee -- that's not weather mate, this is weather!  Then the rain is passing and we can walk the boardwalk and admire the view. 

The rain is here

The Nobbies and Seal Rocks in the background. 

We see a echidna (long nosed animal like porcupine) but the photo is not good enough.