Wow, Melbourne!!

All right, forget yesterday's weather. Today the sun was shining and the temperature was perfect (around 80 degrees). Walking the streets of the city was made easy and revealed a most wonderful metropolis. This is definitely my most favorite of Australia's cities (Diane and Eric concur); in fact, it is now, one of my most favorite cities in the entire world.

Apparently, it has everything a person needs. Cultural exhibits, music halls and theaters, street art galore (see special post), parks, river walks, great beaches, spectacular views, wonderful architecture, great pubs and restaurants, exciting night life, terrific sports venues, bike paths all over, magnificent beaches, and yes, I'm certain I missed a lot. Sydney, eat your heart out.

I will not bore you with our day's activities, after all you don't need to know if we ate hot-dogs or chicken or if we used ketchup with our fries. Suffice it to say that we had a very full day, getting home very late, and feeling so exhausted this morning that we decided to sleep in, and forgo one of the highlights of the entire trip, a drive down one of Australia's epic roads, the Great Ocean Road, which was in our plans.

In the afternoon Eric got to go to the Luna Park he had missed the night before. After that, we drove two seemingly interminable hours to Philip Island to witness the nightly parade of Australia's only penguin colony, as these adorable petite creatures return en-mass to their burrows, from spending the entire day feeding at sea. It is a heart-warming sight, to say the least, as hundreds of these flightless birds emerge from the ocean, climb up the steep rocks and follow the right path home, where their molting babies await them, screaming to be fed. This happens as night begins to fall, so there's insufficient light to take photographs and the use of flashes is absolutely forbidden. This is the best I could come up with, sorry, but I'll add a couple of pictures of other wildlife, which abounds on the island. Ciao!!