Healesville Sanctuary and Phillip Island

May 14 – Healesville Sanctuary

We were up early this morning to say good bye to Monique and Ingo. We are sad to say so long but happy to get moving. We spent the morning get all packed up and organized. We popped out for gas, groceries and cash, we need to leave some rent money. Then we had to say goodbye to our four legged friends. I'm going to miss Snowy and Juneau but not their hair. Having them around did make me want a dog when we go back home so I'll have to work on Beau for that :P We set off for Healesville Sanctuary which is a native Australian animal zoo. We'd been meaning to go awhile back but didn't get around to it. It rained pretty heavily along the way but had mostly stopped by the time we arrived. We got to the sanctuary in time to catch the “Spirits of the Sky” show which showcases some of Australia's bird of prey which included Sulfur Crested Cockatoos, Black Cockatoos, buzzards, owls, Fantail Hawks as well as other raptor birds. Prior to the show though we had time to stop into the koala enclosure. We caught one of the koalas during his 4 hours window of active time, they sleep 20hrs a day. He was jumping between two trees in his pen. It was cool to see him so close but I'm glad I saw koalas in the wild too. We also had time to poke our heads into the reptile house where they had 10 deadly snakes on display including the most venomous snake in the world. After we saw the bird show we went into the Land of the Parrots and saw loads of colourful birds. We then had to find a little shelter from the rain before it eased up enough for us to go on a wetlands walk. We saw a couple types of Ibis as well as a bunch of other birds. Next we reached the dingoes and got really lucky as we arrived just in time for Meet the Keeper. We got to learn a bit about dingoes and asks some questions too. The one in the enclosure were quite tame and the keeper was in with them giving them treats while talking to us. After we went on to the kangaroos. You can pay for “extras” at the sanctuary which can including petting a kangaroo, this was going on when we arrived. I'm not sure whether it was the kangaroo breed or else they were fairly young as the roo's were smaller than the ones we'd seen walking the dogs. It started to rain pretty hard again so we ducked into the Vet Clinic. At different times of the day you can observe them performing procedures. We arrived in time for a bird autopsy which I wasn't too interested in watching. The rain let up again and we made our way to the platypus enclosure. Since platypuses are nocturnal it was very low lighting. One platypus was chilling underwater; they can hold their breath for about 11min! The other was swimming laps around his pool. They are very funny looking creatures! After leaving the platys we saw Emus as well as some more native birds. Then we saw Animals of the Night which was mainly nocturnal rodents including a bilby. (family-remember the tv show we saw in Christchurch!) Next came the Tasmanian Devils and Wombats. Both are sort of small bear-like creatures. The devils were fairly active but wombats are nocturnal so they were sleeping. It was about 5pm already and the sanctuary was closing down. Back at the van we plotted our route to a free campsite at Kurth Kiln Regional Park. We arrived at the site just as it got dark and were the only people there. We made soup for dinner and played crib. It was chilly and damp but we stayed warmer than the back of the truck at Big White!

Mr Koala Bear

Female Black Cockatoo

Dingoes

Emu

Tasmanian Devil (not happy with my pictures)

Womabat

May 15 – Phillip Island

It was still drizzling a little this morning and the trees kept making good plonking noises on the roof. Beau and I stayed toasty in our bed last night even though it was a little chilly out. This made getting up quite difficult. Fortunately the weather was clearing a little so that prompted us to get moving. We had cereal for breakfast and a nice hot cup of tea. We set off on our way down towards Phillip Island. We stopped for a couple more groceries and some gas. It seems we have VERY poor gas mileage. It hurts me a little. Once we reached the island we went into the visitors center and asked about what we should see while there. I had been really interested in seeing the little penguins but it's about $25/person to see the “Penguin Parade” which is the little penguins coming back from the ocean to their burrows at dusk. So we opted to not which is a little disappointing since that was the main reason for coming down here but they have just been turned into a crazy tourist attraction. We did go down to the “Nobbies” and have a walk along the board walk. The Nobbies are some rocky formations off the coast. There was also Seal Island just beyond them where the Australian Fur Seals live. It was very wind but had some lovely ocean scenes. After our windswept walk we went into the visitors center and read about the local sea life in the Bass Sea. There were also some large tv screens on which you could view Seal Island using remote video cameras. Kind of cool but again you had to pay $5 for 4 min of video. We then popped the top and made lunch in the parking lot. We headed into the main town of Phillip Island called Cowes. We took a little walk along the waterfront and out onto the jetty. We also took advantage of the fact we have a cell phone and made a few calls for campsite prices. The best we could do is a non-powered site for $24. We figured non-powered would be fine since we have the second battery system now. Once at the campsite Beau decided to check on the second battery to see how it had charge throughout the day. Turns out it wasn't really charging properly. Obviously this worries us since we spent money on a electric cooler and proper battery for it. We aren't sure what the problem is but hopefully we can get it figured out. The van lights are a lot dimmer since the battery is low. I'm sure clever Beau will get it figured out though :S

The Nobbies with seal island in the background

May 16 – Phillip Island

After breakfast we headed down to a peninsula on Phillip Island to go for a hike. The lady at the information center had recommended this one to us yesterday. We parked the van and set off along the beach, before we went though we decided to switch to sandals since there was beach walking. It was a beautiful day out. The first part of our walk was a little windy and chilly and I was happy to have my jacket on. As soon as we left the beach though the wind died off and layers had to be shed. We reached some pink granite rock formations known as “the Pinnacles” and enjoy the view with a granola bar. We continued on the the highest point on Phillip Island at 112m. We were on the trail back to the car park when there was another trail that lead to an old quarry. We followed the path down to the beach on the other side of the peninsula to where there had once been a pink granite quarry. Stones had been mined here for use in Melbourne until the Depression. We walked back along the beach till we found the path back to the car park. We headed out from the car park to find ourselves a toilet and a lunch spot where we enjoyed some PB&J. This concluded our little visit to Phillip Island and we headed off towards our free campsite for the night. We drove to Cape Liptrap Coastal Park where there was a free campsite called Bear Gully Reserve. It was quite a picturesque spot right on the ocean and even had little fire pits available. Unfortunately there was no firewood around and even if there was it would have been too wet to use. We did get to see some Wombats though they definitely look like furry pigs. The battery seemed okay this evening, I guess it got charged up okay but we are still going to monitor it.

The Pinnacles behind us

Old Quarry and jetty

At Bear Gully reserve

Work Work Work

April 23 – May 13 – work

Over the past three weeks we worked at a call center as inbound customer services representatives for a shopping rewards program. Our first week was absolute madness. The phones were ringing off the hook and we had no idea what we were doing. The first day consisted of us with our hands up for help. After the first week or so there was a noticeable difference in call volume. There were e-mails sent out asking who wants to go home early or wants unpaid breaks. We also had to adhere to an “average handling time” or AHT which was how long you were supposed to be on a call for and for after call work; the AHT was 155sec. So we had about 2.5 min to find out why they were calling and to answer their questions and get them off the phone. Since Beau and I are such helpful people we didn't have very good AHTs. Oh well. During the last week of work I had about 22hrs and Beau had about 30hrs. We decided this wasn't enough to keep us in town anymore. We told our boss we were leaving and thanked them for the opportunity. They were already starting to lay people off so I'm sure they weren't too upset about it. It's nice to be unemployed again.

The Great Ocean Road Part 2

April 17 – 19 – Back to the real world

We picked up Monique and Ingo from the airport and our two weeks of alone time was over. They had a pretty good trip in Tahiti but had a few bumps along the way with stuff breaking. Their return was timed very well though because we started work training this week too. Training was painfully boring and also not all that informative. We are going to be working at an inbound customer service center for a program called Flybuys. Which is a shopping rewards program through a grocery store. Training just reminded me how much working sucked.

April 20 – To Apollo Bay

Today we were supposed to have a short day of training. As usual things did not go according to plan. The trains were running a little late in the morning so we didn't arrive as early as we'd hoped. The day was pretty useless though we spent some time waiting for our computers to get unlocked. Then we did some silly training and we sat around some more. We eventually got signed into a training version of the program we were doing but the rest of the systems were down so we couldn't really see too much. We had been promised a pizza lunch but as 1:15 rolled around we had to boot it out of there since we had to catch a train to Apollo Bay at 2pm. We went to the train station and bough our tickets and then asked them to best way to get to Southern Cross station to catch our V-Line Train, assuming these people would know best. The sent us up to one station, North Melbourne, to come back down to Southern Cross. We got off our train in Southern Cross and booked it to where we thought our train would be, the platform was not printed on the ticket. We arrived at our platform as the train was pulling away. It was so frustrating. We had to wait 40min for the next train and would miss our connecting bus to Apollo Bay. We weren't going to get to Apollo Bay till about 8pm now. When our train did arrive it's first stop was at North Melbourne! I don't understand why the stupid woman that sold us the ticket couldn't have told us that!! (We also could have walked faster that the train took). The stupid woman also sold us a ticket for the next day and the ticket guy gave us a hard time about it too. Not impressed with my day. We had about 2 hours to kill in Geelong before we were able to catch our bus. We arrived in Apollo Bay around 8pm and called the mechanic. He picked us up in Dotti and then we went back to the shop to get the payment sorted out. It was nice to have Dotti back! In Apollo Bay though there was a music festival going on and the holiday parks were all at peak rates! We were disgusted with a $50 campsite. We ended up parking in a grassing parking area with a few other camper vans. The down side of this was that we were parked next to other vehicles that drunk people were sleeping in. We were woken up around 1am by the crazy chick in the next vehicle banging on the windows of her partners car, yelling at him over the phone and letting air out of his tires. It was not a restful night.

April 21 – The Twelve Apostles and Gibbons Steps

After our not so restful sleep we woke up the an overcast grey day. It did not look like it was going to be a promising day. We had some oatmeal and tea for breakfast and then picked up a few groceries at the overpriced Apollo Bay IGA. Fortunately by the time we headed out the skies had cleared and the sun had come out. We started our drive and made it past Bimbi park this time. Our first stop was a look out along the side of the road. It gave a very nice view of the coast line. Our next stop was Gibbons Steps, obviously this was a stair case but it lead down to the beach. We got a pretty close look at one of the lime stone formations but I don't think it was technically part of the Apostles. We had a nice walk along the beach in the warm sand before heading back up the car. We continued along to the Twelve Apostles. There was a huge information center and parking lot. While parked we made ourselves some lunch in the van. This was much easier to do than it had been in the car. We then walked down to the Apostles viewing platform. The view was amazing but the sun wasn't in the greatest position for taking pictures. The place was also packed with Asian tourists. We felt like a minority. I think I enjoyed the Gibbons Steps more since there weren't many people on the beach and you could get all kinds of different views. After the Apostles we headed to the Loch Ard Gorge. This area was named after a ship named the Loch Ard which crashed on the cliffs near by back in the late 1800s. The gorge was very nice and there was a few different and gorgeous views to be had. By this time we were feeling a little foot sore and had had quite a bit of sun. We decided to call it a day for checking out the coast. We had talked about going down to London Bridge but since the bridge part collapsed in the 90's we figured it would be a similar sight to the ones we had just seen. We decided to head up to Colac to spend the night there. Once in the town we headed to the information center and a very sweet and helpful lady gave us all kinds of information about the area and things to see and do. We decided to drive up to the Red Rock Scenic Reserve since it was still pretty nice out. The scene at the top wasn't all that great and it was a actually a little bit hazy. This area claims to be the youngest volcano in Australia. We headed back down and checked into a motor camp. Unfortunately we forgot our golden rule and didn't really check it out too closely before paying for a night. Not quite sure what we were thinking since the camp was right next to the highway. They also only had an outdoor kitchen with no stove, fortunately the BBQ had a burner on the side. We made ourselves a soup concoction for dinner and then watched a movie called the Decendants. The movie wasn't really what we expected, it was a bit of a tear jerker and a drama. After the movie Beau had a bit of a headache so he went bed while I read for a little bit.

Gibbons Steps

The 12 Apostles

Loch Ard Gorge

April 22 – Back to Melbourne

We meandered back to Melbourne and stopped into a brewery and a winery. The Otway Brewery had some very nice beers and we picked up a couple of whit's for Ingo. They were pricey but were very nice. We tried to go to some wineries on the way back but only 1 out of 3 we tried to go to was open. They wine was okay but nothing specially. We pulled into an empty motel parking lot and popped the top to make ourselves lunch. We arrived back into Diamond Creek and Beau went off to badminton with Ingo while I was lazy at the house. Tomorrow is our first day of work.

The International Comedy Festival

April 1-5

The International Comedy festival was in town and we decided to take advantage of the free shows downtown. We headed DT on a Sunday Saver train ticket and caught the tail end of a French acrobatic/comical show. Afterwards there was a pair who did a random improv show with some very strange props. Beau got picked out of the crowd to join them on stage. He did some improv with news paper and got a sucker out of it. I was laughing so hard I was crying! A guy in the crowd had taken a video of it and sent it to Beau. Check it out here! (the video isn't amazing but you can get an idea of the shenanigans Beau was put through) After that show there was another one later with short performances from the two groups we saw as well as a Swedish Elvis impersonator and a hoola hooper. We were very entertained that day and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful although Beau did buy a guitar from Costco. It's not the greatest but he's excited to have a guitar to play.

Monique and Ingo headed off on their holiday to Tahiti this week. They have been lovely, gracious host but it is nice to have a little time on our own again. We do have Snow and Juneau to look after.

The French group - Five Foot Finger

Beau making his stage debut with Funny Bone

Getting his sucker reward

The hoola hoopest

She had all these hoola hoops going around here at once

The Swedish Elvis Impersonator

April 6 - 9 Happy Easter

The weather was really nice on Friday so we took the dogs down to Brighton Beach. Google took us down a fairly busy route so it took about an hour or so to get there, probably should have taken less. There were a bunch of dogs at the beach, Juneau and Snowy had a ball. We brought camp chairs with us so we were able to relax without getting bowled over by dogs. We enjoyed the beach for a couple of hours before heading home. It was nice to get out and enjoy the sunshine.

The rest of our Easter weekend was pretty uneventful. We mostly did some more work on the deck. We did hit up a farmers market while walking the dogs and picked them up some homemade treats at Monique's requests. Gotta say they love the homemade goodies. On Monday we made the mistake of going to Westfields Shopping center and it was packed. It was sooooo hard to find a parking spot and sooo frustrating. We picked up some coffee and cheap sweat pants from Big W, think Walmart. It's been disgustingly cold the past two days I think it was a high of 17. We had to turn the heat on.

Snowy and Juneau

Juneau drying off

Snowy and Me

Tues April 10 - Will Anderson, Wilarious

We spent the morning doing some much needed house cleaning. Man can those dogs shed. I made us crepes for lunch and then we had squash soup for dinner. Since the International Comedy Festival is going on we decided to get tickets to see one of the shows. While in Christchurch we had seen on TV a show called the Gruen Transfer and it was a comedic talk show about ads and marketing hosted by Will Anderson. We found him quite funny on the shower and since he had a show, Wilarious, with the Comedy Festival in Melbourne we decided to go see him. It was fun to get out and do something quite different, I have never been to a stand-up comedy act before. Will put on a really good show and we were really happy we decided to go.

April 11 – 16

I know I keep saying this but we are pretty boring. We've been continually working on the deck. We've been taking the dogs for walks and Beau's been practising the guitar. I decided I needed a creative outlet and I've taken up crocheting. I've been working on slippers with my first one not turning out quite right. Typical me, I wanted slippers so I make myself some. The internet is a gold mine of information, go YouTube! I did get a short day of work in on the 11^th. One of the agencies needed a body fast in a near by location so I got the call and had a 5hr day in a housing development sales center doing mostly nothing. But hey they paid me about $24/hr for it so I'm not complaining. On the Friday Monique's friend Sarah stopped by with her two dogs, Lucy the Great Dane and Layla the Boxer. She stops by fairly frequently to let the dogs all play together and wear them out. While there she offered us some tickets to a comedy show. She had won them but she and her husband couldn't attend. The comic was a Canadian named Mike Wilmot. We attend the show on Sunday evening and had a good laugh. He was funny and vulgar but it was all good natured. Beau was in stitches laughing.

Painting the rails

A work in progress

Removing a rotted post

Post Gone

New post!

 Now be prepared to be grossed out by the common house spider, a huntsman

He was about the size of my palm, YUCK

Nothing too interesting

Mar 22 – 31

We've done lots more job hunting and actually had a meeting with two agencies and had a job interview. Beau and I both got jobs at an inbound customer service call center for 5 weeks starting on April 18^th. The pay is pretty good and hopefully we'll get lots of hours.

Beau had been very diligent about engine hunting too. Turns out the engine in Dotti was only used in the Urvan for about 2-3 years so it's been difficult to find one from an auto-wrecker, aside from the fact that it was also 30 years ago.  However it was used in a lot of forklifts and we were able to find a forklift engine that will work in our van. After talking with the engine guy and our mechanic it will be about $3000 for the engine replacement. It's a lot of money but it's back to the idea if we don't do this we are still in need of a vehicle. Anyways it seems things might be looking up. We have work and will get our van back.

We've been helping Monique and Ingo out with fixing their deck. Part of the railing needed to be replaced and everything need a new coat of paint. Beau's been doing the fixing and I've been doing a bunch of painting.  I'll post some pictures when it's done

We did go to The Hunger Games and I loved it. I thought they did a pretty good job of translating the book into a movie although they did miss out a few pieces of information.

Melbourne to Albury and Back

Mar 16 – 19

It's been hard to write about things that we ourselves don't want to dwell on too much. We've been feeling a little sorry for ourselves and kind of home sick with the way things have been working out. Or rather how they haven't been working out. We've been applying to jobs and trying to get in touch with some agencies. We did go into to town on Sunday the 18^th, it's a much cheaper fare. We checked out the Queen Victoria Market. It reminded us of the markets in Asia although a lot more expensive and a lot cleaner. If needed we'll come back here to pick up some warming clothing. You can buy a hoody for $10-20. But honestly we've been pretty boring. We have been walking the dogs though and in one park there are kangaroos. I got some pictures of them on one of our visits.

Mar 20 – To Albury

Today we are driving to Albury, New South Wales with Monique so we can put the van in our name. Monique is going there for a conference so fortunately we have a ride. During the day though we got a very unfortunate phone call from the mechanic. Turns out that one of valve sleeves had fallen into the engine and had been rattling around (at least that's my understanding of what happened). The engine needs to be replaced or reconditioned....shit. The mechanic said he was pursuing all the contacts he had to see if he could find an engine. This put a huge damper on our day. We were traveling to another state to change over a van into our name and it may never run again but it needs to be done. We picked Monique up after work and started the three hour drive to Albury. Along the way we called some places to stay, we hadn't pre-booked, and of course the place we had been looking at was full. We contacted a hostel and they wanted $35/person for a 4 bed dorm! We figured we'd find something once in town or worse case scenario go stay at the hostel. On the way into Albury we saw a sign for a motel room for $70/night and it included breakfast. We dropped Monique off at her hotel and then checked into the motel. We walked down the main street from the motel and got some stirfry noodles for dinner. We were feeling pretty down about everything so to cheer us up we decided to go see a movie. “21 Jump Street” was playing at the theatre across from the restaurant so we decided to go to that. It was also cheap night Tuesday which was a plus. The movie was pretty funny and our night ended on a laughing note.

Mar 21 – Back to Diamond Creek

After our included breakfast, toast and cereal, we walked down to the vehicle registration offices and got Dotti put in our name. We headed back to the car and ran some errands in town. Then we headed back to the main strip and walked around the down town a bit. I was able to find a kangaroo charm for my charm bracelet. We met up with Monique around 5pm when her conference had ended and then headed back to Diamond Creek. We were glad to have our little trip over and done with.

The Great Ocean Fiasco

Mar 13 – Headed to the Great Ocean Road

Beau and I got the van packed up this morning and were going to start our Great Ocean Road (GOA) trip. Beau still wasn't feeling 100% but he was much better than he was. We had to move the furniture out of our room because new carpet is being installed tomorrow. We hit the road but had to pick up some groceries and a few odds and ends. It was about a 2 hour drive till we technically hit the GOR. We got some pictures with the GOR archway as well as made several stops along the way for some scenic pictures. In the town of Lorne we stopped into the information center to find out about the local waterfalls. We got directions to Erskine Falls. Ingo had actually recommended it to us. The road was quite steep up and then back downwards to get to the falls. The brakes were smelling a bit by the time we arrived. It was a bunch of stairs down to the bottom but the falls were quite pretty. They weren't powerful but were very elegant. From there we continued along past Apollo Bay to Bimbi park campground. We had been told by Monique and Ingo that if we stayed here we'd for sure see Koalas. We got a powered site and figured out how to get the interior lights working. We used the park kitchen to make dinner but had to make several trips because we kept forgetting bits and pieces. On one of the trips Beau spotted a koala in the tree next to the kitchen. She actually had a baby clinging on to her. It was sooo cool. We had overly chickened pasta for dinner. Then we got the camper set up for bed and watched an episode of Son's Of Anarchy before bed. We heard some interesting noises in the night that sounded like a pig crossed with a donkey, turns out it's the koala's mating call.

The Great Ocean Road archway

One of many great views from the road

Erskine Falls in Lorne

Another road side view

Ditto

Koala and her baby

yummy leaves

Pretty cool how the baby just clings on to her

Mar 14 – Our luck runs out

We slept not to badly in the camper although it was quite warm last night. We had some breakfast then reorganized for driving mode, it definitely takes less time than the tent or car did. We hit the road and drove out to Cape Otway. There is a light house but they wanted $18.50 admission so we said no thanks. We stopped to take some pictures of some more koalas they were just hanging out limply in the trees. When we started Dotti back up she started making some loud clicking/clanging noises... not good. Beau had a look at the engine but we couldn't see what the problem was. We were made it back to the campsite and used their phone to call a tow truck since we had no cell service. We finally got picked up by the truck and headed back into Apollo Bay. We had to wait a little bit for the mechanic to have a look at the van so in the mean time we ate lunch in our camp chairs on the side of the road. When dude had a look at the van Beau check it out with them. Turns out we had no compression on one of the cylinders and the head needs to be machined. The mechanic said it could take 2 weeks and cost $1500. We discussed it and the way we look at it is if we don't fix this then we are out $4000 and still need another vehicle. We had to pack up our belongings and walk to the information center to buy bus tickets back to Melbourne. Fortunately the tickets were relatively cheap and the lady at the center helped us find the “cheap” accommodation in Apollo Bay, which wasn't very cheap. We got checked into a hostel and then went for a walk on the beach. Back at the hostel we made dinner then watched another episode of Son's Of Anarchy. We went to bed feeling pretty down.

Poor Dotti

Mar 15 – Back to Melbourne

The hostel provided us with breakfast which consisted of cereal or toast. After breakfast we were off to catch the 9am bus back to Melbourne. We spent about 3 hrs on the bus to Geelong then had to take the 1 hr V-train back to the Melbourne CBD and then another 1 hr train ride back to Diamond Creek. We arrived back around 3pm feeling depressed and exhausted. We'll have to wait and see what happens with Dotti now.