Australia

We have returned from our wonderful trip to Australia! It was quite an undertaking with the little one, but he did great! Luke didn't cry during the plane trip (all 3 1/2 hours to LA, then 14 1/2 hours to Melbourne), and he was stellar on all our adventures during the two week trip as well. We arrived in Melbourne to start our "great southern touring route." We enjoyed walking the streets, shopping in the famous malls and laneways, finding delicious bakeries, and learning which way to look while crossing the street! While in Melbourne we got to see Wicked! It was VERY good and I highly recommend everyone see it! We also took a trip to Phillip Island to see Koalas up close and watch the nightly parade of Little Penguins as they came ashore for the night just after sunset. We got very lucky and the weather was calm and not too chilly while we were doing the penguin watching. That is not to say the weather was great the rest of the time! When we first arrived we got to explore Queen Victoria Market (think HUGE farmers market meets flea market meets art show...) and while doing so it poured rain and even hailed!!! To warm up we had to buy fresh, hot doughnuts from a van on the side of the road.









After 5 days in Melbourne we rented a car and drove along the Great Ocean Road. Forrest did a great job staying on the left side of the road and not getting in any accidents. The scenery was breathtaking and awe inspiring, yet remarkably similar to the CA coastline - from the shrubbery, to the Cypress trees, to the cliffs and beaches. Even the chilly weather! We did lots of hikes along the way, some down along the cliffs and onto the beaches, others up into the rain forests. We got to see koalas in the wild, and also got to go tide pooling (Aussies don't know what that is, by the way!), where we saw a ton of sea anemones, sea stars, and huge lichen! We stopped at the famed Twelve Apostles, and London Bridge, where we were again struck by the similarity to CA. London Bridge reminded us an awful lot of Natural Bridges...same phenomenon at work. Beautiful!!!





We then traveled inland to the Grampians, a small mountain range in northern Victoria. We enjoyed more extensive hiking, wine tasting, and kangaroo watching while in Hals Gap. We ended our trip in the gold fields, and Luke really liked holding that gold nugget (yes, it's real), worth $3,000!!!



The trip back was...well, let's just say, thank goodness it is OVER! The only good think about the return trip is that Luke slept for all but ~2-3 hours of the journey. Alas, enjoy our pictures, I am sure I'll be adding more later, as we had 3 cameras on the trip and only 1 camera has been downloaded yet!