Stephanie and I flew down on Thursday night after work. Melbourne is about 7.5 hours away, but they are 3 hours ahead of Singapore, so our 9pm flight was supposed to put us into Melbourne around 7:20 in the morning on Friday.
Worst. Flight. Ever.
1) Before we took off, a woman in the row in front of me kept asking the flight attendants for stuff for her daughter, and then before you know it, there are people coming over every five seconds to check on this girl. (Does this sound familiar? Remember the heart attack on my flight out of Singapore in April?) Anyway - this girl had some sort of allergic reaction or something, but they decided that she needed to get off the plane, so our take off was delayed by about an hour.
2) Since I had just come back from flying a billion hours to and from the US, I already knew exactly what the in-flight entertainment options were going to be on Singapore Airlines, and I'd pretty much seen everything that interested me. So with nothing but the free episode of "Nashville" (am I the only one who doesn't love this show?) and the latest episode of "The Mindy Project" (I love this show!) on my iPad, I was looking forward to some good sleep on the plane. Too bad there were THREE screaming babies right by me that were literally wailing the entire flight. At one point, someone actually walked up to one of the moms and just told her "I think you need to just hold the baby for a bit". Obviously, I am no expert at parenting, and I get that sometimes you just need to let a kid cry himself to sleep - but not on a plane with 400 other people. (Side note - yes, 400 other people! We took the double decker plane.. it was huge.)
3) Air traffic control won't let us land due to congestion or traffic or whatever. We circle the air space around Melbourne for a while (with crying babies the whole time). Finally, we land. However, the captain comes on and tells us that there is no gate for us to pull into. So we just sit on the runway. For an hour.
So, not a great start to the Australian adventure, but once we actually got our feet on the ground, things were great! Friday, we went on a day tour down to Phillip Island, which is a nature park that is home to lots of animals!!
The kangaroos were the first stop!
A small tea time snack welcomed us
Wombat.. looks kind of like a giant rat?
I tried feeding some kangaroos, but they weren't too interested...
Me and Stephanie with a new friend
Then we boarded the bus and headed over to see the koalas. Along the way, our tour guide showed us some cows and some asparagus farms, which was cool, but I was really anxious to get to the koalas. This was my favorite!!
Oh hi there
We didn't get to touch any koalas, which was a bummer, but apparently it isn't allowed in Victoria. But the koalas were so cute, and Stephanie and I spotted a bunch of them away from the rest of the crowd, so it was really neat to be able to just observe them without a ton of people around us! Our tour guide told us that in Queensland and Sydney you can actually touch or hold koalas, so I guess I will have to get over to those places :)
The marquee of the tour at Phillip Island is the "Penguin Parade". The south of Australia is home to little penguins, formerly known as fairy penguins. They are super tiny and don't look at all like the penguins that are in US zoos. Since Australia also has predatory birds that can eat the little penguins, they go out to the water before sunrise and stay in the ocean until the sun goes down since they can escape the predatory birds in the water. So once the sun goes down, tons of penguins (I think they counted around 2000 penguins the night we were there) come up on shore and waddle up the beach towards their penguin burrows that are in the beach dunes.
While we waited for the sun to set, our tour guide showed us around a bit of Phillip Island, including some wallaby farms, the coastline, and the Grand Prix race track. We also stopped along the beach for dinner.
Fish and chips!
Unfortunately, no photographs are allowed at the Penguin Parade, but trust me - it was awesome! I also learned a lot of random penguin facts along the way, which no one wants to hear, but its amazing how smart nature is.
If you are ever in Melbourne, I would 100% recommend the Penguin Parade tour. It was the highlight of the trip - I loved it!
Since we spent our whole first day on the tour, we explored the city on Saturday! Melbourne is absolutely beautiful. A really clean city that is easy to navigate. The river runs right through the city, so there is a ton of waterfront scenery to take in. I loved it.
Hey-o!
Random story - we ducked into a mall to use the restroom, and guess what I saw? A Bloch store. Took me back to my days of ballet! I used to wear their pointe shoes.. a long time ago
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As it turned out, the race itself was awesome. Probably the best one I have ever done! The course took us through some awesome views of Melbourne, and it was flat! The weather was perfect - right around 50 degrees and sunny, which was such a welcome change from my runs in Singapore. There were 9,000 people running the 10K, but I never really felt crowded along the course, which was really nice. And even though I've been slacking off lately, it feel like my running has paid off a bit! This is the first race I can ever remember doing where I consistently was passing people! My official race time was just under 1:03, which I am super happy about. (Side note - with all the bobbing and weaving that naturally comes with a race, my watch said that I ran 6.57 miles, so to cover that distance in just over an hour is extra awesome for me!)
Pre-race photo
Running through the city
Runners around me :)
Finisher!
Oh - and I ate a lot too. Melbourne is known for their cafe culture, and as a coffee lover, I was happy to partake. The coffee was outstanding, and there were so many charming cafes and restaurants everywhere. Here is a look at some of the stuff I ate. (Absolutely zero steaks, cheese fries, or blooms haha)
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