www.henningn.dk

The finals of the Australia Open in tennis is running today in Melbourne. You can feel it all over town. I take a walk along the river. Visit the Crown Casino. Loses 20 $ in 90 seconds - what an amateur at a place like this. This is surely a money making machine.

Then I take a funny little trip on the river and from here back to the hotel to see the final of the final. The boat pasted right by the tennis-stadium, when the final was underway.

Going public-transport today. First by train to Geelong. Then by a local bus to Queenscliff. In Queenscliff you take the ferry across the bay to Sorrento. In Sorrento you are looking for about an hour to find the only busstop in town. Meanwhile you suddenly run into a fast-food shop selling danish hot dogs. You better try that out - since you're from Denmark. They are awful - they don't know how to make them - eventhough the owner is a former dane - and his wife has some family in Bredballe - just outside Vejle.

In Sorrento I pick up the bus for Frankston. In Frankston you change to "The Met" - back to Melbourne. Funny way to be touristing. Just using ordinary local public transport.

I start out with "The Met" to Belgrave - when I finally found out how to buy my ticket. Some weird salesperson insisted that I had to buy the ticket in a ticket-machine. At the ticket-machine they had put up another person telling everyone how the ticket-machine was working. And what ticket to buy to go to Belgrave.

In Belgrave I changed to "Puffing Billy" for Lake Emerald. "Puffing Billy" is an oldfashioned steam-train running in the hills of The Dandanongs - very nice views during the trip. Spend a few hours at Lake Emerald - went for a walk - read in a book - as far as the flies allowed me to  - then going for the local model-railway with 1,5 miles of tracks. The owner started the whole thing, eventhough I was the only one around.

Back again in the afternoon. First down the hill on "Puffing Billy" - then "The Met" back to Melbourne

Today is for relaxing. I take the one of the local trams to St. Kilda Beach. Takes a walk along the famous beach to St. Kilda Pier, with an impressive view to Downtown Melbourne.
 

Then back to Melbourne  and a pretty long walk around downtown - mainly because I didn't get the tram back I had to. In the evening I go to Lygon Street at the outskirts of downtown. A lot of nice restaurants there. Get myself a pizza before returning to the hotel.

On a trip with Autopia-tours. 22 people - plus the funny driver. Leaving at 12.30 pm. First stop is a small fauna-park, with Koalas, Emus, Wombats and Kangaroos. You can feed the Kangaroos - they are very tame and is easy to get pictures of.

From there on to Phillp Island and a "conservation koala-park", where they try to help some homeless koalas. We go for a walk in the park on some boardwalks, with some good photo-opportunities.

From there we move on to "The Nobbies" looking for seals. Unfortunately you weren't able to do so that day - the binoculars wasn't working. But the place was nice anyway with the waves hammering onto the coast. It used to be some kind of volcano-area - the coast was partly made by black lava.

From there on to the major town on the island Cowes for a pizza.

At about 7 pm it was time for the highlight of the tour "The Penguin Parade". Every night at sunset a few thousend people gather to watch the penguins seeking land. The penguins sleeps in some shelters in the hills, and spends the day catching fish in the ocean. Our very nice driver showed us the best place to watch. At 9 pm the first penguins started leave the water and do their funny walk to their shelters - not concerned at all of the huge audience. It all looked extremely funny when they crossed the beach all looking for their own little private home. For the next hour still more penguins showed up. Unfortunately - no pics - it was getting dark and flashlight was not allowed. At 10 pm back with the very nice group - and arriving at the hotel shortly before midnight.