Aquarium & semi-finals

Thursday morning we slept a bit longer and then we went for a breakfast-lunch to a little restaurant in one of the cosy little streets in Melbourne close to our hostel. We had a good breakfast and coffee, a nice start of the day. 

Breakfast-lunch with morning eyes

Then we walked on Southbank to the Melbourne Aquarium. The Melbourne aquarium is huge and very nice! First we saw some penguins, then we went saw a lot of stone fishes, crabs, jelly fishes, sharks,... They also had some baby hammerheads in the aquarium. The last part of the aquarium was a big tunnel so you could walk through a glass tunnel with fishes on your left, right and above you! We spent more than two hours watching the fishes and we enjoyed it!

The Penguins

Look well and you will see the stone fish

Huge stingfish

Aquarium tunnel

In the evening I went to the mens semi-final @ the Rod Laver arena. Federer played against Djokovic. The first set was very close and Djokovic won in the Tie Break. Djokovic was playing very well. In the second set Federer was leading 5-2 but he could not finish the set and Djokovic won 7-5. In the third set Djokovic was leading 4-2 and the crowd went crazy when Federer came back to 4-4! What an atmosphere in the stadium! But then he lost his own serve... 5-4 and then Djokovic served for the match. I hoped to see Federer playing his best level...

Djokovic was better today!

After the mens semi-final there was a legends double match. Henri Leconte and Pat Rafter against Haarhuis en Elting. Henri Leconte was so funny! He was making jokes all the time! And he is still a good tennis player. It was a good game and lots of fun to see. 

Legends doubles

Elting/Haarhuis - Rafter/Leconte

But Rafter left Leconte for a while!

Crazy Frenchy! Leconte!

Now I am back in the hostel,  waiting to hear how jill enjoyed the pub crawl that was organised by the hostel!


I am having trouble to upload pictures at the moment... but I will add them as soon as I can!


Cheers,
Jessie

Melbourne days

Monday

On Monday we slept a bit longer, we went to the carwash, we brought back the car, we (Jill and I) checked in in our new hostel where we also had lunch. Phil cooked one of his good pastas for us! Then we had a rest in the hostel and at 3pm Phil had to leave to the airport already. The hostel, Greenhouse backpacker, is very good! Everything is quite clean and the room is ok as well. The first two nights we slept in a double room, then we moved to a dorm.

When Phil left, Jill and I went to Federation Square and we took the city circle tram around the city. This time there were some comments about the touristic places. Then we went to Federation Square again and we had some dinner.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we went to the Melbourne Zoo. There were a lot of animals and different animals than in Belgium! We saw Giraffes, Zebras, elephants (2 baby’s), lots of monkeys, koalas, spiders, seals, fishes, bears, wombats,… We also saw huge turtles making babies J The zoo was big and we needed all day to see everything. When we came back in the hostel we were exhausted.

The hostel offered free pasta on Tuesday. We could choose between tomato sauce or a vegetarian sauce. The food was not outstanding but it was ok. Then I went to an internet café because I needed to print some stuff for my meeting on Wednesday with Tennis Australia.

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning I had a meeting @ Garden Square in Melbourne park. We discussed a lot about my research…After the meeting I went to see some mens doubles at Margareth court. In the afternoon I walked a bit in the city with jill and then we went to the Victoria evening market. It was a very big covered market! I bought a bracelet and a cover for my IPhone. They also had special potatoes here and everyone was eating it, so I decided to try it out too. When we walked back to our hostel we could hear a big firework for Australia Day. Unfortunately we could not see it as it was hidden behind one of the tall buildings. 

Philip Island

On Sunday we went to Philip Island, which is a 1 hour drive south from Melbourne. Here you can see a little map of the Island.

First we went to the Chocolate factory. We went to the little museum and we saw how the chocolate is made. We could also make our own figure with some chocolate.

The next stop was Churchill Island. This is a very little Island connected with a bridge to Philippe Island. This is an old farm where we could see cows, sheep, horses,… We also had our picnic here.

Then we went to the beach and we rented a surfboard and wetsuits. We spent 2h surfing and we all liked it. The beach was very busy! So many people… you can compare it to a hot summer day in Knokke, where people lay on the beach 1 meter away from each other. The waves were good, but the water is a lot colder than at the Gold Coast.

The next stop was the Koala Park in the middle of the Island. We saw about 15 koalas in the trees when we were doing the top tree walks. One of them was a small koala who was just old enough to find his own way in the trees.

Then we went to the north to find a grocery store. We bought burgers, salad and bread and then we went to the public BBQs next to the beach and we did a BBQ for dinner. We enjoyed the nice view while eating!

Then we drove to the West south part of the island to go to the Nobbies. This part of this island has a lot of rocks where you can normally see seales… however, we didn’t see them.

The Nobbies

Around 8pm we went to the Penguin Parade. First we went to pick up our Ipods with which we could listen to some information about the penguins. Then we went to the platform close to the beach where we sat down waiting for the sunset while a guide was giving some more information. Around 9.15 the first group of penguins came out of the water and they ran to the grass. We could see them pass closely. They were so cute and they walked in such a funny way! They were about 35cm high. We walked on the platforms and we watched the penguins. We were not allowed to make pictures because it hurts the eyes of the penguins, so I took some pictures from the internet.

At 1am we arrived back in the hostel, exhausted!

Great Ocean Road

Friday

On Friday morning we woke up early to pick up our rental car at 8am. Then Phil and I picked up jill at her hostel and then we went on our way to the Great Ocean road. After about an hour and a half we had our first stop at Torquay. This was a nice beach and a small city. We went to the information center for some more information on the Great Ocean Road.

Beach Torquay

On the way to the next stop we stopped at some look out points. The next stop was Bells Beach, a famous beach for surfers. The beach didn’t look very spectacular and the sand was not as white as on the Gold Coast.

Me

Bells beach

Then we went to Point Addis where we had our picnic lunch. After the lunch we did some kayak on the clear blue water! For some reason we came all wet out of the kayaks…

Picnic

The next stop on the was Lorne, another nice beach. Here we went to the Eskerine waterfalls.

Eskerine Falls

Then we drove about 1,5 hour further, we skipped Appollo Bay and Cape Town, and we stopped at the Gibson Steps. This was a very nice beach where you can see all the foot prints in the sand. The sun was going down, so we had some nice views and we took nice pictures on the rocks:

Gibson steps beach

Gibson steps beach

Jill and I

Freedom!

Phil

Playing :-)

Then we went to our hostel in Port Campbell. The hostel was very nice and clean! We had a room of 4 for the three of us. After we checked in we went on the road again to see the 12 apostels at sunset. This was beautiful! Some pictures again:

Saturday

After our night in the hostel we drove a bit further west to the Arch and London Bridge, again some nice rocks formations.

Look our on the way

The arch

London Bridge

London Bridge

When we drove back on the Great Ocean road to Cape Town and Appollo bay, more and more clouds came in the sky. When we arrived it was even raining a little bit L. We went to a small market but it was nothing special. Because of the bad weather we decided to go and eat something. Because the clouds didn’t go away we decided to drive back to Melbourne.