12th March

We took off again - this time from Christchurch heading for Melbourne, and saw the rising sun hit the clouds and the tops of the mountains of New Zealand. The three hour flight went very slowly and we arrived about 10am. We picked up a hire car from the airport and drove this across Melbourne to the backpackers in Collingwood where we had started our trip.

Leaving New Zealand:
flying over the Southern Alps as the Sun emerges

Unfortunately, this time round we weren't given a good room and it was quite a shock to go from a Presidential suite into an 8 bed dorm which had permanent residents in. With it being a Friday night the backpackers was going to be heaving with drunken teenagers - not our seen. We headed out in the car to St Kilda and spent a few hours on the beach. 

Whilst we were laying in the sun two dolphins came in to the beach and nearly grounded themselves on a sandbar - damn them! They disappeared just as Paul got his camera out - they weren't stuck at all.

St Kilda was very cosmopolitan so we walked into town for an inexpensive bite to eat just behind Luna Park.

Luna Park at St Kilda

Melbourne, viewed from St Kilda

After our food we headed out to the jetty to watch the sun go down and spotted a sign saying that there were little blue penguins present. We set up to see the sun set on the Melbourne skyline and began to see the little penguins nestled in the rocks.

Little Penguins at St Kilda

We waited until 9pm for the local volunteers penguin watch support group to arrive and they used infra red lights to shine on the little penguins as they came out of the sea. It was worth the wait.

As expected, when we got back to the backpackers the party was in full swing and quiet finally came at about 5am when the last member of our dorm returned to find his bed - we set our alarms for 8am the next day - not out of spite as such but sometimes you have to make a point!